Michael Cronican was from Massachusetts. He traveled to Texas as a volunteer in Capt. William G. Cooke’s company of New Orleans Greys in 1835 and fought in the Siege of Béxar, after which he received a furlough as a result of illness and left for New Orleans. His original company was murdered at Goliad during his absence.

Handbook of Texas Online

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.

Handbook of Texas Online

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.

Handbook of Texas Online

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.