As the dust settles in and around the junction of Bayou Le Bufalo and the Rio San Jacinto

     Much,   very much, was made by the elements of the Texian Army due to the "fair treatment" rendered to Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna by Samuel Houston, Commander, Army of Texas.  Were I to have been there, as an erstwhile Episcopalian, a non-Scottish Rite Mason of any degree, and a bumped and bloody survivor of the Battle of San Jacinto....I would certainly have been distressed at the courtesies and deferences allowed to the criminal despot Presidente de Mexico.

     The other problem was, and remains, that the Texians had two "generals" in the field that day.  Houston, obviously, and conveniently for the surface-dwelling researchers.   For those who like to do a bit of trenching in their archaeological and historical works, it is best to point out that another fellow, General Somervelle.

     Somervelle  was not a general yet, but he would become one later, based upon his service in the engagement under analysis here and now.   The Texas Almanac quickly summarises his curriculum vitae more or less thusly:

 

SOMERVELL, ALEXANDER (1796–1854). Alexander Somervell, entrepreneur, soldier, and leader of the Punitive Expedition of Laredo in 1842.

      Alexander was born in Maryland, June 11, 1796.    As a young man, he determined to move to the new plantation country in Louisiana in 1817.   There he bought tract of usable land and dedicated himself to the life of a planter in St. Landry Parish.

      Wanderlust moved him to seek other challenges and fortunes, so in the early 1820s he moved to Missouri where he became a merchant and wholesaler, at or near the community of Cape Girardeau.

      In 1833, he moved to Texas and was granted a tract in Stephen Foster Austin's second (and last) colony.    Somervell engaged in the mercantile business at San Felipe with a fellow with whom he had been in business earlier.   In October 1835 Somervell joined the volunteers marching from Gonzales to Bexar and was elected major. He participated in the military action against the forces of Perfecto de Cos, the commander of the detachment in the city of San Antonio de Valero.  The Texians prevailed in this affair, and Cos was allowed to retreat with his detachment back to beyond the Rio Nueces and even the Rio Bravo (Grande).

      After learning of the fall of the Alamo, he enrolled in the Texas army on March 12, 1836, and on April 8 was elected lieutenant colonel of the first regiment of Texas Volunteers, succeeding Sidney Sherman. He participated in the Battle of San Jacinto, essentially as XO immediately under Sam Houston.   It is fair to say that Somervelle gained a great deal of respect the day of the Battle because Houston was wounded with a particularly painful musket-ball to the ankle.  This wound rendered Houston essentially helpless, and left Somervelle  in command of the moment by moment events to come.  So, a lot of folks associated the victory with Somervelle and not Houston.

     On the second day, after considerable opium, Houston was almost able to think straight.    and remained in the army until June 7, 1836. He served briefly as secretary of war in President David G. Burnet's cabinet. Somervell represented Colorado and Austin counties in the Senate of the First and Second congresses, October 3, 1836, to May 4, 1838. By the time he was elected brigadier general on November 18, 1839, he was living in Fort Bend County.   Many other assignments were given to him during the rest of his relatively short life in Texas.

     Somervell died in February 1854 under mysterious circumstances. His body was found lashed to the timbers of the capsized boat in which, carrying a considerable amount of money, he had started from Lavaca to Saluria.

   Another peculiar thing was the fact that Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna frequently referred to himself as " The Napoleon  of the West".   The Texian Cavalry, such as it might have been, on Santa Anna's left flank during the battle also had "The French Connection".   That connection came in the person of Mirabeau Bonaparte Lamar who was the commander of cavalry, and whose XO was Captain Juan Seguin who actually rode in front of the column and did the leading in battle.  Lamar, unlike Houston, was wise enough to not seek glory, but remained "in-charge" and pressed just behind his charges, while his immediate subordinate did the sabre-flashing and exhorting.   They worked well together, although Lamar was noted for not being a fan of anything Spanish or Mexican.   He was Latin however, with considerable French and southern European genealogy.

