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Lamar's Efforts to Protect the Frontier

Colonel Edward Burleson was placed in command of the First Regiment of Regular Infantry to be formed under the law of December 1838, with headquarters at Bastrop, near where he lived. Recruiting was carried out under the over-all direction of Lieutenant Colonel William S. Fisher for the area east of the Brazos,[23]  under Colonel Burleson west of the river. Fisher was to be assisted by Major P. S. Wyatt. Others who rendered assistance in recruiting from time to time were Captains B. Y. Gillan and J. M. Wiehl in New Orleans, Colonel Hugh McLeod, Captain Lawrence at Galveston, Captain W. D. Redd, Captain Adam Clendennin, Captain M. B. Skerrett, and Lieutenant H. L. Grush. Colonel Lysander Wells served on recruiting duty in the United States from October 1839, to some time in 1840.[24]  Between the passage of the law and December 17, 1840, $25,348.96 were spent in recruiting and in the payment of bounties for the First Regiment of Regular Infantry. Over one-third of the expenditures were for getting volunteers from the United States.[25] 

Recruitment was slow, and President Lamar found it necessary to make a requisition in March 1839, upon the counties of Harrisburg, Brazoria, Matagorda, Colorado, Liberty, and Galveston to furnish six companies of volunteers to serve for six months on the frontier. Five of the companies when organized were to rendezvous at LaGrange under the command of Colonel Burleson and one was to be stationed at Fort Milam on the Brazos River.[26] 

There was not much enthusiasm in Texas for settling down to humdrum life in a military camp on the frontier; for the ambitious there were far more lucrative opportunities. But the Panic of 1837 in the



23. H. McLeod to A. Sidney Johnston, Adjutant-General's Office, Austin, Nov. 9, 1839, in Harriet Smither (ed.), Journals of the Fourth Congress of the Republic of Texas, III, 81-82; List of Officer Appointments Made by the President for the First Regiment of Infantry, War Department, Jan. 30, 1839 [signed by A. Sidney Johnston, Secretary of War], in Telegraph and Texas Register, Feb. 6, 1839.

24. Annual Report of Charles Mason, First Auditor, to William Sevey, Acting Secretary of the Treasury, Treasury Department, [dated:] First Auditor's Office, Dec. 15, 1840, in Texas Congress, Journals of the House of Representatives: Fifth Congress, Appendix, pp. 59-68.

25. Charles Mason, First Auditor, to B. T. Archer, Secretary of War [dated:] Treasury Department, First Auditor's Office, Dec. 17, 1840, in ibid., pp. 377-378. Bounties were paid through Captain D. C. Ogden, B. Y. Gillan, Colonel W. S. Fisher, Colonel Jacob Snively, Captain M. B. Lewis, J. C. P. Kennymore, Captain John Holliday, and Captain J. B. P. January.

26. Telegraph and Texas Register, March 6, 1839.

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AFTER SAN JACINTO: The Texas-Mexican Frontier, 1836-1841
Joseph Milton Nance, 1963