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pesos and "free hands" in captured towns. It is inconceivable that the Federalist leadership planned to permit the Texans to loot captured towns, for to have done so would surely have turned away any prospective cooperation from the people of the areas they hoped to take over from their political opponents. It would seem likely, therefore, that this is nothing more than a specie of Centralist propaganda. While the Federalist leaders planned for the future, their current military operations were fast approaching a dénouement. Recapturing Monterey, Canalizo left Colonel José María de Ortega in command while he pursued the Federalists northward.[112] On August 10 he was at Villa de Aldama. As he proceeded along the route from Monterey to Monclova,[113] Canalizo learned on August 13 that Pedro Lemus and his brother, José, had been abandoned by most of their men due to the dissension between the former and Anaya and his associates, and were preparing to flee to Texas, leaving Apolinario Morales in command of the Federalists at Monclova. Monclova fell, a few days later, to the Centralists. Lemus was defeated on August 18 by Pavón at Loma Alta, six leagues from the Lampazos road toward Laredo.[114] Pedro Lemus and approximately forty followers succeeded in effecting their escape to Guerrero, where, in the act of crossing the Río Grande, they were captured on August 21 by Lieutenant Manuel Menchaca, military commander of the Villa de Guerrero.[115] Among 112. José María de Ortega, Coronel de Ejército y Commandante general interino de Departamento de Nuevo León á sus habitantes, Monterey, Agosto 15 de 1839, in Gaceta de Tampico, Sept. 7, 1839. 113. Gaceta de Tampico, Sept. 7, 1839. 114. Francisco González Pavón á [Valentín Canalizo, Commandante en gefe del Ejército del Norte] Campo sobre Loma Alta, 6 leguas del camino Lampazos hacia a Laredo, Aug. 18, 1839, in Supplement to ibid., Aug. 31, 1839; La Brisa, Sept. 20, 1839. 115. A copy of Lt. Don Manuel Menchaca's report to Valentín Canalizo, dated August 24, 1839, and transmitted by the latter to the Governor of the Department of Nuevo León, was published as a broadside in two columns by the Secretario de Gobierno de Nuevo León at Monterey on August 28, 1839, on the press of the Seminario Politico del Gobierno de Nuevo León, (Monterey), (an original copy is in the Thomas W. Streeter Collection); Valentín Canalizo to the Governor of Nuevo León, Aug. 19, 1839, in Seminario Politico del Gobierno de Nuevo León, Aug. 22, 1839; La Brisa, Sept. 6, 1836 [1839]; Bustamante, El gabinete mexicano, I, 203-204; Bancroft, History of Mexico, V, 214 n. Bancroft says that Lemus, his brother, 18 officers, and 2 commissioners on their way to seek Texan aid were captured near Rosas at the end of August. He seems to be in error, for my account here has been based upon the official Mexican reports. Near the Island |