consented to the appointment of Huston but not Green.[82]  The following day (December 22) Albert Sidney Johnston, whose brothers had participated in the Gutiérrez-Magee filibustering expedition to Texas in 1812-1813, was nominated by the President for the rank of senior brigadier general and the Senate readily approved.[83]  Johnston's previous experience in Texan military affairs had been short-lived.[84]  General Rusk had appointed him on August 5 adjutant general with the rank of colonel; and four days later he had been named by Houston as an aide-de-camp with the rank of major.[85]  Johnston served in the latter position for a few weeks, but in September he left the army for Columbia, the capital, to discharge the duties of adjutant general. On November 16 he started for New Orleans "on a nominal furlough of three months, but actually in the interests of the Texan Government,"[86]  to make arrangements for volunteers to come to Texas. News reached him in New Orleans on January 11, 1837, of his appointment to the command of the army, but it was not until January 31, after his return to Texas, that he was ordered to assume the command which had been exercised by Huston after Rusk left the army to become Secretary of War in the new administration.

General Huston and his friends resented the appointment of Johnston, and, on February 4, 1837, when the latter reached Camp Independence, on the east side of the Lavaca River about four or five miles from Texana, to take command, Huston challenged him to a duel.[87]  In the duel that followed the next day Johnston was severely wounded on the sixth shot and could not take charge of the army for some time. Huston continued in command of it, later turning the command over to Johnston, under whom he served for a time. The two became friends.

Further information brought into Texas late in December 1836, by three Anglo-Texan prisoners who effected their escape from Matamoros, caused Secretary of War Fisher to repeat on the last day of