Rumination about Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna - as we move towards San Jacinto

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     Remember this name the next time you have to use the information operator when making a phone call: Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón .   That is the name of the individual who brought us this set of legends, myths, histories, horror, and inspiration.

     During the initial stages of the Battle of the Alamo, James Bowie and William Barrett Travis butted heads more than a few times.   Travis was itching for a fight, found one, and did not know what to do after that.   He played a bad hand the best he could, perhaps.

     Bowie was a very conflicted person.  Desperately ill with what was probably tuberculosis, subject to bouts of recurring depression due to life's losses which had been truly dreadful, sometimes sober if early enough in the morning, he also had contempt for Travis's contempt for the Latin element of the Texian population.   Bowie was much a home in the Mexican/Spanish environment and was a well-received member of that body of the population in San Antonio and elsewhere in Texas....of people of all social levels and conditions.

     This led to the last argument between Travis and Bowie.  When the main body of Centralist forces had taken up their first positions, upon arrival in San Antonio de Valero, three officers rode up to the main entrance of the Alamo's compound, and the lead officer, a Captain Batres,  read an order of surrender.   Travis responded by firing a round from the huge 18-pounder that had been installed....accounts vary whether its load had been anything beyond a charge and some wadding.

     Bowie was not impressed with that kind of braggadocio, and determined as co-commander of the fort to send an officer to the Mexican Colonel Almonte by the name of Engineer Captain Green Jameson who was accompanied by a representative from Travis by the name of Captain Albert Martin (Alberto Martinez?).   The men queried of Almonte about the terms of an honourable surrender and withdrawal.

     Captain Batres, responded thusly, and in writing:

"I reply to you, according to the order of His Excellency, that the Mexican army cannot come to terms under any conditions with rebellious foreigners to whom there is no recourse left, if they wish to save their lives, than to place themselves immediately at the disposal of the Supreme Government from whom alone they may expect clemency after some considerations."

    The emissaries returned to the Alamo and informed the commanding duo.   At that point, Travis and Bowie together ordered the firing of the 19-pounder once again as a sign of defiance. 

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     All of this ploughing over ploughed ground is somewhat necessary as we approach Lynch's Ferry in the bayou country far removed to the east from the limestone Balcones Escarpment and its beautiful, wondrous land of 1,100 Springs, Lost Maple forests, cedar brakes and its occasional Indian raids.

     The urgency of any and all of this was brought forth by the fabled and horrid Sacking of Zacatecas during the past April - May of 1835.   It was at that time that Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna went forth with a Centralist army of 4,000 well-supplied, selected professional, solidly trained soldiers, heading for a place named Zacatecas.   Besides having the fame of being a tremendous silver and gold producing area, the capital also had the distinction of being the highest provincial capital in all the Americas (8,500 fasl)  and the holder of the honour of having the finest examples of Baroque and Rococo architecture in the New World.   It also had a troubling characteristic of supporting the Mexican Constitution of 1824 and the States' Rights, and other individual and common law recognitions held in that document.
     Oddly, the small in population but wealthy State had a well supplied and trained militia.  The Governor moved to the relative lowlands of Zacatecas State to encounter the Centralist army led by Lopez de Santa Anna.   It seemed like a reasonable encounter of two armies of essentially the same size.
      Governor Francisco Garcia was an honest man who spent his military budget on matters and things that pertained to the military.   Very fine Brown Bessie British muskets (.75 calibre) and the dependable Baker rifled musket (.60 calibre) were carried by his troops.  A capable cavalry, complete with the dreaded lancer companies, stood ready to do their famous sweeping flank attacks.

