The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 12, July 1908 - April, 1909 Page: 304
332 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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304
Texas Historical Association Quarterly.
Cockrells and Hargises were good friends. My practise, though
limited, was eminently successful for a young physician.
But my heart was in Texas, and I had for years resolved to
make my home amid its wilds. So in 1846, when General Taylor
was concentrating his army near Corpus Christi to move upon
the Rio. Grande in defense of Texas at last annexed to the United
States, I landed at that place. The day I left Corpus for the
interior, his first division marched for Fort Brown, opposite Mata-
moros.
Reaching Gonzales, I was admitted to partnership with Dr.
C. S. Brown, an uncle of mine, who had more patients than he
could attend. Among them were a number of Germans who had
been sent to Texas by certain noblemen.1 It was a year of phe-
nomenal humidity, and like all such in Texas very sickly. The
flux, commonly so-called both then and now, proved epidemic
among the emigrants. They fell before the disease like cattle
with the murrain. Great demoralization existed among them, and
there was much suffering. There were deaths beside the highways
and deaths in the wagons. Death, death, death was everywhere,
without nursing or any of the attentions that, as a rule, are shown
the sick. Whole families perished. They could not speak Eng-
lish, and we could not speak German. Moreover, the native Ameri-
cans were down with congestive and other fevers, as well as flux,
all over the thinly settled country. I had myself a sharp turn of
malarious fever, but prompt treatment relieved me.
About this time-in April, I think2-Captain Ben McCulloch
came in great haste from General Taylor with a requisition on the
governor of Texas for two regiments3 of mounted volunteers, and
with authority also to raise a company of scouts to serve under
his personal orders. I joined this company, which was ranked A
in Colonel Jack Hays's Western regiment, and served six months,
when I was honorably discharged at Camargo.
Our service was sometimes arduous. We always went light,
'The Adelsverein, represented in Texas by Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels,
the founder of New Braunfels.-EDITOR QUARTERLY.
2Taylor's requisition was despatched from near Matamoras, April 26.
See House Eoece. Docs., 30th Cong., 1st sess., Doc. 60, p. 288-EDITon QUAR-
TERLY.
8The requisition called for two mounted regiments and two to serve on
foot. Ibid.-EDITOR QUARTERLY.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 12, July 1908 - April, 1909, periodical, 1909; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101048/m1/342/: accessed May 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.