Very soon, it will be April 21, 2012. In case you all don’t recognize that date, a very significant event in Texas history occurred on April 21, 1836, and we still celebrate it today. At least some of us do.
That is the day that Sam Houston led a group of grizzled, undisciplined, poorly trained and ill equipped Texians into battle and defeated the Napoleon of the West and his finely outfitted, well disciplined, highly trained army. That eighteen minute battle changed the world.
Eighteen hundred-thirty six was an unusually wet and rainy year for the Gulf Coast of Texas. Houston’s rag-tag army had been sloshing around thru the East Texas mud for several weeks, trying to avoid a head-on fight with the Mexicans, which Houston knew would spell disaster. Most of the civilian population of Texas was in high gear, splashing east, trying to get across the Sabine River before the Mexican Army caught up.
Santa Anna had put to the sword all the defenders of the Alamo, and then burned their bodies. He considered all rebels to be pirates and felt they should be eliminated without mercy. He had the prisoners at Goliad taken out and shot, and he spread the word that all Anglo settlers who were sympathetic with the rebel army would share the same fate. He let slip the fact that if someone was Anglo, he considered them sympathetic with the rebels. His actions had the desired effect.
Outright panic ensued. Most every Anglo family in Texas loaded up what they could carry and headed thru the mud for Louisiana. Many were in such a hurry they left food on the table and livestock in the pens. Historians called this the “Runaway Scrape”, which I never understood. The word “Scrape” indicates that there was some sort of battle, and the only battle involved was among the settlers. They fought to be first in line at the ferries for river crossings.
Santa Anna had taken a southern route, also muddy, to try and beat Houston to the border. Along the way, somewhere near present day Wharton, he divided his army and moved ahead with fifteen hundred men, leaving the bulk of his forces under the command of General Filasola, an Italian who was made second in command. Santa Anna evidently picked Filasola because of his blind loyalty and complete lack of imagination.
Santa Anna saw no danger in splitting his forces. He was convinced that he could beat Houston’s army with half the number he kept and, with a smaller force, he could move faster and possibly catch Houston before he escaped into Louisiana, which seemed to be the plan.
There are those who say Houston was, indeed, heading for Louisiana, but with a hidden agenda. Houston’s close friend and mentor, President Andrew Jackson, had positioned a troop of U.S. Army soldiers, under the command of the less than patient General Edmund Grimes, just across the Sabine River from Texas. If Houston could create a border incident, maybe get the Mexicans to chase him across the river, or even close enough to say they did, the American army would have an excuse to invade Texas, attack Santa Anna’s forces and take Texas from Mexico. Andrew Jackson wanted Texas. Evidence indicates he sent Sam Houston to Texas for just that reason.
At that time, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was 42 years old and he liked creature comforts. He was undisputed ruler of Mexico (those who had disputed were now mostly dead) and Commanding General of, arguably, the third most powerful army in the world. Mexico could afford the luxuries that he deemed necessary for his comfort. His sleeping quarters were stocked with French Champagne, Swiss Chocolate and Turkish Opium. Santa Anna considered these bare necessities when a poor soldier was forced to travel for the good of his country. A bathtub and an oversized bed were also provided to make life easier for the young ruler and the sultry women who furnished him with a most precious commodity.
During the siege of the Alamo, Santa Anna spied a beautiful young lady, the daughter of a prominent family in San Antonio, and decided that she would be a fine candidate to provide him with “creature comforts.” The girl’s mother said, “No Wedding, no Creature Comforts.” Now, that is no hill for a stepper. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna simply told the army’s chief priest to set up a wedding. The priest refused, knowing that the general had a faithful wife back in Jalapa.
The wily general convinced one of the staff officers to borrow a robe and impersonate a priest to perform the ceremony. Santa Anna and his new bride honeymooned in San Antonio, while Travis and his men waited, under siege, in the Alamo. After the battle, the general loaded his new bride and a money chest into his carriage and sent her home to Jalapa. The soldiers who accompanied the carriage were instructed to put her in a house across town, and, please do not tell his real wife.
Even though it had little to do with the battle at hand, I brought up this situation to make a point. Santa Anna enjoyed female companionship and arranged to have it, regardless of the cost or the conditions. We’ll discover some of the results of this cumpulsion as we get deeper into the next lesson.
By the way, I have tried to make sure these Texas History lessons are factually correct. Much of this I have read in various books, starting with the required Texas History course I took in the seventh grade at O.L.Slaton Junior High back in Lubbock. Some of it comes from oral history of my family, passed down by my Aunt Edith, a crude and coarse woman with a heart of gold and an irritating nasal twang. Much of the background comes from T.R. Fehrenbach's "Lone Star", to me the definitive work on the subject of Texas. I have also drawn freely from Jeff Long's "Duel of Eagles", which delves into details overlooked by other historians.
As with the work of any other historian, I have freely used my imagination to fill in blank spaces in the narrative. These details may or may not be absolute fact, but they are plausible, which is all you can really expect from a Texan.
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