By Bartee Halie

While on patrol off the Mexican coast on March 20, 1836, the Invincible whipped an enemy man-of-war and seized an American blockade runner on the high seas. All in a day’s work for the Texas Navy.

During the darkest hour of the Lone Star Revolution, Jeremiah Brown put to sea in a converted slave smuggling schooner. As captain of the Invincible, his mission in the aftermath of the Alamo massacre was to keep Mexican vessels bottled up in port and to stop third countries from su...