Catedral de Zacatecas
XVI - Century masterpiece

      Garcia had little training in terms of battle tactics, however. Lopez de Santa Anna had considerable successful experience, and little compunction about utterly destroying....totally destroying....any enemy.   Before two hours were done, over one thousand Zacatecas effectives were dead or dying.   Before twenty-four hours were passed, all four thousand of the militia would be dead save for those who could lose themselves in the crannies of the red cantera  "singing limestone" of the areas where the grasslands met with the sharply rising mountains.
      The City of Zacatecas had the teachable moment about why it was not nice to toy with Antonio Lopez.   He authorised, against the wishes and advice of his staff, a period of 48 hours of suspension of military order.   Rape, murder, theft, vandalism, wanton depravity of all kind was  practiced by a large minority of Lopez de Santa Anna's troops.   A detail was put into place, and the wealthy backers of the Zacatecas militia were put in charge of burning the bodies of their friends, relatives, servants, their dead horses, mules, donkeys, and oxen and to begin the general clean-up required so as to accommodate the occupying "Administrative Military Authority".
     This is not Texian propaganda.  This was purposeful institutional terrorism and it is what set the tone for what was good and bad in terms of the Texian resistance to the Centralist movement under Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.  When ecclesiastical authority found out that their Champion had permitted the rape and pillaging of nuns and convents, it iced over relations with the Church.  The good bishops and pious learned that the liberal republicans of the 1824 Constitution would have been a better bet than a pseudo-conservative who was actually a self-possessed dictator.

     Texians....all of Texas....knew about this within a week to ten days after its occurrence.  That is why they fought as hard as they did.

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More later....as we begin to finish preparations and move suddenly to the south at that Y - intersection not far from Buffalo Bayou and the swampy bottoms of an insignificant little watercourse named Rio San Jacinto.
El Gringo Viejo

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Old News is new news....El Zorro rides in from the moonlit shadows

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      The interplay between EGV and El Zorro is almost a spooky, twin-psychic-spiritual thing that is impossible to understand.  It has gone on for over fifty years, and speaks to the fact that, in truth, a man will have only one, or at the most three friends, in his lifetime.  Sibling status is not a choice, whether by natural means or adoption, that is something that is foisted upon a child, and it should, in fact, be respected.

     But when a couple of fellows can stumble through the years and, almost 100% of the time, hit a bull's eye about when to communicate, when to opine, when to chastise, when to congratulate, etc.  then one can assume that the word friend is well employed.

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     A recent probative uncovering of that which both El Zorro and EGV have been decrying, both directly and peripherally, gives us more confidence than pause.  This recently made discovery by a command level officer of the Mexican Army and his Praetorian Guard, an elite group of counter-insurgency troops who have been filtered repeatedly for competence, patriotism, morality, and combat skills has shaken the foundations of Mexico City and Washington D.C.   It is so profound that no detailed reporting is being done.

    Couple that with an equally competent detail of the Federal Civilian Police (whose father is the Mexican Army and whose mother is Mexico) who accompanied the "olivos" above mentioned, it is forensically clear and not debatable that elements of the degraded cartels in and around the Juarez / El Paso metroplex have been co-ordinating and assisting in the passing of ISIS saboteurs and murderers into the United States.  We point out that these are the types who proved beyond any doubt that the Obama/Holder/Jarrett gun-running into Mexico managed to indirectly kill over 1,300 innocents during cartel violence in Mexico.  (1st degree manslaughter anyone?   Depraved indifference in the death of a person, anyone? Anti-Hispanic, anyone?)

     It is more than probable that original contacts have been made between the two entities in Cuba, Venezuela, and to an extent, Nicaragua.  By entities, we mean those generally associated with what is known as "cartel" people, and those generally associated with Islamic radical murder and sabotage.   These contacts have been rumoured since well-before the 2013 period, although they would not have been the first contacts between New World drug and human traffickers and radical Islamic groups.  Those contacts have been extant since the turn of the century.

     All of this is preambulatory to what was disclosed, very openly and officially, by the Mexican Army several days ago, upon the Diario Oficial del H. Congresso de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos (What we call the "Congressional Record").   The Army has been threatening for the past two years or so to "go public" and they have.

     Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Kerry Heinz, Valerie Jarrett, and all the company of Lucifer's Court have known this information very probably in much greater detail than either El Zorro or EGV.  But their solution to such a matter would be to release a few hundred terrorists from Guantanamo or blame George Bush and/or a video disrespectful to Mohammed.   Barry Soetoro would neither have known or cared, even after finding out about any of it in the New York Times and MSNBC, three months after the fact.

     Various members of the U.S. Congress....those who head as chairmen or co-chairmen any number of Congressional Committees and sub-Committees....would have knowledge of much or all of these bits of information coming out of Mexico.

     Some of the gossip and rumour that circulates around the Iguala farce and the "students'' who attended the "government normal school for teachers" is that ISIS "liquidation technicians" working with the very minor-league New Generation "cartel", allies of the pro-communist mayor of Iguala and his wife, the pretendrix  to the crown of the governorship of the State of Guerrero, did-in the troublesome "43 martyrs".    The "martyrs" who are being lamented during a ridiculous, illogical shake-down, fund-raising tour through the United States at this time were all students who desired to be put into an internship that essentially meant three years of austerity and peonage to "professors" of the "normal".  These are the "education professors" who were and are totally dedicated strike-force communists.   A pox on the Secretaria de Educacion Publica for having allowed funding to the ridiculous "normal" college for almost a generation, now.

     But the saying that bees are drawn to clean and flies are drawn to .....filth, is absolutely true.  ISIS and communists and drug/human traffickers are all flies of the same open sewer.   They are as is the Occupy Wall Street and ACORN ilk.   The left and the nihilists never stop trying to destroy and they will ally with the Devil or ISIS or any agency to forward any activity that will destroy America as a Citadel of Free Will, Liberty, Morality, and Free Enterprise.

     So, finally, are El Zorro and EGV surprised?   No.   Only the surfacing of the story at this moment is a bit surprising.  El Zorro saw first and second hand the manoeuver of pushing children and women to the front of a demonstration line or a skirmish line by Cong or NVA....he is not surprised by depravity.   El Gringo Viejo has seen the sub-Comandante Marcos types, and incessant, permanent, protests and demonstrations  against whatever some weed-stoned "leader" woke up and decided would be the capitalist offense du jour....and he has seen the dull, stupid marchers chanting senseless slogans for 10 kilometres down the Paseo de la Reforma, blocking traffick during rush hour on the busiest boulevard in Latin America, protesting for pensions for old beat up prostitutes.   And, he has seen the extreme upper-middle class snots with essentially free matriculation at the world-class Universidad Autonono de Mexico grimly accompanying the other marchers, chanting Gringos no! El Pueblo si!  Fuera Oligarcos!! with dilated pupils during the afternoon hours.

     So, the idea that Barry Soetoro and Company would leave the frontiers of the United States, both south and north, largely un-defended, only underscores the commitment that the Soros-Alinsky drones to destroy America from within.  Every measure, accommodating the Persians, kissing the feet of a brutal, murderous dictators such as Fidel & Raul Castro Ruz, overthrowing Mubarak, abandoning the victory in Iraq, stabbing the Eastern Europeans in the back, and the general turning away from any reasonable foreign and domestic policy that might be coherent and sensible all makes sense.  The failure to defend the issue at Benghazi is the background smoke behind the Mexican Army general officer releasing the information about how rotted out the official American will to defend itself has fallen.

     Please know that O'Reilly does not know or understand.  We are on our own.  This matter could be the unravelling of the Republic.  There is some irony, perhaps, as we enter into the week of the coming Battle of San Jacinto and the establishment by force of arms of the Republic of Texas by defeating one of the more capable Mexican generals....that we find ourselves being warned with the flapping of a brilliant red cape in our very faces by another Mexican general officer, acting as would a friend and brother.

Hello?  Watson, is that you?   Please, bring your revolver.  The game's afoot!