     He met tragedy when his wife died in 1830 of the tuberculosis.  Then in 1834, his brother committed suicide, "from out of the blue".   Lamar, a newspaper publisher, and an accomplished writer and poet, sought solace in Texas and Mexico.   As his travels ended he struck up with an old friend, Fannin, in the Refugio area.  An accomplished slave-trader, Lamar struck up an illegal but openly practiced business of selling slaves to discreet buyers along the middle Texas Coast.   Although this was against the Mexican law concerning bonded servitude, Lamar was unimpressed with the hypocrisy when compared to the Mexican/Spanish system of peonage.   Under that system it was almost impossible to hope for manumission, and descendants inherited their parents' debts.

     In any regard, on the day before the actual Battle of San Jacinto, Lamar intervened in a skirmish between his cavalrymen and a unit of Mexican infiltrators who surprised the dismounted horsemen.   Lamar rode into the group of Mexican special force detail and whipped them from atop his mount until they finally fled.   For that display, the Mexicans in the bivouac area turned their gun sideways and shot a three volley salute to the enemy officer for his bravery and largesse.

     Later, after provisional President Burnet, and then the elected President Sam Houston, Mirabeau Bonaparte Lamar became the  2nd popularly elected President of the Republic of Texas.  He founded, among other institutions, the public school system for the Republic.

 

William Joel Poinsett
1779  -  1851

  Lamar  and many other of the Texian Army  were puzzled as to why and how a man such as Lopez de Santa Anna had taken the oath and ceremony of membership in the Scottish Rite Lodge of Freemasons in Mexico.   This event occurred after one of the first ambassadors  (America had no ambassadors until 1896 or so. They were titled 'ministers' until that time) to the Mexico from the United States set about to help  found more Scottish Rite Lodges in Mexico.  This activity was seen to be obvious meddling in the interior political processes of Mexico and Poinsett had the honour of being the first "minister" of the United States to be kicked out of the country.   He did take several Noche Buena plants that he had nurtured, and as he returned to his native South Carolina, he supplied America is thousands of cuttings of the plant that we call the Poinsietta or Poinsettia.        In any regardMexico had evicted Agustin de Iturbide from the Throne of the Emperor of Mexico in 1823.  He had served as the first head of state immediately after Independence had been gained from Spain.   Before two years had past, political forces had determined that the Mexican body politic wanted to have a Republic and not a Monarchy.

     The Constitution of 1824 was drawn up and generally accepted by all save the most conservative elements in the society at the time.   The American Ambassador, William Poinsett, according to the interior political lore of Mexico, was active in the establishment of Scottish Rite Masonic  Lodges.  The liberal, republican elements of Mexico took to these lodges almost as if the actual lodges were churches.  The canons of Freemasonry ran a bit counter to the Roman Catholic Church's assumption of the scope of authority of the Bishop of Rome, so the argument commenced.

     Much of the Roman clergy was affiliated with the York Rite as were many of the wealthy conservative land-holders.  In the push and the pull of the contentions between these two groups, the conservatives (Yorken~os) finally won out.   Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna had joined in with the Scottish Rite (Escoceses) until changing sides (typically treacherous) and becoming an adamant Centralist conservative and one who would take down and burn every Mexican tri-colour with the numbers 1 8 2 4 on its white field.  This he did in the Yucatan, in the Zacatecas matter, and San Luis Potosi, Coahuila, and finally in Texas.

     Once captured however, he invoked all of the symbolic mysteries and gestures and clasps of the Scottish Rite Masons and managed to save his hide from a noose or firing squad.   His immediate capture and his first encounter with Houston were surrounded with all kinds of Masonic symbolism.   In reality, however, it behoved the Texians to keep Antonio safe, well supplied with cocaine and old wine, and an emblem of the Texian side having "better angels". 

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More what-if's and gee-whizzes later.   Thank one and all for the time and interest invested.

