On April 19, 1806 the now 24-member party (Freeman and his two assistants; Sparks, who commanded the military party, with two officers, seventeen privates, and a servant) pushed off in two flat-bottomed barges and a pirogue from Fort Adams near Natchez, Mississippi, and turned into the Red River to go upstream to the west. The group gradually took on soldiers along the route, in response to rumors of a possible attack by Spanish troops, and soon numbered forty-five. By July 28, the party was 615 miles upriver, near what is now New Boston, Texas, when they heard gunfire in the distance indicating the presence of Spanish troops.