Augustus William Magee (also McGee); (1789 – February 6, 1813) was a U.S. Army lieutenant and later a military filibuster who led the Gutiérrez–Magee Expedition into Spanish Texas in 1812.[1]
Augustus Magee was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He was the son of James and Margaret (Elliot) Magee. His father, a native of County Down, Ireland, settled in New York before moving to Boston and was a privateer captain in the American Revolution and following independence was one of the leading merchants in the China trade. He graduated from West Point. Magee served as an artillery officer under then-lieutenant colonel Zebulon Pike at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and then at Fort Claiborne in Natchitoches, La. 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. Magee was recommended for promotion to a higher rank, but his promotion was denied, likely due to his connection with his uncle, Thomas H. Perkins, a political opponent of the Madison Administration.[2]
Magee resigned his commission on June 22,1812 and joineed Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara's effort to support the Mexican War of Independence via an invasion of Spanish Texas from American soil. This action was in violation of the Neutrality Act. The Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition, which followed, was recruited from mostly American frontiersmen and French creoles of Louisiana. Some participants had been among the Neutral Ground "banditt" that Magee had chastized in 1810 and early in 1812. Magee took the rank of colonel alongside Gutiérrez.
Leaving Natchitoches with 130 men on August 2, 1812, the group crossed the Sabine six days later, officially restarting the revolution in Texas had begun with a revolt in San Antonio a year before under Juan Bautista de las Casas. On August 11th, the force entered Nacogdoches. The army, now swollen to about 300 soldiers, occupied Santísima Trinidad de Salcedo (now Trinidad, Texas) on the Trinity River, in mid-September. It was here that Magee became ill, likely from consumption. The papers of Mirabeau Lamar preserve a rumor that Magee was poisoned by his own men, many of whom were among those he had previously mistreated during his former command, but the length of his illness makes this unlikely.
The army next moved on San Antonio, but after Magee learned of a planned Spanish ambush along the Guadalupe River, he moved his force Southeast and seized the Presidio Nuestra Señora de Loreto de la Bahía in what is now Goliad, Texas. Here, his force was beseiged by the Spanish army. Magee, believing the rebel cause was untenable, sought to parlay with the Spaniards. The terms they provided - that the Americans retreat, but leave native Mexican rebels too the Spaniards' punishment, were disavowed by his troops. Magee then retreated to his quarters, and due to his growing illness, never again commanded the army and passed away on February 6, 1812. He was succeeded as commander of the expedition by Samuel Kemper, who successfully ended the siege by the Royalists the following month.