Besides the Texans, Canales' force on the Nueces also included approximately three hundred Mexican rancheros and seventy to eighty Carrizo Indians.[37]  With this force Canales prepared for his third expedition -- the second launched from Texas -- against the Centralists. Jordan's success at Laredo inspired the army, and the men were anxious to descend to the Río Grande.

Jordan was now ordered to scour the Río Grande country between Guerrero and Reinosa with his company aided by a number of Mexicans under López. Canales and Fisher were to follow later with a single piece of artillery -- a four-pounder which the Texans had found spiked[*] at Victoria, but had been able to unspike.

As for Arista, having defeated and dispersed the Federalists at Morelos, he began on March 30 to march the main body of his troops by way of Monclova to Saltillo, which he reached, after a leisurely march, on April 21, anniversary of the battle of San Jacinto. After resting his troops there for twenty-eight days, he headed northward on May 20 for Monterey, reaching there on the 22nd. Tarrying a month at the capital of Nuevo León, he departed for Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas, leaving the Second Division of the Army Corps of the North at Monterey, under General Rafael Vasquez. In the meantime, on July 2, Arista was placed in command of the Mexican Army of the North, replacing General Canalizo who announced that he was going to the nation's capital to re-establish his health.[38]  From Linares, where he announced his assumption of command of the army on July 2, Arista headed toward Victoria. At Villagran he detached Colonel Ampudia to proceed to Matamoros to assume command of the some nine hundred troops there,[39]  for word had been received that the Federalists on the Nueces were about to take up the line of march for the Río