James Peckham Caldwell was adjutant of the Texas army in the Battle of Velasco on June 26, 1832. Wounded there, he was guarding civilians when Texas won independence in the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836. A bosom friend of Stephen F. Austin, Caldwell received a land grant from Mexico in 1824. In the 1830s he had a sugar mill, said to be the first on the Brazos. He married Ann Munson, widow of his friend H.W. Munson, and they had a son and a daughter.