"...understandable, and his divisions diverted west towards Dallas from Texarkana rather than towards Little Rock, the initial target of his campaign. By January 13th, American forces were on the Trinity River, and on January 15th they seized Dallas and Forth Worth one day later. The key rail and manufacturing center of Texas and, increasingly, the Trans-Mississippi was now out of Confederate hands, despite a spirited defense and urban guerilla fighting. Whatever Ferguson's position with the Texan populace had been before, it was only more thoroughly eroded now.
It did not help the position of the Ferguson faction that their demands for tens of thousands of Confederate troops to stream into Texas was done to capture Laredo from the decamped legislature and their allies, rather than expel American forces from the belt of cities they controlled across the north of the state. Despite the fall of Dallas, the logistical capability of punching deeper into Texas was strained and Philadelphia ordered a consolidation rather than further offensives to focus on their primary targets in Georgia and Virginia over the year ahead; the Dallas Campaign was the last major action of the war on Texan soil by American forces other than minor skirmishes with Texas Rangers and the State Militia. As such, Texans with little to no love for the United States were witnessing their Governor turning the Confederate Army into just as much of an army of occupation as the Yankee one, aimed against their fellow citizens for daring to defy him as was their constitutional prerogative. Defections to the "Laredo Legislature" by Militiamen and Rangers as well as veterans of the various fronts in the east picked up dramatically in the first part of the new year and it looked like Texas was ready to tip into all-out civil war even as the Great American War raged in the East.
The Laredo Legislature found itself also with a curious amount of support. Foreign governments were confused and intrigued by such a mundane dispute in Austin turning violent and forcing the government to rupture into two armed camps on opposite sides of the state, threatening a civil conflict on Texan soil, and more than a few saw their own potential advantages in the chaos. Mexico's new Reyes regime provided encouragement and even supplies, having been grievously offended by the behavior of Ferguson towards their retreating forces during the chaotic weeks of late October and early November. It helped, of course, that Tejanos were among the group least endeared to the Ferguson administration or his Vardamanite allies in Richmond, and also the Texans upon whom Garner had built his political base. The deterioration of Mexican-Confederate relations and violence thereafter had thus badly polarized Tejanos against Austin and Richmond alike and left them desiring a closer relationship with Mexico, for protection if nothing else. Europeans, unsure what exactly was going on, nonetheless covertly established contacts with Gore, asking pointedly if his dispute was exclusively with Ferguson or with the confederal government in Richmond and whether they should thus treat this as a general revolt, a question Gore was increasingly unsure of how to answer despite Rayburn's continued insistence that this was an internal matter for Texas and that the state's commitment to the war effort had not wavered.
This was a position in which Rayburn was increasingly isolated, however. Besides British-Canadian agents who were feeling out what exactly was going on in Laredo, it was American "diplomats" speaking on behalf of the Hughes administration in Philadelphia who were the most deliberate and indelicate in their approach. Gore was taken aback that these Yankee spies seemed to be offering overt support above and beyond what the Mexicans were, and Garner politely thanked them for their visit but rejected their more direct entreaties in late January. When Laredo Legislature leadership gathered for their daily meeting on January 26th afterwards, Rayburn asked what had been suggested, and Garner revealed that support had been offered explicitly for an independent Republic of Texas with no territorial losses and a separate bilateral treaty with the United States to escape the war with small but not overwhelming reparations if they declared independence and withdrew from the war immediately.
Most of the men in the room were shocked, and some outraged at the proposition. Garner, after Rayburn had calmed everybody down by rejecting such a suggestion out of hand, surprised his comrades when he stated that while he had thanked the Yankees for their time and then shown them the door, he had nonetheless left the door open to further discussions and that the Yankees had been very adamant in making sure he and Gore knew that they considered the group of men in Laredo as Texas' "legitimate constitutional government," with all that that perhaps entailed. Johnson mused that this was both an offer and a threat in one sentence, with which Garner concurred. Gore, at this point, finally rose and declared that it was an "opportunity, but only to consider, not to pursue."
Nobody was ready quite to take the leap, but it was the first time that the Big Four in Laredo - Gore, Garner, Rayburn and Johnson - had gazed across the abyss and pondered what awaited at the bottom if they did not move soon. The seeds for the declaration of the Second Republic of Texas had thus been planted, and as Ferguson's loyalists and the Confederate Army mustered in Austin and Houston to march on Laredo, whether or not to take advantage of this crucial hour became a much more live proposition..."
- Republic Reborn