The Mobile Greys

A tangled aspect of the history of this period, particularly insofar as James Bonham is concerned, is the participation of the Mobile Greys. As most all accounts acknowledge, Bonham helped to recruit the group during October, 1835 in Mobile. But digging a bit deeper it is discovered that in making the trip to Texas, the group apparently split up; one contingent traveling by sea, and the other overland. The overland group, accompanied by James Bonham, arrived at San Felipe near the end of November. where they remained, waiting for word of their comrades. However, most of those who came by sea proceeded to Bexar, reaching there about mid-December, shortly after the battle in which General Cos was expelled. When news of their presence in Bexar reached their fellows in San Felipe, and a reunion was effected in Bexar immediately before Christmas. It was probably Sam Houston himself who asked James Bonham to accompany the San Felipe contingent to Bexar, where the Greys were reunited. This would account for Bonham's presence in Bexar at the end of December when he wrote to Sam Houston saying ".... I leave for La Bahia immediately ...". By then, a newly commissioned officer in the regular army of Texas, he was most likely responding to orders to escort the reunited Greys and other units to the fortress at Goliad to participate in what Sam Houston expected to be a general mobilization. That he made the trip was also confirmed by the recollections of R. R. Brown which were published in the Texas Almanac for 1859.

The fact of an almost contemporaneous announcement appearing in the Brazoria newspaper (January 2'nd and 3'rd) announcing his intent to open a law office there should not be taken as proof of Jim's presence in Brazoria. It merely confirms that his plans, no doubt made earlier in the month of December, had been overtaken by events. These movements of Bonham, considered in light of his direct correspondence with Houston, and Houston's remark later in January that Bonham ought to be a major, suggest that Bonham's recruiting duties may well have expanded into his being Houston's agent in trying to hold together a deteriorating situation among the volunteers at the frontier.