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Tijerina (governor of Coahuila), Francisco Vidaurri y Villaseñor (a former governor of Coahuila and Texas[14]), and his son-in-law Dr. John Long, Mauricio Carrasco, Marcial Borrego, Bartolomé de Cárdenas, Colonel José María González,[15] Colonel Antonio Zapata (the owner of a large ranch east of the Río Grande), Colonel Eleuterio Méndez,[16] who appeared before Matamoros early in December with four hundred men but retired without making an attack upon the town and began concentrating his forces at Reinosa;[17] Cristobal Ramírez, Macedonio Capistrán, Basilio Benavides (alcalde of Laredo), Rafael Uribe of Guerrero, and José María J. Carbajal[18] (a former citizen of Tamaulipas, C. Victoria, Cuartel General en los Potreras, Jan. 26, 1839, in ibid., Feb. 7, 1839; Proclama de General José Urrea dado al Cuartel General del ejército libertador en Tampico, Enero 22 de 1839, in ibid., Jan. 31, 1839. 14. Francisco Vidaurri y Villaseñor served as governor from January 8 to July 23, 1834. 15. Prior to November 1835, José María Gonzáles had been a colonel in the regular Mexican army. Eugene C. Barker, Life of Stephen F. Austin, p. 492; W. Roy Smith, "The Quarrel between Governor Smith and the Council of the Provisional Government of the Republic," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, V (1901-1902), 296-297; Hobart Huson, "Iron Men: A History of the Republic of the Río Grande and Federalist War in Northern Mexico," p. 9. 16. Eleuterio Méndez to the Inhabitants of the Northern Towns, and the City of Matamoros, City of Guerrero, Nov. 18, 1838, stating his reasons for taking up arms in behalf of Federalism, in Telegraph and Texas Register, Jan. 9, 1839. 17. D. W. Smith to John Forsyth, Matamoros, Dec. 10, 1838, no. 147, in Consular Dispatches (U. S.), 1837-1839 (Matamoros), ms., microfilm; Same to Same, Matamoros, Dec. 22, 1838, no. 148, in ibid. 18. José María Carbajal, a native of Béxar and surveyor in Martín de Leon's colony, had been reared and educated in the United States under the noted Rev. Alexander Campbell, founder of the Disciples of Christ. His father was José Antonio Carbajal who married Refugia, a daughter of Martín de Leon, and settled at Victoria in his father-in-law's colony, being one of the original forty-one families to settle at that place. While acting as a surveyor for the general land commissioner for Texas, J. Francisco Madero, Carbajal was arrested in February 1831, by Colonel John D. Bradburn, the commandant at Anahuac at the head of Galveston Bay. In 1836, being a member of a prominent family at Victoria, he was chosen as a delegate from that place to help frame the constitution of the Texas Republic, but failed to attend the Convention on account of the immediate approach of Santa Anna's forces which caused him to look after the safety of his family. During the Texan revolution, a vessel, the Hannah Elizabeth, carrying dry goods, guns, and ammunition belonging to Carbajal and Fernando de León, also a resident of Victoria, and valued at $35,000, was run ashore on the west end of Matagorda Peninsula by the Bravo, a Mexican vessel. The ship was boarded and |