William Brenan, soldier and legislator of the Republic of Texas, was born in Ireland. On October 25, 1835, he enlisted as a private in Capt. Samuel O. Pettus’s company of New Orleans Grays. He saw action at the Siege of Béxar and the disastrous battle of Coleto. He survived the infamous Goliad Massacre, however, and was discovered at Goliad by doctors J. H. Barnard and John Shackelford. He thereupon joined Capt. William H. Patton’s company – the so-called Columbia Company – of Col. Sidney Sherman’s Second Regiment, Texas Volunteers, in time to participate in the battle of San Jacinto.

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Dr. Joseph E. Field reached Texas in 1833 and lived near Brazoria and Matagorda for two years. Late in 1835, when the Texas Revolution broke out, he was at Gonzales, on his way to Mexico, and he and the four other doctors in the area volunteered their services. Field marched with the army to San Antonio and during and after the Siege of Béxar served as both doctor and soldier. On his way from San Antonio he met Sam Houston, with whom he traveled as far as Nacogdoches. At the Mexican armed incursion in the spring of 1836, Field joined the command of James Walker Fannin, Jr., fought at the battle of Coleto, and was made a prisoner along with Fannin’s other men. He and the other doctors were spared from the Goliad Massacre so that they could treat wounded Mexicans. After two weeks Field made his escape and heard the news of the battle of San Jacinto. After the revolution he made a visit to Massachusetts, where, in September 1836, he published Three Years in Texas. On his return to Texas late that year he joined the army. He died in Clear Water Harbor, Florida, in 1882.

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William Barnett Hardin, a participant in the Siege of Béxar and unofficial advisor to the Alabama-Coushatta Indians, was born 1806 in Tennessee. In November 1835 Hardin volunteered for service in an East Texas army unit for duty in the Texas war for independence from Mexico. He began his military service as a sergeant in Capt. Martin B. Lewis’s company, recruited from the territory of present Jasper, Tyler, and Polk counties. This company assembled near the Neches River and on November 16, 1835, began the long horseback trip to join the revolutionary army assembled outside San Antonio de Béxar. Sergeant Hardin entered San Antonio on December 6, 1835, and participated in the bitter house-to-house fighting that occurred during the next few days. On December 9 he received a leg wound that left him slightly crippled for the remainder of his life. He continued his army service for several months after the capture of San Antonio, and by September 1836 he was promoted to first lieutenant. He died on July 28, 1885, and was buried in the Holshousen Cemetery on the Coushatta Trace west of Moscow.

Henry Prentice Redfield was born 1819 in New Hampshire. During the Texas Revolution Redfield was in Capt. John Henry Moore’s company at the battle of Gonzales, October 2, 1835, and with Benjamin R. Milam at the Siege of Béxar in early December 1835. Though not an actual participant in the battle of San Jacinto, he helped round up the fleeing Mexicans after the battle. Redfield continued to serve in the Texas army in various Indian fights and was wounded in the battle of Plum Creek on August 11, 1840. That year his brother William was killed in a battle involving the Republic of the Rio Grande. In 1842 Redfield was with Mathew Caldwell on the expedition against Adrián Woll at San Antonio and fought in the battle of Salado Creek. During the Mexican War (in 1846) Redfield joined the First Texas Cavalry, United States Army, and served under Gen. Zachary Taylor at the battle of Resaca de la Palma and the siege of Monterrey. Redfield died February 27, 1900 at Giddings and was buried in the Giddings Cemetery. An official Texas historical marker honoring Redfield was dedicated at his grave in 1971.

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