Texian Army The Texian Army was a military organization consisting of volunteer and regular soldiers who fought against the Mexican army during the Texas Revolution . Approximately 3 , 700 men joined the army between October 2 , 1835 during the Battle of Gonzales through the end of the war on April 21 , 1836 , at the Battle of San Jacinto . Structure . The structure of the Texian Army was relatively fluid . Originally , it was composed entirely of volunteers or militia , who came and went at will . To become an officer , a man must simply have had enough money or charisma to convince others to serve under him . In the first half of the Texas Revolution , many of the units and individual volunteers came from the United States . Among the units these American volunteers populated were the Kentucky Mustangs , Alabama Red Rovers , Tennessee Mounted Volunteers , Mobile Greys , Mississippi Marauders and New Orleans Greys . By the end of the war , the army had grown to include three distinct divisions . Members of the regular army enlisted for two years and were subject to army discipline and the army ' s chain of command . A squad of permanent volunteers enlisted for the duration of the war . This group was permitted to elect its own officers , outside the oversight of the army commander - in - chief . Most of the men who joined the permanent volunteers had settled in Texas before the war had begun , both Tejano and Texan . The last unit was the volunteer auxiliary corps , comprising primarily recent arrivals from the United States who officially enlisted for a six - month term . On November 24 , 1835 , the Texas provisional government authorized the creation of ranging companies of rifleman . Robert " Three - legged Willie " Williamson was asked to raise three of these companies with 56 men each . Rangers were to be paid $ 1 . 25 per day . Demographics . About 1 , 500 recruits came from the United States during the time of the revolution . A majority of the men who joined the army had arrived from the United States after war broke out . Not all of these additions were American citizens ; many were recent immigrants from Europe who were seeking adventure and potential riches in Texas . Residents of Texas also joined , but played their largest roles at the beginning and end of the revolution . Through the course of the Texas Revolution , one in seven of the English - speaking settlers in Texas joined the army . One in three adult male Tejano s , that is , Spanish - speaking settlers in Texas , joined the army . History . Origination . When Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821 , the former Spanish province of Texas became part of the Mexican state Coahuila y Tejas . Many of the people who lived in Texas , which had included the land north of the Medina and the Nueces Rivers , northeast of the Rio Grande , west of San Antonio de Bexar , and east of the Sabine River , wished to be a separate state again . For the first time , the government of Texas encouraged immigrants from the United States to settle its lands . By 1834 , an estimated 30 , 000 English speakers lived in Texas , compared to only 7 , 800 of Spanish heritage . The bankrupt Mexican government was unable to offer Texas much military support . Many of the settlements had created small militias to protect themselves against raids by Indian tribes . Under President Antonio López de Santa Anna the government of Mexico began to drift towards a more centralist form . In 1835 Santa Anna revoked the Constitution of 1824 and began reigning as a dictator . In various parts of the country federalists revolted . In September 1835 , Colonel Domingo Ugartechea , the military commander of the Mexican forces at San Antonio de Bexar set troops to recover a small cannon that had been given to the people of Gonzales for protection . When the Mexican troops , under Lieutenant Francisco de Castañeda reached Gonzales , the head of the local militia , Captain Albert Martin , convinced the troops to wait for several days . Martin then sent messengers to other English - speaking settlements , asking for reinforcements to help protect the cannon . Within several days militia s from Fayette and Columbus arrived . In Gonzales , the forces combined to form a single force . The militiamen held an election and chose John Henry Moore as their captain , Joseph Washington Elliot Wallace as a lieutenant colonel , and Edward Burleson as major . The first military action taken by the new army was the Battle of Gonzales on October 2 , 1835 . After a skirmish , the Mexican troops withdrew to San Antonio , leaving the cannon with the Texians . After the battle ended , disgruntled colonists continued to assemble in Gonzales , eager to put a decisive end to Mexican control over the area . Within a week , the men had taken the Mexican post at Goliad . On October 11 the disorganized volunteers elected Stephen F . Austin , who had settled the first English - speaking colonists in Texas , as their commander - in - chief . Austin had no previous military experience . Offensive maneuvers ( October – December 1835 ) . Several days after Austin took command , the army marched towards Bexar to confront General Martin Perfecto de Cos , who had recently arrived to command the remaining Mexican troops in Texas . Restructuring ( December 1835 – February 1836 ) . The regular division of the Army was officially established on December 12 . Any man who enlisted in the regular division would receive $ 24 in cash , the rights to of land , and instant Texan citizenship . Those who joined the volunteer auxiliary corps would receive of land if they served two years , while those who served 1 year would receive . A month later the establishment of a Legion of Cavalry would be authorized . The commander of the regular forces , Sam Houston , called for 5 , 000 men to enlist in the regular army but had difficulty convincing men to join . Many of the arrivals