3
The Beginni11-gs of Revolution in Texas, 1810-1812
for a blow that would crush the Revolution. He dispatched messengers to inform Governor Cordero at Saltillo of his plan to entrap Jimenez. Cordero was to advance south upon the forces of Jimenez while Briga- dier General Felix Calleja was to march north to meet him. Before Cordero could execute the movement, however, sedition had made deep inroads among his men, recently swollen to more than two thousand by volunteers from Nuevo Santander. Aware of the disaffection in the Royalist ranks, Jimenez wrote letters to five of Cordero's captains inviting them to join him. At the same time he formally invited Cordero himself to surrender so as to avoid sacrificing his troops uselessly. But Cordero's loyalty could not be shaken. Unaware of the weakened morale of his men, he disdainfully spurned the suggestion and ordered his troops to march from Saltillo to give battle to the upstart. Much to his chagrin and surprise, his entire force joined the ranks of the rebels, whom they met at Aguanueva on January 6, 1811. Cordero was astounded when he became a prisoner of war amidst general rejoicing.' The success of the Revolutionists in Nuevo Santander and in Coahuila, together with the active work of the Gutierrez brothers and other en- thusiastic patriots, brought Nuevo Leon into the fold. The Governor in Monterrey, realizing perhaps the futility of trying to stem the tide, took the initiative. The revolutionary wave had swept everything before it from San Luis Potosi to Monterrey. Between the Revolutionists and the liberal, liberty-loving Anglo-Americans, from whom they hoped to get aid, lay only Texas. Jimenez now established his headquarters at Saltillo, and directed all his attention to winning the settlements along the Rio Grande and in Texas. 5 Father Jose Antonio Gutierrez was among the first to offer his per- sonal services to General Jimenez. Realizing the influence of his new collaborator because of his priestly character, Jimenez commissioned him to incite to revolution the five cities along the Rio Grande: Laredo, Revilla, Mier, Camargo, and Reynosa. The work of the Jimenez agents in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, headed by Father Jose Antonio Gu- tierrez, was so successful that the fugitive Governor of Nuevo Santander wrote Viceroy Venegas in February, 1811, that "revolution and terror rage in the settlements along the Rio Grande."' 'Julia Kathryn Garrett, Gr,111 Flar 011,r T1%a.r, 34·35; Frederick Chabot, T,,:a, m 1811, Yanaguana Society Publications, VI, 23-24. 1 "The Trial of Father Juan Salazar," A.G.M., HiJtorill, /ffd1;1ffdu,,J1s, Vol. 412. 'Garrett, q,J. cit., 3 5.
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