Henry Perry: Filibuster and Commander of the Republican Army of the North (1785–1817)

Henry Perry, filibuster, and commander of the Republican Army of the North was born in 1785 in Newtown, Connecticut, and raised in nearby Woodbury. He was the son of the Reverend Philo Perry, who had been a doctor before being ordained as an Episcopal clergyman, and Sarah (Benjamin) Perry. Young Henry trained to be a doctor and was thus, after his father and grandfather, a third-generation physician. He had possibly served in the U.S. Army prior to joining the Gutiérrez-Magee expedition at Nacogdoches in 1812. He was among the officers noted by William McLane as the staff corps of the Republican Army on August 20, 1812. He was promoted to major sometime before the battle of Rosillo, where he dueled with a Spanish officer and killed him.

On June 19, 1813, after a Spanish army arrived on the outskirts of San Antonio under command of Lt. Col. Ignacio Elizondo, Republican Army commander Reuben Ross, believing he was the target of an assassination plot, deserted the army. Perry was elected commander of the Republican Army of the North in his place and was promoted to colonel. The army had been showing strains of disaffection between Anglo and Mexican/Tejano contingents at the time, but Perry called an assembly of officers and united them in the face of the imminent danger.

Marching his army out of San Antonio at midnight, Perry surprised Elizondo at the battle of Alazán Creek the next day. During the battle, Perry personally commanded the right wing of the Republican Army. When Elizondo attempted to flank the republican left, Perry reinforced it by taking a company from the center under Capt. James Kenneday. Soon after, learning that the Spanish left had been weakened, he threw his reserves into that part of the battle. Perry, who was far more open-minded about the Mexican-Tejano contingent than his predecessors Reuben Ross and Augustus Magee, later said of them, “the Spaniards (Patriots) were mixed in with the American companies and fought nobly.” Once the Spanish royalists were on the run, Perry sent a contingent of American Indians on horseback to pursue them, which they did with great slaughter. According to expedition chronicler Carlos Beltrán, Ross previously had agreed to compensate them based on the number of scalps they presented. The battle, the only one in the campaign commanded by Perry, was an overwhelming republican victory.

Perry subsequently helped oust the Mexican rebel leader José Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara from his position as head of the revolution in Texas. Anglo volunteers believed Gutiérrez responsible for the murder of Spanish royalist prisoners and felt he lacked courage in battle. Perry met with Miguel Menchaca and José Francisco Ruiz to secure support of Tejano rebels for Gutiérrez’s removal. At a meeting of the Béxar Junta, Perry declared that the American contingent “will never fight again under the command of Bernardo.” Gutiérrez was soon replaced by José Álvarez de Toledo, who took command on August 4.

Shortly thereafter, former Republican Army commander Samuel Kemper returned to Texas and resumed command of the army. Perry apparently agreed without controversy and took the position of quartermaster for the force. Kemper then divided the American volunteer portion of his force into two contingents, the “Washington Volunteers” and the “Madison Volunteers.” Kemper himself took command of the latter and gave command of the former to Perry, whom the Tejanos referred to as “Enrique Peres.”

After learning of a second Spanish army approaching in early August, the Republican Army marched out of San Antonio on August 14, with Perry the designated commander of the march. Four days later, at the battle of Medina on August 18, 1813, the Republican Army was defeated. Perry and others fled to Natchitoches.

Throughout 1814 Perry was involved in attempts to reform the army for another attempt to invade Texas, but with the British invasion of Louisiana, this was abandoned. Perry joined the U.S. Army and served as captain of Battery Number 5 and was mentioned by Gen. Andrew Jackson in his post-battle proclamation. He was discharged on June 15, 1815.

The next month, Perry joined a scheme under Juan Pablo Anaya in New Orleans to lead another filibuster into Texas. Perry, allegedly aided by sympathetic army officers, stole 600 muskets from army stockpiles in the city. He was joined in the effort by his former predecessor in command, Reuben Ross, who ventured to Texas to recruit American Indian allies for Perry and Anaya’s effort, as well as a new American volunteer for the Mexican cause, Juan Davis Bradburn. Perry advertised his effort in local newspapers and wrote, “The favorable moment has at length arrived for making a successful attempt in favour of the patriots of New Spain.” He promised his followers, “The enterprise offers an easy road to distinction, and promises a glorious reward for merit.”

This open recruiting inside the United States was in violation of the Neutrality Act, and on September 1, 1815, President James Madison had to issue a proclamation against filibustering. Perry assembled 300 volunteers at Belle Isle, near the mouth of the Atchafalaya River, but remained without funds to sail to Copano Bay. He secured a small vessel in November to ferry his troops to Galveston Bay, where they set up camp on what is now called Bolivar Peninsula. On a second voyage, the schooner foundered at the entrance to Galveston Bay and sixty men drowned. Perry ordered his men inland to a wooded eminence (known as Perry's Point through 1830) overlooking the mouth of the Trinity River below the site of modern Anahuac.

About March 1816 Perry abandoned the point and joined Luis Michel Aury on Galveston Island. Perry commanded the Anglo-Americans until the arrival of Francisco Xavier Mina in November 1816; he and his men then served under Col. Guilford Dudley Young, a veteran of the War of 1812. Perry left with the Mina expedition for Soto la Marina, Tamaulipas, on April 7, 1817. After Mina captured Soto la Marina, the force was attacked by Spanish troops. Perry pursued some Spanish infantry with 100 men but was attacked by a Spanish cavalry force of 350. He drove them back, but upon returning to the city, fell into a feud with Mina. Perry became convinced that Mina would ultimately fail and was disturbed that Texas had not been cleared of royalists. Guided by Manuel Costillo of Camargo, he led forty-three men overland for Texas. On June 18, 1817, they reached La Bahía, where Perry demanded that Juan Ignacio Pérez surrender the garrison. When the royalists refused and prepared to attack, Perry and his men fled northeastward. On June 19 the royalist army surrounded them in a nearby wood, where most were killed or wounded. Perry was wounded but refused to surrender, preferring death by his own hand.