while he took up his position at the presidio of San Fernando de Rosas, having left Presidio del Río Grande on March 15. Morelos was one and a half leagues from San Fernando.[20]  According to Captain Allen, Canales intended to make a feint towards Monclova, so as to divert Arista's attention to enable the Federalists to countermarch to Guerrero, "in order to afford their friends on the Río Grande an opportunity of leaving and crossing with them to the Nueces."

As General Arista advanced up the left bank of the Río Grande in pursuit of the remnant Federalist army, "President" Cárdenas, accompanied by one hundred Mexican rancheros and a few Texans,[21]  moved the seat of government from Guerrero to Laredo. From there Cárdenas commissioned Captain John T. Price on March 1 "to proceed to . . . the Republic [of Texas] . . . to solicit volunteers."[22]  The Texas volunteers were to be recruited under the following terms: each volunteer must agree to serve for a period of from six to nine months, subject to a renewal of the enlistment if the government should need his services; however, if the services of the volunteers were not needed, they might, at the end of three months, be returned home or be permitted, at their pleasure, to settle on the frontier; the pay of the men and officers was to be the same as that then enjoyed by the volunteers serving in the Conventional (formerly Federal) Army, i.e., twenty-five dollars per month for privates, and was to commence from the time they were organized and began their march for Laredo; "the government," it was said, could not

. . . at present offer any more assistance than that which circumstances may permit; but in support of its credit, it pledges the property and rents of the nation, and promises that so soon as any port or town of importance