El Gringo Viejo....with more than a little push from El Zorro, honourably discharged, Sergeant, United States Air Force,  Viet Nam Theatre, two combat tours.   Pray first for America, pray more especially for the Republic of Texas.

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Yesterday, Marco Rubio, and (Sir Edmund) Hillary & Company

Huma (wife of Weiner who was given over to revelatory
 pictures of "self" so to speak.)  His wife is well-known as
 the number one"body-man" for HRH (Sir Edmund)
Hillary whois pictured above in a somewhat
 complimentary
 photo.  They were last photo'd at the Chipotle
Restaurant in Whocares, Flyover, USA with
with HRH (Sir Edmund) in sunglasses.)

     

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     It is a pleasant task to watch GOP candidates Cruz, Paul, and Rubio speak coherently and cogently concerning their viewpoints and intentions.  It is such a chore to try to listen to a beat-up, mendacious, self-consumed old hag regurgitate a score of focus-group vomited-up phrases meant to impress the low information / low intellectual capacity dolts who want something for nothing.  But listening to well-spoken, competent, relatively young men point the way to the path to the Shining City on the side of the Mountain, and assign the task to achieving that destination to each of us, instead of some national-socialist commissar, is wonderfully pleasant.
     One has to understand the lament of the Ernesto (Che) Guevara-pullover shirt wearers, the one-bath-per-month crowd, the leftist trust-fund-babies who can't navigate an Oldsmobile over the Bridge Over Chappaquiddick.   For them and all the Aunt Zietuni - Uncle Omar - Sandra Fluke types who want my daughter and granddaughters to pay for Sandra's birth-control alternatives, and who volunteer to remain as barefooted "single-moms" tied to the bed-posts of AFDC and (Sir Edmund) Hillary's sceptre and a letter promissory from Huma Weiner, please understand that we want everyone out there to fly.
    Ah!, mais non! We want them to soar...and not grovel like beggars with extended hand to a government that demands  their servitude.

     Yes, Virginia, I knew your question before it was asked.   Was it something like "Uncle Gringo Viejo, you said that Jorge Ramos was a scum-bag and a cad because he gave Father Obamaham a break on the Fast and Furious Lie.   But now, Jorge Ramos has stabbed Harry Reid right in the gut over the Romney-Pays-No-Taxes-Lie as you noted, but now Jorge has even pointed out the head-scratcher-for-pinkoes-canon of "Tea Partiers, Conservatives, and Republicans hate Mexicans and Negroes and Eskimoes and homosexuals" is a lie.  Jorge pointed out, live and in colour, that the Republicans already have two heavy-duty Latin candidates who have declared for the GOP nomination to candidacy for the Presidency....both of whom are being taken seriously across the board."

 

     I know, Virginia, but there is still the hurt...even when Geraldo Rivera or Juan Williams leave the national-socialist plantation and speak so as to make sense....El Gringo Viejo remembers their purposefully fuzzy thinking or misstatements that caused damage to the Conservative cause....a cause that benefits all humanity because of it dedication to equal protection before the law.

    But, yes, Virginia, it was noted, and a large positive mark was placed by Jorge's Record of Eternity.   To this date, not even Barbara Walters has such a mark. 

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Thanks, as always, for your time, attention, and kind understanding.
El Gringo Viejo

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El Cid (Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar)

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EL CID - The Lord
Perhaps the greatest Theatre-scale
Commander in Spanish History

     We have long marvelled at the person and accomplishments of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar.   He led Muslim armies against Muslims and Christians, and Christian armies against Christians and Muslims and it all must have been very confusing.  He lived during the earliest part of the 2nd Millennium, was born as a lower level aristocrat, and developed fame as a brilliant tactician and strategist in military matters.  He was so great that they had to employ Charlton Heston to play the biographic and Sophia Loren as Jimena, his wife.

