Happy birthday, Texas!

San Jacinto Monument

As Americans began to fill up the vast Spanish Territory known as Texas (Tejas), the new government of the newly independent Mexico decided that there were too many Anglos without sworn loyalty and something had to be done about it.

Like just about anywhere else Americans decided to make a go of it, Texas fit the bill for many and quickly became worth fighting over. 

Santa Anna brought his army up and crossed the Rio Grande, and once he had quickly dispatched the defiant rebels housed in the Alamo and Goliad, he then set out trying to find the Army of Texas led by General Sam Houston. 

Monument and ship channel

Of course, what Santa Anna did not know, was that there was no actual Army of Texas.  Sam gathered and coerced as many volunteers as he could muster, then had to force them to retreat, time and again, staying out of reach of Santa Anna, while attempting to form his troops into something approaching a fighting force. 

In the end, at a swampy little spit of land along Galveston Bay, Houston decided to go to war.  His men were spitting mad that they had been running all this time.  “Remember the Alamo!”, and “Remember Goliad!” were the common threads that the entire assembly rallied behind. 

Sam knew his boys were no match for an assembled Mexican army ready to toe-the-line in a headlong battle.  So, very wisely, he waited and took advantage of the only opportunity that the flamboyant Santa Anna was going to offer: his siesta time…

At the hottest part of the day, and I can verify that our days here get extremely hot, while the Mexicans were lazing about in tents half-dressed, the Texicans blew their horns and charged.  It was over quickly, as the bulk of the Mexican troops were pushed into the swampy surrounding waters; waters that were blood-red once the smoke cleared. 

Happy birthday to my adopted state.   Remember the Alamo, Remember Goliad, and God Bless Texas!