April 21, 1836…This is the day most Texans celebrate as Texas Independence Day even though that day is officially March 2nd when the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed at Washington0on-the-Brazos.
To some historians, the April 21, 1836, engagement between the ragtag 900-man Texian army and the more formally trained 1,300-man Mexican army is a metaphor for the Lone Star State.
“We’ll make something big out of something small,” says Larry Spasic, president of the San Jacinto Museum of History Association, peering through a narrow rectangular window near the top of the San Jacinto Monument that marks the battlefield.
The climax of the Texas Revolution immediately cost Mexico nearly 1 million acres. The Republic of Texas was annexed by the United States about a decade later and an ensuing border dispute became the U.S.-Mexico War in 1846. In the context of history, the Texians’ victory is seen as ultimately paving the way for the westward expansion of the United States, fulfilling the nation’s Manifest Destiny. – Texas marks 175th anniversary of becoming nation | Houston & Texas News | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.
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SAN JACINTO, BATTLE OF. The battle of San Jacinto was the concluding military event of the Texas Revolution. On March 13, 1836, the revolutionary army at Gonzales began to retreat eastward. It crossed the Colorado River on March 17 and camped near present Columbus on March 20, recruiting and reinforcements having increased its size to 1,200 men. Sam Houston‘s scouts reported Mexican troops west of the Colorado to number 1,325. On March 25 the Texans learned of James W. Fannin’s defeat at Goliad (see GOLIAD CAMPAIGN OF 1836), and many of the men left the army to join their families on the Runaway Scrape. Sam Houston led his troops to San Felipe de Austin by March 28 and by March 30 to the Jared E. Groce plantation on the Brazos River, where they camped and drilled for a fortnight. Ad interim President David G. Burnet ordered Houston to stop his retreat; Secretary of War Thomas J. Rusk urged him to take a more decisive course. Antonio López de Santa Anna decided to take possession of the Texas coast and seaports. With that object in view he crossed the Brazos River at present Richmond on April 11 and on April 15, with some 700 men, arrived at Harrisburg. He burned Harrisburg and started in pursuit of the Texas government at New Washington or Morgan’s Point, where he arrived on April 19 to find that the government had fled to Galveston. The Mexican general then set out for Anahuac by way of Lynchburg.
Go to the link above for a detailed account of the battle that resulted.
Eight-teen minutes after it started it was over.
During the short but furious fighting, Houston was shot in the left ankle, two of his horses were shot from under him, and Santa Anna escaped. The combat itself lasted 18 minutes but the slaughter of the Mexicans continued for “another hour or so”. The Texan army had won a stunning victory, killing about 700 Mexican soldiers, wounding 208, and taking 730 prisoners while suffering 9 killed and 30 wounded.
Today there is a San Jacinto Battleground Historical State Park that preserves the site from the industrial development that surrounds it. The San Jacinto Monument commemorating the heroes of the battle of San Jacinto along with all the other people who helped win the independence of Texas was built between 1936 and 1939.
