The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 52, July 1948 - April, 1949 Page: 167
512 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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John A. Quitman in the Texas Revolution
unit organized by Quitman in 1824.16 The Fencibles, in a called
meeting, excused their captain from duty as long as he deemed
his presence necessary to the cause of Texas and expressed the
hope that the god of battles would speed and protect him.16
Quitman secured additional information about the military
situation in Texas from Brigadier General Thomas J. Green, who
came to the United States to raise men and money and who
arrived in Natchez about April i, 1836, directly from the theater
of war. Green recommended Quitman to the Texans as "a gen-
tleman of high standing and talents, who visits our bleeding
country, a soldier.""'1
In the brief period that Quitman had allotted himself for
preparations, he was also concerned with the possibility that the
Federal authorities might arrest him and his volunteers for their
proposed expedition in apparent violation of the neutrality laws.
Those authorities had proclaimed and possibly endeavored, in a
legal degree, to enforce neutrality in the Texas Revolution be-
cause if Texas became independent, the aims of the United States
government, which desired to buy the province from Mexico,
would be thwarted."8 Anticipating and hoping to avert any inter-
ference from United States authorities, who were destined to
oppose intermittently during the next twenty years Quitman's
15Ibid., I, 141, 146-147, 157; Mississippi Free Trader, April 8, July 8, August io,
1836; Vicksburg (Mississippi) Register, April 9, 1836; Little Rock Arkansas Gazette,
April 26, 1836; Reuben Davis, Recollections of Mississippi, 80; Winston, "Mississippi
and the Independence of Texas," Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XXI, 53;
Bounty Land Files in the General Land Office, Austin, Texas. The reported number
of men in the expedition varies from twenty to seventy. Forty is the number
mentioned most frequently by contemporaries. No complete muster of those com-
posing the command has been preserved, but the group included Lieutenant
William Strickland, Lieutenant Thomas J. Golightly, First Sergeant James Izod,
Second Sergeant James Steen, W. A. Artelle, D. W. Babcock, Alexander G. Coffin,
John Dowd, Francis T. Duffau, Thomas Garretson, H. H. Hovey, Ezekial Hum-
phreys, Henry Hyland, James S. Lee, Mark B. Lewis, Henry M'Neill, James C.
Morgan, Josiah S. Munce, Samuel I. Page, ------ Parker, M. M. Railey, Reuben
Ross, ------ Sairs, and C. M. Sweeney. Strickland, Golightly, Steen, Coffin,
Munce, and Railey belonged to the Natchez Fencibles; others among the group
were evidently members of that organization. Lieutenant Golightly had served in
the Texas forces from October 4, 1835, to January 4, 1836, aiding in the siege and
capture of Bexar in December, 1835.
loMississippi Free Trader, April 1, 1846.
17Winston, "Mississippi and the Independence of Texas," Southwestern Historical
Quarterly, XXI, 52; Henry Stuart Foote, Texas and the Texans (2 vols.; Philadel-
phia, 1841), II, 340-341n.
IsJustin H. Smith, War with Mexico (2 vols.; New York, 1919), I, 63.167
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 52, July 1948 - April, 1949, periodical, 1949; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101121/m1/175/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.