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Quitman's dilemma: War in Texas, worry at Monmouth
 (17th in a series)
In April 1836 in Nacogdoches, Tex., a force of 250 Texans and Mississippians, led by Natchez lawyer and public servant John Quitman, was preparing for a rumored attack by a combined army of thousands of Mexicans and Indians during the Texas Revolution.
Quitman, who led a small force from Natchez to help the Texans win independence from Mexico, was shocked by the fear and panic apparent on the faces of the hundreds of fleeing settlers as they skedaddled east toward Louisiana and the protection of the U.S. military. Separating truth from fiction was hard during those days.
What was confirmed as fact was terrifying. By now it was known that every man at the Alamo in San Antonio in early March had been killed during a horrific onslaught by Mexican leader Santa Anna, whose army outnumbered the Texas force by 9 to 1.
Back in Natchez, news of the fall of the Alamo had arrived late in the month of March. The Texas Revolution had been parlor topic in town for months and everyone knew that Jim Bowie, famous for the Vidalia Sandbar Fight and a local legend, was in the mix. From age six to 13 -- 1802 to 1809 -- Bowie lived with his family on Bushley Bayou in Catahoula Parish. There he learned to hunt, fish, fight and survive. Those years, said one of his brothers, were "the most important part of his childhood" and early manhood.
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