     Part of the lore about Rodrigo is that, after his death, enemies of the great city-state of Valencia laid siege to the walls.  The people went and exhumed the venerated body of Rodrigo, strapped him into his armour, mounted him up on a warhorse similar to his beloved deceased Bavieca, and followed the unlikely pair out to meet the siege.  They did so successfully, proving that even after death, El Cid could conquer any foe who was moved by ill motive.

Tomb of the Warhorse Babieca
at the Monastery of San Pedro
de Carden~a

 

     All of this brings to mind what we are watching now play out upon the political stage, minus the romance, bravery, and mythic glow.  Certainly Billy Jeff Blythe, as white-trash, and (Sir Edmund) Hillary as a deranged shrew do not make a good stand-in for Rodrigo and Jimena or Charlton and Sophia.
     We are watching something similar play out, however.   We have a bunch of underlings lugging out the body of a cold hearted, soul-dead, blob of self-absorption and conceit and strapping on the body's iron battle-pants-suit for one last great attack.   The Big One....The Final Act.....The Vindication.
      Hordes of lackeys and foot-soldiers charge forth to vanquish the unqualified and common nobodies.   Billions of shekels will be thrown into the effort while the Enemies of Women's Issues and Progress will marvel and fall aside at the radiance of the mounted menace with her battle sword held high to threaten the neck of anyone who doubts her power.   After all, with a curdling battle cry like, "Que diferencia, a este punto, se puede hacer?"   You know, something really inspiring.

      This is what this heroic  58th "roll-out" of the re-newed  and re-improved (Sir Edmund)Hillary 9.01Hagtash@twittercorkscrew seems to smell like.  We remember her "listening tour" when she "ran" for the United States Senate from New York.  She said she was going up-State to solve the problems brought on by free trade in that area.  Governor Cuomo has built on her successes there by prohibiting frakking and other petroleum exploitation in that otherwise oil and gas rich State.   After (Sir Edmund)Hillary's successes only about 10% of the counties in New York are studying methods by which they can secede from the State of New York and join the State of Pennsylvania.
     One laughs through the tears.   El Gringo Viejo has a score of generations of people buried in those places, along the Hudson, down in Montrose, up in Red Hook, Duchess County and Albany and such places.   After Hillary and Cuomo, they got up and moved their graves to Texas, I think.

Pray for the Republic.   More later.
El Gringo Viejo

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Repost: Personalities and Actions pertaining to the Battle of San Jacinto (re-post)

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     As our formatting has evolved over the years, we have tried to make the presentation readily predictable and understandable.   Eclectic stylistics do little good for the original producer or the  ultimate user of the product under consideration.   The following submission is from the date indicated.   It is brushed up to be more in conformity with the present general format that we are using.

 

     Where we have amended or revised style, there will be little annotation.  Where we have had to change the material in order to adapt to new facts or where we have changed opinion, the OROG will note that the print colour will change to blue.  A explanation will be made concerning the why and wherefore of any such amendments.

 

     These, indeed, are interesting times.   With the Republic of Texas and the city of San Antonio and the County of Bexar joining hands with various foundations and private community service organisations to overhaul both the grounds and the remaining structures of the Mision del Alamo de San Antonio de Bexar, it is an excellent chance to remind oneself to always be open to a greater understanding of a Truth or a Lie or an Ignorance.

 

     Truth we shall defend, Ignorance we shall enlighten, and the Lie we shall destroy.

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Friday, 20 April 2012

(A Revisitation) San Jacinto Day was 21 April 1836. Remember the Alamo, Remember Goliad. May they all Rest in Peace.

General Vicente Filisola

The gentleman pictured above was many things.   He was a Spaniard with an Italian name.  He was a veteran of the Napoleanic Wars, and a distinguished Spanish soldier.   He came to New Spain late in the colonial period and served during the transition from Spanish to Mexican control of that area which now would include all of Mexico, Central America, western Canada, and most of what would become the western half of the United States of America.    For a brief period during the rule of Emperor Agustin de Iturbide I of the Mexican Empire 1821 - 1823, General Vicente Filisola served his Emperor as Governor of Central America.

