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Federalist Wars: Second Phase

had come to Texas in 1836, had fought in the battle of San Jacinto, had been an aide-de-camp to General Thomas J. Rusk and subsequently a congressman from Victoria -- was elected lieutenant colonel; James Dolan of Nacogdoches, major; Captain Benjamin Hill,[61]  adjutant of the command; and Dr. Edmund J. Felder,[62]  assistant surgeon. Jordan had no command, but, as we have already seen, was accorded a place on Canales' staff as a Lieutenant Colonel. Among the captains were Thomas Allen of Houston, who succeeded to the command of the company of about thirty men recruited by Ross in Houston when Ross was elected commander of the Texan division; Wiley B. [?] Merrell, Alonzo B. Sweitzer, Thomas Pratt,[63]  John T. Price (largest company), Jacob Eberly (eighteen men), and Thomas Hagler of North Carolina and Houston (forty men). Other participants in the expedition who were prominent men at the time, or later became so, were John R. Baker, John W. B. McFarlane (a cousin of the Camerons), Henry Ryals, James Fox, Michael Fox, Alfred S. Thurmond, Willard Richardson, William St. John, Henry Whalen, Michael Whalen, and others, not to forget Alonzo B. Sweitzer, already mentioned as a captain, who had a government contract in the spring of 1839 to furnish provisions for the Texan troops at Post Béxar, but had taken no steps whatsoever to comply with his contract.[64]  The Anglo-Americans enlisted for no set period.



full biographical sketch of Richard Roman, see Brown, Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas, p. 142; Biographical Directory of the Texan Conventions and Congresses, pp. 162-163.

61. Benjamin F. Hill served as clerk of the Eighth Congress of the Republic of Texas, and was later a member of the 1st State Legislature. During the Mexican War he served as a captain in the United States Army, and for a time occupied the position of Adjutant-General of the State of Texas. He was killed at Victoria in 1866. Huson, "Iron Men," pp. 76-77.

62. Dr. Edmond J. Felder, a citizen of Harris County, was appointed on July 2, 1839, assistant surgeon in the Texan Army. He reported for duty to Captain Reuben Ross and "proceeded with his command from Houston to Gonzales and thence by way of San Antonio to the Nueces near San Patricio, where he went with the Federalists to the Río Grande," Harriet Smither (ed.), Journals of the Sixth Congress of the Republic of Texas, II, 8 n.

63. Thomas Pratt made application on July 23, 1838, for a captaincy in the cavalry of the Republic, but was rejected on the grounds that he was "unworthy" the position. Thomas Pratt to M. B. Lamar, Houston, April 17, 1838; Same to Same, Richmond, Jan. 7, 1840, in Lamar Papers, V, 274-275, 398-399; Yoakum, History of Texas, II, 274 n; Telegraph and Texas Register, Oct. 30, 1839.

64. S. W. Jordan, Capt. Comg. Post Béxar, to William G. Cooke, Actg Quarter

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