Post by stuart on Sept 11, 2021 7:15:59 GMT -5
Far away from Texas, in a small South Wales church, there is a memorial to Major General Edward Edwards of Britain’s East India Company, who “…lost his life at San Antonio de Bexaz [sic] in Texas North America, on the 6th March, 1836.” In reality, there was never an Alamo defender named Edward Edwards and he was not a major general; that was simply a faux pas, a routine promotion promulgated before his death was legally confirmed in 1841. Nevertheless, Edwards certainly existed and his death. not at the Alamo, but in company with that enigmatic Scotsman, Dr James Grant, throws light on an unexpected dimension to the Texas Revolution.
Edward Edwards certainly did not fit the general profile of Grant’s filibusters. Most of them were young and footloose adventurers from the United States, while Edwards was all of 56 years old, having been born in Glamorgan, Wales, in January 1779. Entering the East India Company service in 1797, by the 1830s he was a very experienced senior officer who had served in the First and Second Maratha Wars in India in 1803-4 and 1817-18 before attaining the command of his own regiment, the 38th Madras Native Infantry. After 32 years in the service he went home on a three-year furlough, but when it was over, instead of returning to India, he made two visits to America, supposedly to meet with relatives and look at investment opportunities. However, the last contact his family had with him was a letter from Monterrey, dated September 22, 1835; little more than a month before James Grant had made his escape from that place.
General Urrea’s diary simply records that on February 18, the day he marched northwards from Matamoros, two “foreigners” were captured at Rancho Viejo while spying on his forces. This was just 27 miles down the Atascosita road from Grant’s camp at Santa Rosa and while nothing more was said of their fate, the diary entry corresponds with Daniel J. Toler’s assertion to James Ogilvie in January 1839 that Colonel Edward Edwards and Juan Jose Delgado were killed “by Mexicans or Indians… about the 20 Feby 1836.”