      The good General served only briefly, however, due to the overthrow of the Empire and the establishment of the Republic of Mexico in 1824.   He did provide for an orderly transition from Mexican control to local governance and order, and withdrew his Imperial Army back into Mexico and joined the re-organised Army as a brigadier.

 

      It is said that Filisola was probably the one who inspired Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna to think of himself as...."The Napoleon of the West"....because of Lopez de Santa Anna's fascination with Napoleon Bonaparte and the legends associated with that Corsican.   Filisola was one of the few people in anyones army who had officer level dealings on a Napoleonic field of battle.

    Vicente Filisola is important to Texans because he was one of those Generals immediately under the command of the all important, self-consumed, pompous Generalissimo Presidente Lopez de Santa Anna.    Along with Filisola, and Perfecto de Cos, the Presidente's brother-in-law, and old Castrillon, and Ramirez y Sesma....all Spaniards  by birth and world view, there was also Brigadier Jose' Urrea, the Indian Fighter, a Davy Crockett figure, at once both rough-cut, and aristocratic, and oddly one of only two  Mexican general officers fighting in the Texas War of Independence who were born Mexicans.

 

    The commander-in-chief Lopez de Santa Anna (highest ranking), and the lowest ranking general officer were the only Mexican-born Mexicans in the officers' corps at general officer level.   Lopez de Santa Anna had moved three large elements from all parts of the country from January up to mid-February to do battle against a crafty bunch of scrappers in a place called "nowhere" by some and Texas by others.   Urrea moved a third of the Army along the Texas Coast leaving Matamoros near the mouth of the Rio Bravo (Grande) during the early days of January, 1936 aiming to unify with the main body of the Army around a place called San Jacinto.   Urrea also moved quickly, like an early form of blitzkrieg, although he had five major battles against Texian units numbering from 100 to 500 combatants in each case, and several significant skirmishes which tested his 2,400 effectives severely.   He is best remembered, however, as the Mexican general who left orders to deal fairly and well with the Texian Colonel Fannin and the 440 Texian prisoners, only to have his orders countermanded by the Generalissimo Presidente.   So while Urrea had moved up to near what is now Victoria, Texas near the Rio Guadalupe (historically lumped in and included  as the area known as Bahia del Espiritu Santo, and/or Refugio) a few miles from Goliad, his subordinate received orders underlining the existing orders from the High Command that all found holding arms against the government would be executed for treason.

     That sub-ordinate officer, Col. Nicolas de la Portilla, during a fighting absence by his commander, General de Brigada Urrea, over-rode the orders of Urrea and followed the orders of the Supreme Commander, Lopez de Santa Anna.  Here, El Gringo Viejo enters a well-documented but rather neglected fact about the the issues of personality, strategy, tactics, honour, and the business of war that the Mexicans were undergoing even as they were winning, fairly easily against the insurrectionists.  To wit:

Gen. Jose' Urrea

"I was unable, therefore, to carry out the good intentions dictated by my feelings, overcome by the difficult circumstances that surrounded me. I authorized the execution, of thirty adventurers taken prisoners, and setting free those who were colonists or Mexicans      "These orders always seemed to me harsh, but they were the inevitable result of the barbarous and inhuman decree which declared outlaws those whom it wished to convert into citizens of the republic,  I wished to elude these orders as far as possible without compromising my personal responsibility.       "They doubtlessly surrendered confident that Mexican generosity would not make their surrender useless, for under any other circumstances they would have sold their lives dearly, fighting to the last. I had due regard for the motives that induced them to surrender, and for this reason I used my influence with the general-in-chief to save them, if possible, from being butchered." Diary of the Military Operations of the Division which under the Command of General José Urrea Campaigned in Texas February to March 1836 Translation from Carlos Casteñeda's The Mexican Side of the Texan Revolution (Some headings added by current editor, WLM) For Biographies, Search Handbook of Texas Online Extract from the Diary of Col. Nicolás de la Portilla   In a Letter Portilla to Urrea....."I feel much distressed at what has occurred here; a scene enacted in cold blood having passed before my eyes which has filled me with horror. All I can say is, that my duty as a soldier, and what I owe to my country, must be my guaranty...." March 26. At seven in the evening I received orders from General Santa Anna by special messenger, instructing me to execute at once all prisoners taken by force of arms agreeable to the general orders on the subject. (I have the original order in my possession.) I kept the matter secret and no one knew of it except Col. Garay, to whom I communicated the order. At eight o'clock, on the same night, I received a communication from Gen. Urrea by special messenger in which among other things he says, "Treat the prisoners well, especially Fannin. Keep them busy rebuilding the town and erecting a fort. Feed them with the cattle you will receive from Refugio." What a cruel contrast in these opposite instructions! I spent a restless night. sdct March 27. At daybreak, I decided to carry out the orders of the general-in-chief because I considered them superior. I assembled the whole garrison and ordered the prisoners, who were still sleeping, to be awaked. There were 445. (The eighty that had just been taken at Cópano and had, consequently, not borne arms against the government, were set aside.) The prisoners were divided into three groups and each was placed in charge of an adequate guard, the first under Agustin Alcerrica, the second under Capt. Luis Balderas, and the third under Capt. Antonio Ramírez. I gave instructions to these officers to carry out the orders of the supreme government and the general-in-chief. This was immediately done. There was a great contrast in the feelings of the officers and the men. Silence prevailed. Sad at heart I wrote to Gen. Urrea expressing my regret at having been concerned in so painful an affair. I also sent an official account of what I had done, to the general-in-chief. [Portilla to Urrea, Goliad, March 26 1836 and Portilla to Urrea, Goliad, March 27, 1836]     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~      El Gringo Viejo and many old-timey Texans know these stories, but they are not well known any longer.   Newly arriving people with Mexican backgrounds assume they know all and newly arriving people from the United States and elsewhere have seen Davy Crockett on Disney or some variation, and are certain in their knowledge of the issues involved with the period from 1829 through 1846 and the Texas situation.  They do not know.      This is not said with any particular arrogance.   It is known that what El Gringo Viejo knows from his own research is now useless information.  Nothing matters in the course of human conduct that cannot be compressed into a six-word phrase to put on a bumper sticker.   What is past is no longer prologue, but rather simply useless white-noise on the left side of the time line. ____________________________________________               But as an enemy the man pictured below is known among the old, last remaining Texans who know what Texas really was, as an honorable enemy....a good and patriotic man involved in a grisly profession.    Something like Rommel, perhaps. Manuel Fernández Castrillón (1770?–1836) Fought Texians both at the Battle of the Alamo and at the Battle of San Jacinto.

    Castrillon was Santa Anna's ally through much of their working relationship, but Castrillón often took exception to Santa Anna's decisions during the Texas Revolution. He opposed the hurried assault on the Alamo. Yet when he received his orders to lead the battle's first column of troops, he did so with expert efficiency.

     A humane and honourable soldier, Castrillón also pleaded clemency on behalf of the seven Texian fighters who survived the Alamo siege. Castrillón's arguments for mercy were ignored, and the men were executed. Castrillón again stated his protest when Santa Anna ordered the execution of the Goliad prisoners.

     Castrillón's compassion was a sign of kindness, not weakness. When the Texians roused Mexican forces from their afternoon siesta on 21 April 1836 at the Battle of San Jacinto, he was one of the few Mexican officers to stand his ground.

      His bravery was recorded in the memoirs of Texian 2nd Lieutenant Walter Paye Lane:

 

"As we charged into them the General commanding the Tampico Battalion (their best troops) tried to rally his men, but could not. He drew himself up, faced us, and said in Spanish: 'I have been in forty battles and never showed my back; I am too old to do it now.'

