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.

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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.

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William Holman was born 1806 in Kentucky. William Holman was a member of the company of Capt. Bailey Anderson, Jr., in the Siege of Béxar and served as quartermaster. He was in Capt. John M. Bradley’s company from April 19 to July 23, 1836, but missed the battle of San Jacinto because he had been assigned to procure cattle for food.

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William Isbell was born 1816 in Tennessee. At Gonzales in the spring of 1835 Isbell joined Capt. Robert M. (Three-legged Willie) Williamson’s company of Col. John H. Moore’s regiment for a two-month campaign against Indians on the upper Brazos River. In October of the same year he joined Capt. Thomas Alley’s company and in December took part in the Siege of Béxar. He joined Capt. Moseley Baker’s Company D of Col. Edward Burleson’s First Regiment, Texas Volunteers and served as a private in this company at the battle of San Jacinto. Also in Baker’s company was Pvt. James H. Isbell, William’s older brother, who enlisted in Nacogdoches on January 14, 1836. In 1841 he participated in the campaign against Indians under Mark B. Lewis and Thomas Green. After returning to San Antonio he served for six months as a Texas Ranger under John Coffee Hays. He died at the Burleson County community of Prairie Mound on December 11, 1877.

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His reminiscences in the 1872 Texas Almanac:

Wm. ISBELL writes us, through a friend, as follows.
Editors Texas Almanac: —Was born in the town of Greenville, Green county, Tennessee, on the 15th day of June, 1816; in 1833 I run away from my father and lived in Abingdon, Virginia; I told my father a lie and he whipped me severely for it, as he hated a liar; I have often been in Andrew Johnson’s tailor shop, in Greenville, and had contests with boys for the binding or edging torn from cloth; I frequently chopped wood as a favor for Mrs. Cardy, who was Andy Johnson’s mother-in-law; Mr. Cardy was a club-footed shoemaker in Greenville; I emigrated to Texas in the fall of 1834, and living on Cummings’ Creek. In the spring of 1835 I went on my first campaign with Capt. R. M. Williamson, who was called three-legged Willie; John H. Moore, Liester, Rabb, Eastland, Goheen, Ned Burleson, R. M. Coleman, Col. Neill, and others were in the company; we were absent about sixty days on the upper Brazos, and lived mainly on beef. In October, 1835, I joined Capt. Thomas Alley’s company, at Gonzales, and marched about the 13th of October, 1835, under command of Gen. Stephen F. Austin, who had been elected commander of the “Army of the People,” for San Antonio; I belonged to that division of the army commanded by Col. Frank Johnson and Col. Wm. T. Austin, which stormed San Antonio in December, 1835. After the surrender of Gen. Coss I went to Mill Creek, now Austin county, and planted a crop, and then joined Gen. Sam Houston, on the Colorado, on his retreat from Gonzales; participated in the battle of San Jacinto, on the 21st of April, 1836, as a member of Capt. Mosley Baker’s company, served out my three months’ time and then returned to Mill Creek and worked out my crop of corn. In the winter of 1836 I went to the town of Brazoria and kept bar for Mrs. Jane Long, who had a tavern in Brazoria. I lived in Houston from the winter of 1837 till 1840; wagoned to the west for Major Bennett. In 1841 I made an Indian campaign under Mark B. Lewis and Tom Green; returned by way of San Antonio and there joined Capt. Jack Hays’ company of Rangers and served about six months; since the winter of 1842 I have lived in Washington county and in Burleson county, where I now am staying. I have five children by my first wife, and have three by my present wife, one boy six years old, one two years old and one boy ten months old; I have eight children living, and have buried two boys and one girl. Of course I have never seen my present wife and younger children, as I have been entirely blind for fourteen years.

Texas Almanac for 1872; Survivors of the Texas Revolution

James Washington Winters was born 1817 in Tennessee. In late 1835, with his father and brothers, he volunteered for service at the Siege of Béxar. Upon reaching San Felipe de Austin, however, the party learned of the surrender of Martín Perfecto de Cos and so returned to their farm. On March 18, 1836, Winters enlisted in Capt. William Ware’s company of independent volunteers. Also serving in this company were his brothers, Sgt. William C. Winters and Pvt. John F. Winters. Ware’s company tried to hold Dewees’s crossing on the Colorado River against the army of Mexican general Antonio López de Santa Anna, but was ordered to fall back by Sam Houston, who was retreating from the Colorado. Ware’s company then joined Houston’s army and was designated the Second Company of Col. Sidney Sherman’s Second Regiment, Texas Volunteers. All three of the Winters men took part in the battle of San Jacinto, where William C. Winters was severely wounded. In 1837 Winters served under Capt. Jerry Washam in pursuit of a group of Indians who had raided near present Anderson. In 1842, in response to the Adrián Woll raid, Winter joined Capt. Albert Gallatin’s company of Brig. Gen. Alexander Somervell’s Army of the South West and took part in the Somervell expedition. He returned from the Rio Grande with Somervell, declining to take part in the infamous Mier expedition. In August 1861, following the outbreak of the Civil War, Winters organized the Oakville Precinct Reserve Company, which later became part of the Twenty-ninth Brigade, Texas State Militia. During the war Winters served as enrolling officer and provost marshall for Live Oak and McMullen counties. In 1901 the Daughters of the Republic of Texas asked Winters to help them identify important points on the San Jacinto battlefield for the purpose of erecting historical markers. At that time several DRT members interviewed Winters about his early life and his experiences during the Texas Revolution. Winters’ responses were recorded by Adina de Zavala and Adele L. B. Looscan and published in the Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association (later Southwestern Historical Quarterly) in October 1902. Winters died Bigfoot in November 1903, and was buried in Brummett Cemetery, three miles northeast of Bigfoot.

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