Title: Fifty miles and a fight : Major Samuel Peter Heintzelman's journal of Texas and the Cortina war /
Authors: Heintzelman, Samuel Peter, 1805-1880.; Thompson, Jerry D.; University of Texas at Austin.
Publisher: Texas State Historical Association,
Year: 1998
Subjects: Cortina, Juan N.; Heintzelman, Samuel Peter, Diaries.; Soldiers Texas Diaries.; Lower Rio Grande Valley (Tex.) History.; Mexican-American Border Region History.
Abstract: Fifty Miles and a Fight: Major Samuel Peter Heintzelman's Journal of Texas and the Cortina War, a rare and dramatic firsthand account of one of the most volatile and traumatic events in the long history of Texas - the Cortina War - chronicles the day-to-day activities of one of the most cultured, dedicated, and well-respected (although often vain) officers of the antebellum frontier army. It was while Heintzelman was at Camp Verde, Texas, on September 28, 1859, that a daring thirty-five-year-old illiterate ranchero named Juan Nepomuceno Cortina sent shockwaves throughout Texas by brazenly leading some seventy-five angry raiders into the dung-splattered streets of Brownsville.