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Federalist Wars: Second Phase

sought and obtained from the Texan government permission to raise a volunteer company for the protection of the southwestern frontier. His was the first company formed in the west for that purpose, and he was hailed as a "brave and gallant" officer, "possessing that discretion so peculiarly necessary in the performance of his particular duty." By the end of June he had recruited seventy-five or more rangers.[38]  It was understood that Ross' company was to be mounted and was to render protection and assistance to the civil authorities of the counties of San Patricio, Refugio, and Victoria "against a banditti composed of Americans, Mexicans, and Indians who have," declared one of the Houston newspapers, "for some time committed the most desperate outrages upon the Río Grande traders," who conduct their business in accordance to a law laid down by the last session of Congress.[39]  In permitting Ross to organize a company for frontier service, the Texas administration was seeking to carry out its slowly developing plans to provide a respectable and permanent corps for the western frontier.

Colonel Ross' company was not the only group being organized for this purpose. "We learn," reported the editor of the Morning Star,[40]  "that a company is about being raised [under Colonel Henry W. Karnes] to proceed to the West, to preserve the citizens and traders from further violence." Early in September volunteers reached Galveston on the steamboat Rufus Putnam, destined for service on the frontier under Colonel Karnes, who had been authorized to receive



September 19, 1828. John Henry Brown, History of Texas from 1685 to 1892, I, 57; Dudley G. Wooten, A Comprehensive History of Texas, 1625 to 1897, I, 79, 82; Curtis Bishop and Bascom Giles, Lots of Land, p. 88; Walter F. McCaleb, "The First Period in the Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, IV (1900-1901), 218-219; "Information derived from Major Roman," Lamar Papers, VI, 137; J. R. Lewis to David G. Burnet, Natchez, March 26, 1836, in Executive Department Journals, Mar. 1836-Sept. 1836, p. 187, ms. The younger Ross, a lawyer by profession, came to Texas in 1836 with General John A. Quitman's Mississippi volunteer regiment and entered the regular army of Texas. In 1837 he served as an aide-de-camp to General Felix Huston. In 1838 he was made captain of a ranger company on the western frontier, and in the following year was promoted to the rank of major.

38. James Izod to Capt. A. Neill, San Antonio, [dated:] Houston, June 25, 1839, in Domestic Correspondence (Texas), 1836-1846, ms., [endorsed:] Received July 4th.

39. Telegraph and Texas Register, July 17 and 31, 1839.

40. July 10, 1839.

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