WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1837
67
held in the County of Gonzales for a Representative in Congress to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of the Honbl. William S. Fisher:: And be it hereby further ordered that the Honbl. B. D. McClure be and is hereby directed and commanded to hold the said election for a representative in Congress on the day above named. And the said B. D. McClure Chief Justice of the County of Gonzales is hereby directed and commanded to appoint the Judges and Clerks for each precinct who shall be qualified by him or some other Justice of the Peace for said County The returns from each precinct is to be made by the Judges thereof to the said B. D. McClure 3 within four days after the election Done at Columbia this 11th day of March 1837 and of the Independence of Texas the Second [SEAL] Sam Houston J. Pinckney Henderson Sec. State [Endorsed] : Proclamation ordering an election of Representa- tive in Congress Gonzales 11th March 1837 Recorded page 8 Examined 1 Proclamations of the P.residents, Republic of Texas; also, Docziment.s under the Great Seal, Reco1·d Book, No. 97, 9, Texas State Library. :!William S. Fisher was a native of Virginia who came to Texas in 1834 and settled in DeWitt's colony in the village of Gonzales. In 1835 he was elected to represent Gonzales Municipality at the Consultation. On account of pressing business-private and public-he did not join the revolutionary army till the massacre at the Alamo had decimated his home town and carried off many of his neighbors. He joined the army -on March 10, 1836, and was constantly in the service until September 27, 1836. He himself organized a company and joined Houston's forces on the Colorado, March 26, 1836. In the army organization this company was designated as Company I of the First Regiment of Texas ·Volunteers. Fisher commanded his com- pany at San Jacinto. During the recess of Congress (December 21, 1836, to May 1, 1837) Houston appointed Fisher to succeed Thomas J. Rusk as Secretary of War. This nomination was never confirmed by the Senate, because they argued that Houston's term would soon expire and his suc- cessor should have the privilege to appoint Rusk's successor. Fisher, how- ever, performed the duties of Secretary of War during the interim. Lamar appointed Barnard E. Bee to the office. But Lamar was not unfriendly to Fisher, and on January 23, 1839, he nominated him to be lieutenant colonel of a frontier regiment of cavalry, the Senate confirming. On March 19, 1840, Fisher was in command of two companies of regulars at San Antonio, at the time the Comanche Chiefs were killed in the so-called Council House fight (see Brown, H·isto·1·y of Texa.s, II, 175; nlso his Jnd-i<m ll'a1·s and Pioneers of Texas, 76), while later in the same year, at the head of 200
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