Burned-Out Adventurer Takes Own Life

Dazed, depressed, and at the end of his rope, Samuel W. Jordan wandered the streets of New Orleans on June 22, 1841, looking for a place to die.

Like many volunteers who arrived too late to fight for Lone Star independence, Jordan found life in the peacetime military too tame for his tastes. Resigning his commission as a captain in the Texas Army, he took part in the Rio Grande campaign which gave birth to the short-lived republic of the same name.

Federalist leader Antonio Canales appealed to Texans in 1839 to join the struggle to liberate the northern provinces of Mexico from the dictatorial rule of the centralists, the same enemy they had defeated three years earlier at San Jacinto. To sweeten the deal, Canales offered the Anglo-Americans a fair share of the spoils, $25 a month and a half league of land.

A hundred and twenty-eight Texans under the command of Samuel Jordan and Reuben Ross answered the call. They crossed the border north of Reynosa, linked up with 400 federalists and on Oct. 3, 1839, routed the overconfident centralists at the Battle of Alcantro.

Eager to sever the compromising connection with his foreign friends, Canales furloughed the Texans, who went home in a huff. He created the Republic of the Rio Grande in January 1840 only to be driven into exile two months later by a centralist counterattack.

With the exception of Reuben Ross, who had died in a December duel, the Texas troops rallied around the charismatic Canales. Three hundred Mexicans, 80 Indians, and 140 Anglos led by Jordan mustered at San Patricio in June. In a matter of weeks, the Republic force numbered nearly 1,900 men.

Mariano Arista, the centralist general that had crushed Canales in March, slipped across the Rio Grande in late August with 1,100 seasoned soldiers and four artillery pieces. Worried about his unprotected rear, he doubled back to Matamoros to await the federalist advance.

Meanwhile, Canales sent Jordan and 90 Texans on a risky reconnaissance behind enemy lines. Soon after entering Mexican territory, Jordan received revised orders directing him deep into the dangerous interior. The mysterious way Juan N. Molano materialized with the change of plans aroused the suspicion of the rank and file but not the trusting commander.

At Molano