WARFIELD, CHARLES A.

WARFIELD, CHARLES A. (1799–1883). Charles A. Warfield, state legislator and officer in the Republic of Texas army, was born in 1799, the son of Alexander Warfield. Little is known of his early life. He left Westminister, Carrol County, Maryland, in 1840 and traveled throughout the West, settling in New Mexico. On August 16, 1842, Warfield received a commission from George W. Hockley, Texas secretary of war, to organize an expedition against New Mexico in retaliation for the capture of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition by Mexican troops. His hopes of raising a large force never materialized. By March 1843 he commanded about twenty-five men, primarily hunters and trappers. In May, partly out of frustration, the Warfield expedition attacked a small New Mexican settlement. They killed five Mexican soldiers and took eighteen prisoners and seventy-two horses. Subsequently the prisoners were released. The next day the expedition was attacked by Mexican troops. Warfield escaped, but five of his men were captured. His expedition decided to return to Texas. At the crossing of the Arkansas River, Warfield met the Snively expedition. He led this expedition for a short time after Capt. Jacob Snively's resignation as commander. Upon returning to Texas in 1842, Warfield settled first in Lamar County, where in 1844 he met and married a woman named Hamilton. Four years later the couple moved to Greenville, where he became a successful landowner and a developer of the county seat. His support of the city and his interest in public education led to his election in 1859 as a Democrat to the House of Representatives of the Eighth Texas Legislature. In 1861 he was a delegate to the state's Secession Convention, where he voted for secession. After the Civil War he returned to Westminister to visit his brother. In 1869 he left Maryland for California, where his family had gone before him. There he died in 1883.