The early 1800s
was a time of European turmoil and North American power plays. The Napoleonic Wars were at their height, the
United States went to war with Great Britain (for the second time), Great
Britain was scheming to undermine French interests in the Caribbean, and
Spain’s New World empire was beginning to crumble. Texas, a province of Mexico, became a
jumping-off point for revolutionaries who wanted to liberate Mexico from Spain
and filibusters who wanted to expand the U. S. border or seek personal
gain.
Bernardo Gutierrez de Lara was one such revolutionary. After barely escaping a Spanish patrol in his underwear, the affluent blacksmith from Villa de Ruiz, on the Rio Grande River, traveled to Washington D. C. to seek support. Wary of jeopardizing their relations with Spain, the U. S. Government would offer moral support, but no direct military assistance. He had better luck in the Louisiana Territory, acquired by the U. S. through the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803. Along the Louisiana-Texas border was a disputed zone between Spain and the United States called the Neutral Ground, where neither country had jurisdiction - ideal turf for outlaws, brigands, army deserters and Mexican revolutionaries on the dodge. U. S. Agent William Shaler was appointed by U. S. President James Madison to observe Mexico’s revolutionary activity. Through his advice, Gutierrez assembled a small army of 450 volunteers in the Neutral Ground, mostly young American adventurers led by a twenty-four year old former U. S. Army officer, Augustus Magee. The army was given the name the “Republican Army of the North.” Because of Magee’s Scotch-Irish ancestry, it marched into Texas under a solid emerald green flag.
On August 12,
1812, the Republican Army captured Nacogdoches with little opposition. From there, they marched into Trinidad, and
then Goliad, occupying the Spanish fortress of La Bahia. Decades later, La Bahia would be the scene of
the Goliad massacre during the Texas Revolution. A four month siege ensued after Spanish
troops from San Antonio (at the time named San Fernando de Bexar) surrounded
the fortress. Magee died of disease
(probably tuberculosis) and was replaced by Samuel Kemper. Weakened by desertions, losses from
skirmishes, and winter cold, the Spanish troops withdrew to San Antonio. Tejanos (Hispanic residents of Texas) and
Native Americans, dissatisfied with Spanish rule, began joining the Republican
Army’s march on San Antonio - the Capital of Texas. Gutierrez forced its unconditional surrender
and brutally executed the Spanish Governor of Texas, Manuel Maria de
Salcedo. Instead of the Spain-free
Republic he promised, Gutierrez formed a 12-man junta, appointing himself
President-Protector. Under a new
constitution, the Republic of Texas left the Americans out entirely. Gutierrez assumed the same autocratic powers
held by the previous Texas governor.
Needless to say, Tejano residents doubted Gutierrez’s revolutionary
intentions, especially after Salcedo’s execution. To make matters worse, Americans and Tejanos
in the Republican Army became distrustful of each other. Discipline began to fall apart as American
officers and volunteers began leaving Texas for long furloughs in the U. S.,
often replaced by raw, undisciplined new arrivals more motivated by greed than
ideology. Shaler was furious at
Gutierrez’s machinations and sought his replacement. The dream of an independent Mexico began to
fall apart as Spanish forces assembled south of the Rio Grande to retake Texas.
On April 6, 1813, Barcelona born General Don Joaquin de Arredondo led an army of 2.500 into Texas. To meet the Spanish threat, the Junta forced Gutierrez to resign, replacing him with Shaler’s hand-picked replacement, a Cuban and former Spanish naval officer named Jose Alvarez de Toledo; who had been representing Gutierrez’s interests in Philadelphia. Resplendent in a gold braided uniform, Toledo cut a dashing figure, but not dashing enough to gain the respect of the Tejano community; who viewed him as a foreigner or outsider, undeserving of their obedience. Facing collapse, Toledo reorganized the Junta and renamed the army the “Republican Army of North Mexico.” In a move that proved disastrous, he divided the army along ethnic lines. The Tejanos and Native Americans were placed in one division under Colonel Miguel Menchaca. The American volunteers were placed in a second division under Colonel Henry Perry. Before its division, the Republican Army operated as a cohesive single unit, regardless of the varying ethnicities. Under the shade of a divided, ill-disciplined army, a major catastrophe was brewing.
Toledo led his army of 1,400 out of San Antonio on August 15, 1813, encamping six miles from Arredondo’s royalist camp between the Atascosa and Medina Rivers, about 20 miles south of San Antonio. On August 18, 1813, Toledo formed his troops into an ambuscade to meet the advancing royalist army. A lone royalist officer, scouting ahead of a cavalry detachment under Lt. Colonel Ignacio Elizondo, drew fire from the republicans. Thinking they had encountered Arredondo’s advance cavalry guard, they surged forward, forsaking a prudent defensive line for an impetuous advance. The soaring summer heat dehydrated Toledo’s troops, while the deep sand made it impossible to move and position their artillery pieces by hand. Elizondo withdrew his cavalry, drawing the republicans toward Arredondo’s well positioned and concealed main army. Against Toledo’s orders, Menchaca’s cavalry advanced into a hail of musket balls and grapeshot. Menchaca was killed when grapeshot struck him in the neck. The Americans tried to flank the royalist line and attack its ammunition wagons in the rear. Their flanking maneuvers were fought off, forcing them to fall back. Worried after most of his artillery was silenced during the republicans’ furious assault, Arredondo prepared to withdraw but was convinced at the urging of a defector from Menchaca’s command to advance instead. After four hours of fighting, Toledo’s exhausted army was routed from the field. Arredondo wrote:
So there was a most hard fought battle, reaching the extreme of having their artillery placed within forty paces of ours. We kept up this most harsh struggle for more than two hours, and still no decisive result was recognized by either side.
The enemy, seeing such strong and tenacious resistance, and in consequence of the excessive damage which our fire did their troops, Toledo tried to surprise us on the right and the left flanks and in the rear. But he was not so quick in his movements as I was in commanding an advance guard sent out on both flanks and a considerable picket force detailed as a rear guard. We gained much advantage by this prompt arrangement, because the accursed plans and the fire of the enemy were met on all four sides.
What happened next could be compared to a present day war between rival drug cartels.
