Augustus Magee

Augustus William Magee (also McGee; 1789 — 6 Feb. 1813) was an U.S. Army lieutenant and filibuster who led an invasion of Spanish Texas in 1812.

Augustus Magee was born in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1809, he graduated third in his class at West Point. He served under Gen. James Wilkinson at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and then at Fort Jessup under general and future president Zachary Taylor. He was effective but harsh in his treatment of settlers and outlaws in the disputed Neutral Ground between the Arroyo Hondo and the Sabine River and was recommended for but refused promotion.

Frustrated with his prospects, he became involved with Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara's plan to support the Mexican War of Independence through an invasion of Texas from American soil. Although this proposal defied the Neutrality Act, Magee resigned his commission and personally recruited many of the soldiers.

Leaving Natchitoches with 130 men on 2 August 1812, now-Colonel Magee crossed the Sabine six days later. On the tenth, he was joined by General Gutiérrez; on the sixteenth, the combined force entered Nacogdoches. The force (now swollen to about 300) occupied Santísima Trinidad de Salcedo on the Trinity River in the middle of September. Here Magee became ill. Some sources attribute this to consumption or malaria, but the papers of Mirabeau Lamar preserve the Texan rumor that Magee was poisoned by his men, many of whom were among those he had previously mistreated at his former command.

Through a long illness, he remained in nominal military command before dying while besieged at the Presidio Nuestra Señora de Loreto de la Bahía in modern Goliad, Texas. He was succeeded in command of the expedition by Samuel Kemper.

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