Corpus Christi

We have learned with pleasure by those who have lately arrived from the West, that the troops at Corpus Christi continue to enjoy excellent health, and are generally pleased with their new post.  Extensive entrenchments have been made by Gen. Taylor around the old Fort of Col. Kinney, which has been purchased for the U. S. Government, and the post is now so well fortified, that a thousand American troops could resist effectually, a force of ten thousand Mexicans.  We learn Gen. Taylor has displayed remarkable energy and military skill in forming these fortifications.  It is said that they were finished with so much rapidity, that the Mexicans traders who were present the few first days after the landing of the troops, regarded them with as much astonishment as if they had been thrown up by magic.  Four or five hundred men were often employed at the same time, in forming trenches.  The station at Corpus Christi will not probably be retained as a permanent post, owing to the difficulty of  obtaining sufficient good water for the use of an army.  It will be valuable only as a depot for the provisions and military stores intended to be sent to others stations that may hereafter be formed on the frontier.  The main station of the army will probably be made at Lipantitlan, or at an ancient stone building styled Casa Blanca, situated on the Nueces, about thirty miles above Corpus Christi.

 

Source: The Telegraph, Houston, Wednesday, Sept. 24, 1845, p. 3, col. 2

 

Research by:  Msgr. Michael A. Howell

Transcription by: Geraldine D. McGloin, Nueces Count Historical Commission