December Cooke's order of November 30 for an immediate organization of the militia to meet the expected Mexican invasion. Fisher added to the list of necessary equipment for each militiaman the requirement of ten days' provisions."[88]  The day before, Brigadier General Green, then preparing to go on a recruiting expedition to the United States, issued from the capital a rather curious address, urging upon the men in the army "those principles of subordination and duty of which I have at all times taught you lessons, and to your present brave and gallant leader, General Huston, he concluded, "I most fervently recommend you."[89]  This was, indeed, a strange piece of advice coming from one who so often flouted authority.

Thirty Mexican prisoners, allegedly spies, taken at various places and times along the frontier were moved from army headquarters to Columbia on January 5, 1837. Denying that they were spies, the Mexicans declared that they had only been engaged in the trading of horses and in the smuggling of tobacco into Mexico. Late in January five Mexicans direct from Laredo were captured near San Antonio by Colonel Seguin and sent to army headquarters.[90]  Seguin also reported the concentration of Mexican troops along the Río Grande confirming to a substantial degree the confidential information President Houston received from Matamoros. The latter reports placed the Mexican forces at Matamoros on January 26 at 2,855 and at Saltillo at 2,500 with a combined total of twenty-eight cannons and two mortars. By March 1837, it was said that the Mexican forces in the north had been augmented to 8,000 men.[91] 

Discipline was poor in the Mexican army at Matamoros, and it was said that the soldiers there, having gone unpaid for two months, were "stating they would not march for Texas until their arrears were paid up, and measures taken to have a regular commissariat behind the army, after having marched."[92]  On the other hand, discipline in the