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Saturday, April 21, 2018

Remember The Alamo: The Battle of San Jacinto

4 comments:

  1. A lot of interesting things about that.

    First, Santa Anna was literally caught with his pants down when the Texans attacked. A compulsive womanizer, he was riding a slave girl he'd picked up at one of the local plantations. There's a legend that Houston arranged to have the girl, Emily Morgan, left there to befuddle him. Supposedly, she was The Yellow Rose Of Texas.

    Second, it was less a battle than a massacre. With its back to a swamp and caught by surprise, the Mexican Army didn't have a prayer, especially since a lot of the fallen at Goliad and the Alamo had friends, neighbors, and relatives with Houston. While Wounded knee is more accurately a battle, San Jacinto wasn't.

    Third, the idea of setting Texas' border, traditionally the Nueces River, set at the Rio Grande seems to have been Santa Anna's idea, and apparently without coercion from the Texans. It would appear that what the Texans did to his army, they would be happy to do to him, so he made them an offer they couldn't refuse.

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    1. You have this thing about Wounded Knee. It was a stand off with a lot of bad blood on both sides that resulted in a massacre. The Sioux were surrounded and doing their Ghost Dance and the troops wanted payback for Little Big Horn. There was fault on both sides, but battle it was not. Almost all the Army injuries were the result of friendly fire.

      As for San Jacinto, Santa Anna put his men in a position where they got slaughtered. But they were still an army and Houston ended the war there. The whole battle lasted about 18 minutes. Santa Ana liked to think of himself as Napoleon of the West, but other than having his own Waterloo, not so much.

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  2. First, most of the troops were barely in school at the time of Little Big Horn. Second, the Indians opened fire first and kept up firing until they were cornered. Third, there were a number of soldiers knifed to death including the 7th's chaplain and a hospital steward,and an artillery officer out of the line of fire was also shot and killed (soldiers got almost no practice on the range whereas the Indians had the time and ammo to become good shots).

    I know there is a big conspiracy theory on this, but it was investigated by 4 different commissions, 3 of them civilian.

    And an 18 minute "battle" is a massacre.

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    1. Fake News! Did you have a relative at Wounded Knee on the Army side? Of course Elizabeth Warren's direct ancestor has a Cherokee connection, he helped round up the Cherokee for the Trail of Tears.

      You are wrong on this, I would describe Wounded Knee as a tragedy and troops in the heat of battle getting out of control. As I said, there were serious mistakes on both sides and that escalated into violence. Still, two hundred Indian women and children were killed at Wounded Knee (and they were unarmed). And you seem concerned over San Jacinto?

      I am sure if Sam Houston was here, he would agree with me (even if he was dead well before Wounded Knee).

      As for San Jacinto, yes the Mexicans lost very badly. But I hope you are not using the word massacre imply the Texans were wrong to do what they did. The Mexican Army was trying to destroy Texas and needed to be routed. That battle ended the war. Those Mexican soldiers were the same ones who attacked the Texans at the Alamo and Goliad. All the blame for Mexican deaths at San Jacinto, in my opinion, fall on Santa Anna. It was a great historic event that should be celebrated.

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