The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 41, July 1937 - April, 1938 Page: 167

An Episode of General David E. Twiggs

AN EPISODE IN THE TEXAS CAREER OF GENERAL
DAVID E. TWIGGS
The document below is offered for publication in The South-
western Historical Quarterly partly because of the names therein
mentioned of officers then serving in Texas who were soon to
become famous in the Civil War and partly for the light it throws
on General David E. Twiggs. He is best remembered as the officer
who surrendered the military posts and other property of the
United States Army in Texas to the hastily mobilized State forces
under Colonel Ben McCulloch in February, 1861, and was soon
afterwards dismissed from the Army by order of President James
Buchanan "for treachery to the flag of his country."
David E. Twiggs was born in Georgia in 1790. He was ap-
pointed Captain in the 8th U. S. Infantry on March 12, 1812, and
Major in the 28th Infantry, September 21, 1814. Disbanded on
June 15, 1815, he was reinstated as Captain in the 7th Infantry
on December 2, 1815. He became Major in the 1st Infantry, May
14, 1825, Lieutenant Colonel, 4th Infantry, July 15, 1831, Colonel
of the 2nd Dragoons, June 8, 1836, Brigadier General on June 30,
1846, and brevet Major General on September 23, 1846. He had
served in the War of 1812, in the Black Hawk and Seminole
wars, and in the War with Mexico.
His first connection with Texas was in the spring of 1844 when
his 2nd Dragoons and two regiments of infantry were sent to Fort
Jesup near the Sabine in Louisiana to watch affairs on the eastern
boundary of the Republic. In August, 1845, after the Texas Con-
vention had agreed to the terms of annexation, he was in the
little force which, under General Zachary Taylor, was sent to
Corpus Christi as the "Army of Occupation." While the small
force of Taylor was being increased in anticipation of trouble,
Colonel Twiggs engaged in a hot dispute with Colonel W. J.
Worth, brevet Brigadier General, over their relative rank, a con-
troversy that nearly wrecked the effectiveness of the little army.
Twiggs and Worth, however, served together in all the major
campaigns of the War with Mexico, first with Taylor from Palo
Alto to Buena Vista, and later with General Winfield Scott in
his victorious march from Vera Cruz to the City of Mexico. It

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