from the United States did not want to be under a more strict military control , and instead informally joined the volunteer units that had gathered in other parts of Texas . These volunteer soldiers were in many cases more impassioned than the Texas settlers . Although the provisional Texas government was still debating whether the troops were fighting for independence or for separate statehood , on December 20 , 1835 , the Texian garrison at Goliad voted unanimously to issue a proclamation of independence , stating " that the former province and department of Texas is , and of right ought to be , a free , sovereign and independent state " . The provisional government had originally placed Houston in charge of the regular forces , but in December the council gave secret orders to James Fannin , Frank W . Johnson , and Dr . James Grant to prepare forces to invade Mexico . Houston was then ordered to travel to East Texas to broker a treaty that would allow the Cherokee to remain neutral in the conflict . Johnson and Grant gathered 300 of the 400 men garrisoned in Bexar and left to prepare for the invasion . The government was woefully short of funds . On January 6 , 1836 , Colonel James C . Neill , commander of the remaining 100 troops in Bexar , wrote to the council : " there has ever been a dollar here I have no knowledge of it . The clothing sent here by the aid and patriotic exertions of the honorable Council , was taken from us by arbitrary measures of Johnson and Grant , taken from men who endured all the hardships of winter and who were not even sufficiently clad for summer , many of them having but one blanket and one shirt , and what was intended for them given away to men some of whom had not been in the army more than four days , and many not exceeding two weeks . " For the next several months it was unclear who was in charge of the Texian army — Fannin , Johnson , Grant , or Houston . On January 10 , Johnson issued a call to form a Federal Volunteer Army of Texas which would march on Matamoros during the Matamoros Expedition . Defensive maneuvers ( March – April 1836 ) . The Mexican army returned to Texas in February and initiated a siege of the garrison in San Antonio on February 23 . The commander at the Alamo , William B . Travis , sent numerous letters to the Texan settlements , begging for reinforcements . Men began to gather in Gonzales to prepare to reinforce the garrison . Before they left , the Mexican army launched the Battle of the Alamo , and all of the Texian soldiers who had been stationed in Bexar were killed . This left two branches of the Texian Army : Fannin ' s 400 men at Goliad and Neill ' s 400 men at Gonzales , who soon reported to Houston . On hearing the news of the massacre at the Alamo , Houston ordered his army to retreat and burned the town of Gonzales as they left . He ordered Fannin to bring his men and join the rest of the army . Fannin ' s force was defeated at the Battle of Coleto Creek , and on March 27 Fannin and his men were executed at the Goliad Massacre . A few soldiers escaped , and 80 soldiers who had just arrived from the United States and had no weapons were spared . As news spread of the defeats at the Alamo and Goliad , men flocked to the Texian army . By early April , Houston commanded about 800 men . The Texas Revolution essentially ended on April 21 , when the Texian Army routed a Mexican force and captured Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto . For six months David G . Burnet , ad interim President of the Republic , had diligently maintained the army laws set forth by the Consultation in December 1835 . The 1835 - 1836 Regular Army of Texas would never consist of more than 100 soldiers and would never approach the Consultation ' s number goal of 560 infantry , 560 artillery and 384 cavalry , in the permanent " Regular Army " of Texas . However , the goal of independence was achieved , nonetheless . Uniforms and equipment . Neither the regular nor volunteer components of the Texian Army were issued specific uniforms . Several of the companies that formed in the United States , including the New Orleans Greys , purchased US Army surplus uniforms before they arrived . Other companies had more loosely - defined " uniforms " , such as wearing matching hunting shirts . Texian volunteer Noah Smithwick wrote a description of the volunteer army as it looked in October 1835 : Words are inadequate to convey an impression of the appearance of the first Texas army as it formed in marching order . . . . Buckskin breeches were the nearest approach to uniform and there was wide diversity even there , some of them being new and soft and yellow , while others , from long familiarity with rain and grease and dirt , had become hard and black and shiny . . . . Boots being an unknown quantity , some wore shoes and some moccasins . Here a broad brimmed sombrero overshadowed the military cap at its side ; there , a tall “ beegum ” rode familiarly beside a coonskin cap , with the tail hanging down behind , as all well regulated tails should do . . . here a bulky roll of bed quilts jostled a pair of “ store ” blankets ; there the shaggy brown buffalo robe contrasted with a gaily colored checkered counterpane on which the manufacturer had lavished all the skill of dye and weave known to art . . . in lieu of a canteen , each man carried a Spanish gourd . . . Here a big American horse loomed above the nimble Spanish pony , there a half - broke mustang pranced beside a sober methodical mule . A fantastic military array to a casual observer , but the one great purpose animating every heart clothed us in a uniform more perfect in our eyes than was ever donned by regulars on dress parade . Notes . After gaining independence the Texian Army would be officially known as the Army of the Republic of Texas . In 1846 , after the annexation of Texas by the United States , the Army of the Republic of Texas merged with the US Army .