Posted on 04/21/2009 7:06:35 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
Time has taken its toll on the Mexican bayonets, but their rust-pocked remains still hint at a lust for blood. The balls Santa Anna’s men loaded into their muskets fared better. Still round, they glisten like sinister grapes. A grenadier’s badge gleams as proudly as it did when, 173 years ago today, Texans struck the winning blow for freedom at San Jacinto.
Today, these and more than 400 other artifacts — fruits of a recently completed archaeological project near the famed battlefield — are helping fill the gaps in the oft-told story of Sam Houston’s routing of the Mexican military.
Archaeologist Roger Moore believes the trove of artifacts gleaned from the recent dig are the armaments discarded by 200-400 Mexican soldiers before they surrendered to a handful of victorious Texans.
Funded through grants administered by Friends of the San Jacinto Battleground, Moore led a brigade of 20 professional and amateur archaeologists in scrutinizing a 50-acre site about 1.5 miles south of the battlefield.
“There had been folklore, word that had filtered around from illegal collectors that artifacts had been found on that property,” Moore said. “That’s what piqued our interest.”
Land choked by trees
The site, located on land owned by NRG Energy, was an archaeologist’s nightmare. Though open prairie at the time Santa Anna’s troops beat a hasty retreat, the land Moore faced was choked with an almost impenetrable tangle of Chinese tallow, an invasive tree species.
That’s when Moore called in the heavy archaeological artillery — a massive Woodgator whose spinning toothed drum mowed down trash trees as easily as cutting a lawn. After a few test clearings, in came a volunteer expert in the use of metal detectors.
“With 50 acres,” said Friends of the San Jacinto Battleground president Jan DeVault, “the possibility of pinpointing anything was....
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
Don’t Mess With Texas!
PING
Worked with Mr. Moore before. Good man.
Flying my Texas flag.
Aggie Muster today, too.
ping to fellow FReeper archaeologists.
GOD BLESS TEXAS!!!! I promise, Texas will be the last place standing before our America falls.
Texas - What America used to be
“Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may.” Sam Houston
http://www.sanjacinto-museum.org/
BUMP!
I had an ancestor there, and in the basement of the monument is a letter to him from Sam Houston asking him to 'Bring my horse and rifle, for I must travel to the East'.
We know Houston had to travel because his wife was ill, but we have no idea why our ancestor had Houston's horse and rifle.
Texas Bump
God’s Country Ping. Happy San Jacinto Day!
Houston’s army defeats Santa Anna
(written as a newpaper article)
From the El Paso Times (during the Sesqui-centennnial)
by Ed Pass
San Jacinto, Texas, April 21, 1836
Here, where the land meets the sea. Gen Sam Houston’s Army of 783 men has defeated and put to rout Mexico’s Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna and his military force of about 1,200 men.
The Lone Star flag of Texas, and no other, flies over the newly-born republic as the sun sets on this glorious day.
Two Texans were killed and about 30 wounded. Mexican loses were heavy— 630 dead and 700 prisioners.
Somewhere in the marshes at land’s end, where there is no escape, Santa Anna, Mexico’s dictator-president, is in hiding.
The Texans expect to find the general tomorrow and establish surrender terms.
The victorious battle climaxes a long retreat by Houston from Gonzales, across swollen rivers, as he sought the right place and time to recoil. He found them here.
Santa Anna had outrun the main body of his army hoping to capture the Texas government at Harrisburg. President David Burnett and his cabinet fled in the nick of time to Galveston Island.
Santa Anna burned Harrisburg, then moved his army over Vince’s Bridge that crosses a bayou. When Houston learned of this move, he ordered his troops across the bridge and marched them to within less than a mile of the Mexicans.
At 9:00AM this morning (April 21), 540 men under Gen. Martin Perfecto de Cos crossed Vince’s bridge to join Santa Anna. Houston dispatched Erastus “Deaf” Smith to destroy the bridge, thereby preventing more arrivals or retreat by either side.
For Texans, this meant victory or death.
At 3:30PM today, Houston paraded his troops, telling them the time of battle was at hand. The infantry formed a line 1,000 yards across. Artillery and cavalry flanked them. Somebody in the line held a flag — a five-point blue star on a white field — Proclaiming in Latin “where liberty lives, there is our homeland”.
A German with a fife struck up a tune. “Come to the Bower”, as a black man beat a drum. Houston, on horseback, commanded: “Forward — Texas” as he drew his sword. The Twin Sisters — two cannon given by the people of Cincinnati — were poised.
Col. Sydney Sherman, on the left flank, cried, “Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!”
Others picked up the chant as they advanced up a small rise of land shielding them from the enemy. Then they charged as the cannon blew away a bulwark of baggage and saddles. Caught in siesta and without sentries, the Mexican army was in panic. The Texans were amoung them before they could strike a formation.
Houston had 2 horses shot from under him and a rifle ball hit his foot.
In 18 minutes, the fighting was over. The following silence was like an anthem.
Today marks the day when the final battle was fought by brave patriots granting Texas independence from a tyrannical government.
We have lived free for the past 173 years.
Long live A Free Texas!
Long live A Free America!
HAPPY TEXAS INDEPENDENCE DAY!
WHOOP!
Texas ping!
I am surprised the Texans did not pick up the discarded muskets from the battlefield as spoils of war. I once read a joke that “Germans march for the Fatherland, French march for glory and English march for the Queen, but Americans march for souvenirs.”
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