Henry Wax Karnes was born 1812 in Tennessee. He enlisted as a private in Capt. John York’s volunteer company and distinguished himself in the battle of Concepción and the Siege of Béxar. Karnes was dispatched with Erastus (Deaf) Smith and Robert E. Handy from Gonzales to ascertain the fate of the Alamo, and was the first to return to Sam Houston’s army with word of its fall. On March 20, 1836, with a force of five men, he defeated a party of twenty Mexican soldiers on Rocky Creek. By the time of the battle of San Jacinto he was a captain and was second in command of Mirabeau B. Lamar’s cavalry corps. His service as a scout before the battle was of great value to Houston’s army; after the rout of the enemy his cavalry company led the pursuit of fugitives from Antonio López de Santa Anna’s army. After being promoted to colonel for his contribution to the Texan victory, Karnes was sent to Matamoros to effect an exchange of prisoners but was himself imprisoned on June 10, 1836, by Mexican authorities. He soon escaped and was authorized, on December 28, 1838, to raise eight companies of Texas Rangers for frontier defense. On August 10, 1839, he commanded twenty-one rangers in a fight against an estimated 200 Comanches near Arroyo Seco. Although the fight was a total victory for the Texans, Karnes was wounded by an arrow and never fully recovered. He died of yellow fever in San Antonio on August 16, 1840, soon after accepting the command of the Texan Santa Fe expedition. Karnes County was named in his honor.
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Briscoe, Andrew
Andrew Briscoe was born 1810 in Mississippi. Briscoe opposed the irregular collection of customs dues by Mexican authorities at Anahuac and presented resolutions of protest at a mass meeting there and later at Harrisburg. When he attempted to trade to DeWitt Clinton Harris goods with unpaid duties, both he and Harris were arrested by Mexican officials. They were released when William B. Travis and his volunteers came to drive Antonio Tenorio out of office. In July Briscoe wrote to the editor of the Brazoria Texas Republican justifying the action taken. In August he received a congratulatory letter from Travis. Briscoe was captain of the Liberty Volunteers at the battle of Concepción and followed Benjamin R. Milam in the Siege of Béxar. He was elected a delegate from his municipality with Lorenzo de Zavala and attended the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos, but evidently because of the urgency of reentering military service he did not remain until its close. At the battle of San Jacinto he was captain of Company A, Infantry Regulars. He died October 4, 1849.
Logan, William M.
William M. Logan was born 1802 in Tennessee. Logan arrived in Texas in November 1831 and settled near Liberty. Shortly afterward, he became involved in a dispute with John Davis Bradburn, the military commander at Fort Anahuac. Bradburn was harboring three runaway slaves from Louisiana. Logan, acting as a slave catcher, claimed the three as runaways, but Bradburn refused to relinquish them without proof of ownership and the authority of the governor of Louisiana. However, when Logan returned with the documents, Bradburn again refused to hand the three over on the grounds that they had requested the protection of the Mexican government and had joined the Mexican army. Bradburn’s actions caused both resentment and alarm among Anglo-Texans and has frequently been cited in later years as one of the immediate causes of the Texas revolution. In 1835 Logan enlisted in Andrew Briscoe’s company of Liberty volunteers and served as lieutenant during the Siege of Béxar. In March 1836 at Liberty he was elected captain of the Third Infantry, Second Regiment, of the Texas volunteers who fought at San Jacinto. He died 1839 in Houston. A historical marker in his honor was placed on the southeast corner of the Liberty County Courthouse in Liberty.
Grant, James
Dr. James Grant the revolutionary leader, also known as Don Diego Grant, was born on July 28, 1793 in Scotland. In March 1825, he received a dual appointment as medical officer to the Real del Monte mining company and as physician to the British diplomatic mission in Mexico. During the next two years he appears to have undertaken clandestine visits to Texas on behalf of the British charge d’affairs and spymaster Henry Ward. This activity culminated in the Fredonian Rebellion of 1826–27, in part instigated as a British attempt to interpose a barrier to American immigration into Texas.
