It has often been said that the army Santa Anna brought into Texas to quell the Texian and Tejano uprising was a quickly raised conscript force comprised of peons and convicts. Academic and lay historians alike have often cast serious doubts about the true military nature of Santa Anna's Army. Like most stereotypes, this assessment of the Mexican Army of the North is far from accurate, as several eyewitness accounts will confirm.

William D. Redd observed the Mexican Army at Goliad in the days that following the Texican victory at San Jacinto. General Thomas Rusk and the Texian Army were at Victoria moving west to insure that General Filisola and the Mexican Army were retreating toward the Rio Grande. Redd was sent to carry a dispatch to the Mexican commander and had an opportunity to see this Mexican Army first hand and, as luck would have it, perform a Divisional level dress parade.

My attention was now diverted from the subject of conversation, by the sound of music - The General (Tolsa) observing this: invited me to walk where we would have a better opportunity of listening to the band. The music was good; it was the largest and most accomplished band of Martial Music that I ever witnessed. The division was on parade, they were drilled by Battalion. They drill handsomely, performed their evolutions with great precision, but much after the old English style, they shoulder arms, something like a weary Hunter carried his gun, carelessly thrown across his shoulder, a position which is not as uniform, nor handsome but the difference felt by the performer more than preponderates the difference in beauty (Ease forever in an army of operations).

Redd had observed what would have been elements of the Mexican Army after they had already retreated from the Brazos River. These would have included the Infantry Battalions Morelos, Guadalarja, Guanajuato and the First Active Mexico City.

A full account of this is given in Vol. 1, The Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar (edited by Charles Adams Gulick Jr, Austin, pp. 387 - 394, 1921.

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