deliver the whip handle to General Rusk, but he was captured by a Texan patrol near the Nueces River and the dispatch was sent to Secretary of War Alexander Somervell at Velasco. Before it was sent, however, a copy of the letters had been made and forwarded to New Orleans, where one of them appeared in the New Orleans Picayune. This letter, when the paper had been received at Matamoros, resulted in close confinement for Teal and Karnes. Teal had written that 4,000 men would leave Matamoros in a few days for La Bahía (Goliad) and that there were plans for an equal number to proceed by water from Vera Cruz to Copano or some other point along the Texas coast.[2]  This information elicited a proclamation on June 20 from Acting President Burnet "to the people of Texas" urging every able-bodied man between the ages of sixteen and fifty to enroll for military duty. It also led to repeated requests from Burnet to the Texan agent in New Orleans to hurry on volunteers to defend the country[3]  against General Urrea, "The cold blooded, heartless murderer of the gallant Fannin and his noble band," now leading a "vandal host" for the subjugation of Texas.

This alarm seemed justified. Before the remnants of Santa Anna's army had recrossed to the left bank of the Río Bravo, the Mexican Congress on May 20 decided to continue the war against Texas. General Urrea was given command, on June 5, of the troops destined for a new campaign in Texas and he immediately informed those at Matamoros that he would lead them into Texas as soon as the government so ordered him.[4]  This was alarming news to every Texan, for Rusk's