previously given to Manuel Flores, "detailing the manner of procedure and directing the pledges and promises to be made to the Indians."[31]  Shortly after receiving this communication, Córdova, protected by fifty-three Mexicans, six Biloxi Indians including a chief, and five Negroes,[32]  left his lair on the Upper Trinity River in March 1839, and sought to pass through the frontier from the headwaters of the Trinity to Matamoros to confer with Canalizo, and to contact Manuel Flores. According to Burleson, his object was also to get ammunition to supply the Indians.

Córdova's trail and camp were discovered near the foot of the mountain, north of and not far from where the present city of Austin now stands, by George W. Davis and Reuben Hornsby, who were out riding on the morning of March 25. They believed they had discovered the trail of a large party of hostile Indians. The alarm was spread to the nearby Waterloo settlement (later to become Austin), to Hornsby's Bend, and to Colonel Edward Burleson at Bastrop, who received the news on March 27. Soon seventy-nine volunteers[33]  were assembled at Waterloo and organized late in the afternoon of the 27th under Colonel Burleson, whose brother Jacob had recently been killed in an Indian fight on Brushy Creek, near the present town of Taylor.[34]  Captains Jesse Billingsley and Micah (Mike) Andrews were each placed in charge of a company.[35]  While the men were forming, spies were sent