Archives for November 2014

John Twohig was born 1806 in Ireland. He took part in the siege of Bexar in 1835. At the time of the Adrián Woll invasion of San Antonio in September 1842, Twohig blew up his store to keep ammunition from the enemy. Captured and taken to Mexico, he and fourteen other San Antonians held in Perote Prison cut a tunnel and effected their escape on July 2, 1843; Twohig was one of nine not recaptured. He died at his home in San Antonio in October 1891.

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Henry Teal was born circa 1800. He served as second lieutenant in Thomas J. Rusk’s company in the Siege of Béxar, he returned to East Texas in the spring of 1836 and, as captain, recruited a company of about forty men for the Texas army. He received his commission from the Convention of 1836 and reported with his company to Sam Houston at Gonzales. He was with Houston on the retreat to Harrisburg but because of illness was not on the field at San Jacinto. After Antonio López de Santa Anna surrendered, Teal and Henry Wax Karnes were sent to Matamoros, Mexico, to negotiate with Gen. José de Urrea for the exchange of prisoners under the treaties of Velasco. At Matamoros they found Urrea preparing for an invasion of Texas, and the two commissioners were imprisoned because they learned too much of the preparations. Teal reported the situation in the “Whip-Handle Dispatch”. After his escape and return to Texas, he commanded his regiment until May 5, 1837, when he was shot while asleep in his tent at Camp Bowie. Teal’s murderer was not discovered until a man named Schultz, a member of John A. Murrell’s outlaw band in Mississippi, was being tried in Galveston on another charge and confessed that he had killed Henry Teal.

Handbook of Texas Online

Robert Hunter Hancock was born 1813 in Ohio. He joined Capt. James Franklin Perry’s company of volunteers and participated in the Grass Fight and the Siege of Béxar, but when Lt. Col. William B. Travis issued his appeal for aid in defense of the Alamo, Hunter and his brother John Calhoun Hunter joined Capt. John Bird’s company. Its march to San Antonio was intercepted by the news that the Alamo had fallen. Bird’s men joined Sam Houston’s army as it retreated across Peach Creek. Hunter remained with the army through the San Jacinto campaign and was detached to help guard the baggage train at Harrisburg during the battle. Afterward he was detailed to guard Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna. Hunter died near Flatonia in 1902.

Handbook of Texas Online

Martin Kingsley Snell was born 1815 in Pennsylvania. In November 1835 he was a private in Capt. William Gordon Cooke’s company of New Orleans Greys. He took part in the Siege of Béxar on December 5–10. On March 10, 1836, the General Council commissioned him a second lieutenant in the regular army, but he fought at San Jacinto as first lieutenant of Capt. Andrew Briscoe’s Company A of Lt. Col. Henry W. Millard’s First Regiment, Regular Infantry. Snell commanded the honor guard at the funeral of Stephen F. Austin on December 29, 1836. He remained in the Army of the Republic of Texas until May 17, 1839, when he was captain of Company E, First Regiment. From 1843 until 1846 he was captain of the Fannin Artillery, a Houston militia unit. During the Mexican War Snell recruited and commanded Company E of Col. Albert Sidney Johnston’s regiment, the First Texas Foot Riflemen, from May 19 through August 24, 1846. After this regiment was discharged, Snell returned to Texas to recruit a second company for Col. John C. Hays’s First Regiment, Texas Mounted Volunteers, which was in federal service from May 14 through June 5, 1847. He died in Houston in 1865.

Handbook of Texas Online

John Wheeler Bunton was born 1807 in Tennessee. Bunton was first sergeant of Robert M. Coleman’s company of Mina Volunteers. For the Siege of Béxar on December 5–10, 1835, he was transferred to Capt. John York’s company. After being honorably discharged, he rejoined the army, on March 28, 1836. At the battle of San Jacinto he served on the staff of Gen. Sam Houston in Capt. Jesse Billingsley’s company of Mina Volunteers.

Handbook of Texas Online