On September 25, 1830, he formally became a citizen of Mexico and was elected to the state legislature as one of the three deputies for the department of Parras. His involvement in politics saw him appointed secretary and eventually deputy president of the legislature by 1835 and won him the appointment of Jefe de Armas or colonel of militia. In that latter capacity he took the field against Gen. Martin Perfecto de Cos in April 1835, after the Centralistas set up a rival state legislature in Saltillo. On that occasion Cos backed down, but following General Santa Anna’s victory in Zacatecas the following month, Cos returned and on June 5 arrested both the president of the Federalist legislature, Augustín Viesca, and his deputy president, James Grant, as they tried to flee to Texas.
The remaining Federalist leaders set in motion plans for a “general revolutionizing” aimed at creating a breakaway republic of Northern Mexico. As part of this plan, the escape of Viesca and Grant was engineered in order that they could gather troops in Texas, where the colonists were already in open revolt and laying siege to General Cos at San Antonio de Bexar. Grant and a Colonel Gonzales accordingly rode to join the Texian insurgents at Bexar only to find the siege faltering and the army on the point of disintegration. According to John Durst, a deputy from Nacogdoches, Grant was responsible for persuading Ben Milam to make the famous appeal for volunteers to storm the town, and he was certainly elected one of the four colonels to lead the assault. Although badly wounded on the first day, he and Colonel Gonzales subsequently brokered the defection of most of Cos’s forces and so brought about his surrender on December 9, 1835.
Afterwards, with the aid of Col. Frank Johnson, Grant set about organizing an expedition to Matamoros to link up with his Federalist colleagues. Initially this expedition had the backing of the Texian General Council, and, as commander-in-chief, Gen. Sam Houston was accordingly instructed to take command. Unfortunately confusion ensued as operational command was successively offered to Frank Johnson and James Walker Fannin. In the meantime, relying on his own authority as deputy president of the former legislature and Jefe de Armas, Grant proclaimed himself acting commander-in-chief of what he called the Federal Volunteer Army. Sending off Colonel Gonzales and a prominent Tejano leader named Placido Benavides as an advance guard, he unilaterally marched from San Antonio on January 1, 1836. News of this move and accusations he had stripped the garrison of both men and supplies precipitated a violent split in the provisional government and its effective collapse at a critical time.
Houston quickly caught up with Grant and on January 21 persuaded four of his six companies to halt at Refugio. However, Grant and Frank Johnson pushed forward with the remainder first to San Patricio and then across the Rio Grande. They were also accompanied by a senior East India Company officer, Colonel Edwards, revealing the British government’s continued clandestine involvement. Over the next month they fought Mexicans and Comanches but failed to make substantive contact with Antonio Canales or any of the other Federalist leaders other than Benavides. Gonzales had already been surprised and defeated at Meier. Worse, Colonel Edwards was killed on February 20, and two days later Frank Johnson returned to San Patricio with part of the force, where he was surprised by Gen. José de Urrea in the early hours of February 27. Unaware of this disaster, Grant and the remainder of his men were heading north from Camargo on March 2, when they too were ambushed, this time at the battle of Agua Dulce Creek. Benavides and a handful of others escaped, but most were quickly killed or captured. Accounts of Grant’s death vary in detail but agree that after being pursued for some miles he surrendered and had dismounted only to be immediately stabbed in the back by a Mexican lancer.
Flores, Manuel
Manuel Flores (Jose Manuel Nepomunceno Paublino Flores) was born in Bexar, his service record No. 4220 shows him as serving in the Texan army from October 1st, 1935, to October 1st, 1836, as first sergeant under Captain Seguin; as First Lieutenant in Second Regiment of Cavalry, Company “B”, and as Captain from March 1st to October 12, 1837. He was credited with urging the Texans forward, after their first fire upon Santa Anna’s men. The Texans having fallen on their stomachs, waiting the reaction, he shouted: “Get up you cowards. Santa Anna’s men are running.” This man was also disappointed by the fact that Texas was accepting annexation, and while residing in Matagorda he attempted a revolution against the established Texan authorities. General Canalizo of the Mexican army procured his services to incite the Indians in Texas to uprisings. On May 14, 1839 Texas Rangers under Lieutenant James O. Rice discovered him and his band on the San Gabriel river in Williamson County, and in the encounter Flores was killed. Much too sad an end for his splendid record.
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