He continues: "Gen. Rusk hallooed to his men: 'don't shoot him,' and knocked up some to their guns; but others ran around and riddled him with balls. I was sorry for him. He was an old Castilian gentleman, Gen. Castrillo (sic)."

Honoured on both sides of the Texas Revolution—except by Santa Anna, who blamed the loss at San Jacinto in part on Castrillón—he was even buried in the family graveyard of Lorenzo de Zavala, the vice-president of Texas.

     So, all these major footnotes are added into the blog in order to celebrate the victory tomorrow, the 21st day of April, 1836 of the Battle of San Jacinto.   Normally creditted to the efforts of Gen. Sam Houston, who truly was a bigger than life figure, the truth is that Houston was painfully wounded at the beginning of the battle, by a musket ball to the right foot.   It was Gen. Somervell, commanding, and the surprize rush of the limited cavalry of the Texian force of a bit fewer than 700 men.....attacking on a Sunday morning.   The head of the cavalry was Capt. Juan Seguin, an arch-enemy of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.   The resolve of the Texian force to gain Independence, avenge the atrocities of Goliad and the Alamo allowed the inferior force to pin into a peninsula surrounded by a snake infested bayou, and then essentially destroy the effective force of an Army of 2,500 with superior munitions, armament, artillery, cavalry, stores, and so forth.

 

     Going back to Gen. Vicente Filisola, it was he who took control of the Mexican Army as it withdrew from San Jacinto.   Lopez de Santa Anna remained under arrest and would later be tranferred to Washington D.C. as an oddity and war-trophy of sorts.   He had been a capable general in the field, but also the one most prone to err through arrogance and hubris.   Some say his membership in the Mason Scottish Rite order saved him from a rough and ready gallows at San Jacinto, since Houston and Somervell were both brother Masons.

     Filisola was met with his columns by Urrea, who forced control from Filisola, and took command of the withdrawal.   The two men would argue and write accusations against one another, and each would write interesting, if self-serving accounts of their experiences during the War.   It is the opinion of El Gringo Viejo that Urrea was the better soldier and perhaps the best of several capable general officers and colonels  and was truthful concerning his wishes for the good treatment of the Goliad prisoners of war.

      Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna blamed both of them for everything;  Urrea for arriving too late to San Jacinto, Filisola for not mucking through the mud with cannons and stores any faster (he actually moved 2,000 men, animals, and stores faster than Santa Anna had moved his Army away from San Antonio in pursuit of Houston's Army.)   Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was a lot like Obama in his ability to blame everything on everybody but himself.

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Committed to the dull truth, which always seems to wind up being far more interesting than the false legends or any fiction.....El Gringo Viejo resigns the evening and promises to return to more tales that interest him, and he hopes, the OROGs everywhere.

El Gringo Viejo

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Looking Ahead to the Battle of San Jacinto - 21 April 1836

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  During the coming days we shall be making observations, some old and some new, about the pre-San Jacinto engagement,  the engagement itself, and that which followed.  In these days, one realises that the smoke never clears.   Not concerning the War Between the States....not concerning the War for Texian Independence....and not for many, many other matters of import.

 

     The winning of that particular battle did not end the book about the establishment of Texas as a truly strange, almost mythical, and different political entity upon the face of the Planet.   Texas both suffered and prospered as an independent nation, and to this day, most long-time Texians hold that we would have been and would still be better off as a friendly neighbouring independent nation to the United States and to Mexico.

William Henry Huddle's depiction of the
Surrender of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
shortly after the end of the Battle of San Jacinto

    We shall write about such things, and perhaps bring up some previous articles to refresh both my own thinking and for review by the OROG community.   The mix should be about 50 - 50 and does include new, continuing research and readings by El Gringo Viejo.

More Later.

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