evitable fate. Let them come then, and quickly. God and the friends of freedom will smile upon their funeral march."[90]

While Cairns was out, two Mexicans, represented as soldiers from the Mexican army, arrived at Kinney's rancho on March 6 before daylight and informed the men there as they had previously promised "if ever an expedition was got up against us," reported Goodman, "that San Antonio was or would be in possession of a command of 700 Mexicans," and that some three hundred Mexicans had gone to Goliad and the Mission Refugio and "would be at our place in one or two days for friendly purposes."[91]

The failure of the Fifth Congress in 1841 to make appropriations for maintaining the regular army, caused President Lamar on March 24, 1841, to issue orders for disbanding the Republic's army,[92]  which had been raised for the protection of the northern and western frontiers in accordance with an act of Congress approved on December 21, 1838. The possible danger of this policy of leaving the nation unprotected by a regular standing army soon began to taunt the public mind, and there was considerable discussion in and out of official circles as to the best policy to pursue in respect to frontier defense.

William H. Daingerfield presented in the Senate on December 2 a petition from citizens of Béxar County requesting the establishment of two military posts near enough to the settlements to protect them from the incursion of Mexicans and Indians. They recommended that one of these be located at or near the ford of the Río Grande road on the Medina, and that the other be at or adjacent to the ford of the Laredo road on the Atascosa. These two posts, with an additional one at San Patricio, would do much to protect the lives and property of the frontiersmen at small cost.[93]  That the frontiersmen lived in a state of jitters is quite evident from the fact that several months before, when a report was circulated from Gonzales that a large party of Comanches had gone down towards Victoria, "about three hundred