Hardly anyone would join this fight from San Antonio, the largest city in Texas, which is sort of a puzzle since the 500-man Texian Army and their officers had been stationed there.
Just days before, the Texian Army had evaporated as most of the men, tacitly encouraged by Texian President Mirabeau Lamar, had gone south to fight for the nascent Republic of the Rio Grande, indeed, comprising most of the force and by far the most combat-effective component of the RoRG Army.
So at the time of this Comanche Raid and the ensuing battle, more than 400 men under arms in Texas were along the Border fighting for a different government to establish a different Republic. No one can see the future, that’s where the best prospect to prosper were in 1840, at least that’s how the men involved saw it.
President Lamar’s angle was he wanted a buffer state between Texas and Mexico. 70,000 Texians collectively too poor to field an army, 7,000,000 Mexicans with a history of raising armies. If they ever stopped fighting each other and headed this way we might not have been able to stop them.
If you’ve never heard of this whole Republic of the Rio Grande episode, no worries, it was pretty much written out of popular Texas History.
"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
