by Bartee Haile

“Immortality!  God!  The soul!  What does all this mean?” Don Manuel de Mier y Teran asked a friend in a letter on Jul. 2, 1832.  The presidency of Mexico was within his reach, but the tortured general was preoccupied with thoughts of suicide.

Gen. Mier y Teran stood head and shoulders above his corrupt contemporaries.  Respected by the majority of his countrymen as the only honest leader in their troubled land, he was also the only Mexican official the Texas colon...