James Long
General, U.S. Army Surgeon

James Long was born on 9 February 1793 in Culpeper County, VA.

Long was a U.S. Army surgeon in the War of 1812 who served at the Battle of New Orleans. He married Jane Herbert Dent Wilkinson in 1815 and owned a plantation in Natchez, MS.

Many Americans and French settlers in the American southwest were opposed to the Adams-Onis treaty of 1819 that settled the border dispute between the U.S. and Spain. Long teamed up with José Félix Trespalacios a former Mexican who had fought against Spanish rule in Mexico. They made their first military expedition to Texas in 1819. He attempted to recruit Jean Lafitte and his men, but Lafitte turned him down. Several of Long's recruits were former French soldiers who had started a settlement in Texas, the Champ d'Asile, that Spanish troops crushed in 1818. Long was successful in capturing Nacogdoches, with his followers proclaiming Long the first President of the Republic of Texas, which lasted only one month, and is not affiliated with the Republic of Texas that was the result of the Texas Revolution. However a Spanish expedition routed Long and his followers.

Long led a second unsuccessful expedition from the Bolivar Peninsula the following year bringing his pregnant wife Jane Long and 300 troops. Then his troops seized Presidio La Bahía. He was caught and imprisoned, then shot in Mexico by a guard 6 months later. The shooting was said to be an accident, but there was some evidence that the guard had been hired by José Félix Trespalacios to kill Long.

His widow, Jane Long, claimed to be the first woman of English descent to settle in Texas and gave birth to Mary James Long, the first child born in Texas of English descent, a claim which has been disproved by census records from 1807-26, which show a number of Anglo-American births. Throughout a long winter, she and her children struggled as she waited for her husband's return. At one point, several Karankawa Indians appeared, but Long fired a cannon each day to make them think there was an army stationed there. Finally, during the spring, Long heard of her husband's death. She then, with some friendly travelers, left Texas, hoping to one day return, and she did. She came back in 1820s as a bonafide colonist.

Death and Burial

James Long was killed on 11 May 1822 in Mexico, in a military prison. He is buried at Morton Cemetery in Richmond, TX.