Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 7, Number 2, May 1997 Page: 76
[68] p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal
Nepomuceno Cortina. Two days after the ball, on November 20, the Guards, numbering
about fifty men under Captain Herbert and his lieutenants John Cunningham Upton, James
H. Bullington, and Reddin S. Hartsfield, left for the Rio Grande. It is quite possible that
they never made it to the subsequent engagements with Cortina, for no record of any
glorious exploits on the border by the Guards seems to have survived. Whether or not they
were involved, Cortina had been effectively defeated before the end of 1859, and the
Guards had certainly returned to the county by the following month, in time for four of the
modern revolvers with which they had been furnished to be stolen. In February 1860, the
state reorganized its militia, eliminating the legal basis for the existence of the Colorado
Guards. In March, the government called for the return of the rest of the precious pistols
for use elsewhere. The now-defunct Guards, perhaps hoping to be enrolled as one of the
new state militia companies, evidently did not comply with the request for several months.
They had paraded in Columbus, in full dress uniform, for the last time in February 1860.
By the time of their last parade, Howal A. Tatum and John Samuel Shropshire had replaced
Bullington and Hartsfield as lieutenants.2
Though the Colorado Guards had expired, the men who had formed the com-
pany remained eager for military action. So did the public at large. In February 1861, one
person wrote the Colorado Citizen to encourage the county to buy arms and ammunition
"in case of invasion by any foe, " adding, to ensure that his request would be taken seriously,
that such weapons would also be useful "in case of a servile insurrection." Shortly after the
secession referendum, Herbert gathered about eighty Colorado County men to go again to
Brownsville, this time to help expel the same United States forces that they had attempted
to help little more than a year earlier. Herbert and his men were slated to leave on March
1, but were not needed after David Emanuel Twiggs surrendered all his troops in Texas,
aswell as their arms and supplies. As the U. S. forces gathered at Indianola for evacuation,
Fort Sumter was attacked and a state of war proclaimed. The Texas Confederates rushed
to form companies to capture the departing, now-enemy, forces. Two companies from
Colorado County, one under Herbert and the other under Upton, sped to Victoria to join
the gathering army, which readily accomplished its mission.3
In the first few months of 1861, Colorado County men organized several new
militia companies. A few days before the attack on Fort Sumter, the recently-organized
2 Colorado Citizen, September 29, 1859, October 27, 1859, November 17, 1859, November 24,
1859, January 28, 1860, February 18, 1860, March 17, 1860, May 5, 1860. The pistols that had been provided
by the state were quite modern, Colt 1851 Navy model, .36 caliber, six-shooters. The Colorado Guards were
dissolved because the law which had allowed their creation was revoked and superseded by another, quite similar
law which was passed on February 14, 1860 (see Gammel, ed., The Laws of Texas 1822-1897, vol. 4, pp. 1483-
1500).
3 Colorado Citizen, February 16, 1861, May 11, 1861; The War of the Rebellion: Official Records
of the Union and Confederate Armies, 128 volumes (Washington: United States War Department, 1880-1901),
series 1, vol. 1, p. 632.
76
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Nesbitt Memorial Library. Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 7, Number 2, May 1997, periodical, May 1997; Columbus, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth151400/m1/4/?q=nesbitt%20memorial%20library%20journal: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Nesbitt Memorial Library.