The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 43, July 1939 - April, 1940 Page: 486

A LETTER BOOK OF JOSEPH EVE, UNITED STATES
CHARGE D'AFFAIRES TO TEXAS
J OSEP I MILTON NANCE
PART III
JOSEPH EVE TO JAMES FRANKLIN BALLINGER"5
Galveston April 26th 1842
Dear Frank
I received a letter from you about the 15th of October and
answered it on the 19th of that month I have not heard from
you since, You have no doubt seen in the news papers, the
bloody war carried on upon paper between Mexico and Texas, or
rather between San Ta Ana and Genrl Houston, in endeavouring
to bluff each other off, I think that Houston has braged higher
than San Ta Ana, Houston promising to raise the single Star
of Texas at the Isthmus of Darien, while the Mexican Dictator
promises to wave his flag upon the bank of the Sabine. The
Mexicans did about the 4th, of March take San Antonio con-
taining a population of 3000 Souls mostly however lklexicans,
and after plundering every thing that belonged to the American
citizens, retreated precipitately across the Rio Grande,
Genrl. Burleson57 the Vice President of Texas, and a brave
patriotic man, pursued them with about 1000 volunteers, untill
he was overtaken by orders from Genrl, Houston not to cross
the Rio Grande, and appointing Genrl, Somerville"8 commander
.MJames Franklin Ballinger, son of Richard and Elizabeth (Jennings)
Ballinger and brother-in-law of Joseph Eve, was a representative in the
lower house of the Kentucky legislature from Knox County in 1819. He
was the father of William Pitt Ballinger, a prominent Texas lawyer. Bal-
linger Genealogy; Collins, History of Kentucky, II, 455.
'7Edward Burleson (Dec. 15, 1798-Dec. 26, 1851) was born in Buncombe
County, North Carolina. After residing for some time in Tennessee and
Missouri and having become a militia colonel, he visited Texas in 1830,
moving there the following year. He took an active part in the Texas
Revolution; served as a Senator in the first Texas Congress; became
colonel of a regiment in the Cherokee War, 1840; elected vice-president
of Texas in 1841; and participated in the Mexican War, 1846-1848. Dic-
tionary of American Biography, III, 286-87.
5sAlexander Somervell, a native of Maryland, who emigrated to Louisi-
ana, Missouri, and, finally, to Texas in 1833, took an active part in the
Texas Revolution. After having served in the army as a major in 1835,
a lieutenant-colonel in 1836, and as general of the first brigade of the
Texan militia, he was appointed in the spring of 1842 comma under of the
army to expel the Mexican forces that had invaded Texas. He was acci-
dentally drowned in January, 1854. D. W. C. Baker (comp.), A Texas
Scrap Book Made up of the History, Biography and Miscellany of Texas
and its People. New York, etc. (A. S. Barnes and Company, [1874].
P. 277.
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