Welcome to the Republic of the Rio Grande.

Episode 13, The Battle of Morelos.

I'm Brandon Seal.

When Antonio Zapata rode out of the Federalist camp on March 22nd, 1840, his nominal commander kept his cool.

That commander, the so-called brush fox, Antonio Canales, knew that Antonio Zapata was impulsive.

It's part of what made Zapata such a great battlefield commander.

Of course, the Brush Fox, Canales, also realized that he couldn't

rightly punish Zapata, who held a nearly totemic power over his troops and frankly over Canales himself.

According to a contemporary, quote, Canales was afraid to move without having Zapata with him.

Canales seemed to desire Zapata's presence,

if only for his own personal protection." But there was good reason for this.

Zapata's presence might very well have been the only thing keeping Canales's little

federalist insurgency alive. At the end of 1839, Canales's forces had been nearly annihilated outside of Monterey

for the second time in six months, saved this time only by the valor of Zapata and his 200-man

rearguard in a multi-day running battle against Centralist General Mariano Arista's 2,000 men pursuing

force. Then, after buying Canales in the bulk of the Federalist

Army the time they needed to make it back to the Rio Grande, it fell once again on Zapata to fend off

Arista's centralists for another month, while Canales and the political leadership of the

Northeastern Federalist Revolted, and organized a political strategy.

That month had been fruitful. It yielded the formation of an insurgent government to rival the hated centralist regime in Mexico City. Yet this new federalist government of the northern

border was really a government in name only. It had no money, no diplomatic recognition,

and increasingly, it had no territory it could legitimately claim to control. By February 18th, 1840, Zapata and Canales were

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