On June 22, 1831, he received the title to a parcel of land near the Zumwalt Settlement, southwest of current Hallettsville, Texas.

On February 1, 1836, he and John Fisher were elected delegates from Gonzales to the Texas Independence Convention of 1836 at Washington on the Brazos.

[4] The convention appointed a committee of three, of which Caldwell was a member, to assess the situation of the enemy on the frontier and the condition of the Texian army.

Of the twenty-three original members mustered into the Gonzales Ranger Company on the 23rd, a total of twelve are thought to have entered the Alamo with the final Relief Force on March 1, and all but one died there.

[7] Lockhart, Sowell, John William Smith and others accompanied the thirty-two Rangers into the Alamo and later departed, at night, as other couriers left.

At three o'clock, in the early hours of March 1, they made a wild dash into the fort while shot at by Alamo sentries.

One man was slightly wounded, and after a few rash words, the Alamo gates flew open for the Gonzales force to enter.

[12] City Founders In 1838, he and his fellow rangers founded the town of Walnut Branch in sparsely-populated northwest Gonzales County.

In October that year, Native Americans raided the town, and stole two young women and some children, The rangers pursued the group, but could not catch them.

On March 29, 1839, a company of eighty men commanded by General Edward Burleson defeated Vicente Córdova and his rebels during a fight near Seguin, Texas, at "Battleground Prairie".

Córdova survived but was pursued by Caldwell's Rangers and Seguin militia and then joined by members of the Henry Karnes company, ensuring his departure from Texas.

Gray, Thomas Grubbs, Frederick W. Happle, Everett H. Harris, Vaughter Henderson, David Henson, John S. Hodges, Maury Irvin, E. R. Jones, William H. Killin, Henry B.

Swift, T. W. Symonds, Nathan Wadkins, Isaac Wallace, John D. Wolfin 1840s defense and imprisonment Native Americans continued to plague the new republic, and in March, Caldwell participated in a meeting to trade captives with the Comanches.

As captain of Company D of the scouting force in the Texan Santa Fe Expedition in 1841, he was captured with other members and imprisoned in Mexico.

On September 18, 1842, Caldwell commanded a force of 200 men from Gonzales, Seguin, San Antonio and other near settlements, confronting and defeating General Adrián Woll, at the battle of Salado Creek.