El Gringo Viejo

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From a previous post: The True Meaning of the Battle of San Jacinto

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True Meaning - San Jacinto : We call the OROGs and others, especially the new visitors to A Gringo in Rural Mexico, to be aware that we shall, during the use of any archival posting, up-date with new data, corrections, changes of opinion, and/or the incorporation of new evidence that El Gringo Viejo; thinks would assist the reader in his/her own debate and understanding.  Those changes will be written en bleu  within the existing text.  We invite other evidence, challenge, agreement, and understandings....which we frequently publish if it is a reasonable observation.

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     The term "true meaning" of one thing or another.....the Feasts of the Nativity, Resurrection, All Souls and All Saints for instance....has been a sport of intellectuals, analysts, and commentators for hundreds, even thousands of years.   As a compulsive commentator, this means that the OROG knows that El Gringo Viejo is going to be commenting on some matter he considers to be important very soon.

     And, that very soon has arrived.  This time it is concerning the not-so-famous, and generally over-simplified matter of the Battle of San Jacinto, 21 April 1836.

     Texans have been all over the map on this matter.   In and around Austin and a few other precincts of the Republic of Texas, the Battle of San Jacinto represents the best image of the worst people in the world....the Americans, Anglo-Saxons, Southerners, men, and individuals who consider themselves to be sovereign entities.   That is the common opinion held by the University of Texas elites, certain women's and leftist political groups, and their satraps, the ethnic and racial agitators, and various sorts of anarchists.

     But, surrounding the Island of the Bunny's Burrow, is a wondrous circle of Briarpatches ....San Marcos, New Braunfels, Round Rock, Georgetown, Plugerville, in short communities tiny, small, and somewhat larger that are filled with reason.   They range from Stepford-type places, where a person finds Stepford wives, husbands, pets, children, home and lawn, schools, private arts and study classes, the best AAA minor league baseball and shopping....to dirty-fingernailed, blue-collar types of people and communities where a person has to prove he/she has dirty fingernails and/or calloused hands in order to register to vote or buy a lottery ticket.   Their unifying factor?    Traditionalist, private sector, conservative reliance and practice.

     Most of the rest of Texas, even in the South Texas area, there is, and always has been a mediocre to a fine understanding of the meaning of the victory by the Texian Forces over the Centralist Forces of the government of Antonio de Padua Maria Severino Lopez de Santa Anna y Perez de Lebron, (aka - Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna or more simply Santa Anna).   It is easy to make an ethnic or racial issue of this matter, but in fact it was none of that.   Even the ones who fought the fight thinking that ethnic and racial matters were important to the issue.....were wrong.   It was a much, much bigger issue.

    With reference to the above, we reiterate that which has been written by El Gringo Viejo before, that the Anglo-Irish settlers in the San Patricio Colony, near present day Corpus Christi, sided with the Mexican Centralists and their military during the issue.   While this occurred, another body of Texians north of that point....the Mexican/Spanish rancheros, business people, cattlemen, and farmers sided overwhelmingly with the Texian 1824 resistance effort and  full-statehood cause, and then, fairly early in the game with the move to Independence from the control by Mexico City and its bi-polar political posturing.   The chameleon nature of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna did no good for Texas, less for Coahuila and Zacatecas, and absolutely nothing for Mexico.

AT THIS MOMENT, THE BATTLE HAS BEEN OVER FOR ABOUT THREE HOURS.   THE ISSUE WAS SETTLED IN LESS THAN AN HOUR.

     So, to the point of this analysis and commentary.  The very large and pursuing segment of the Mexican Centralist forces a total of 15,000 in five armies headed by 14 generals and colonels....commanded by the Presidente Generalissimo himself....had hounded a rag-tag "army" that never numbered more than 1,000 effectives, in a single grouping.  The number of Indians, other farmers, ranchers, volunteers arriving perhaps from the United States, other Mexican republicans, might have raised the total, total, total of willing combatants to perhaps as many as 2,000.   On the day of the engagement....this day....on that battlefield....it had at most 920 ready combatants, with no more than 50 rough and ready cavalry.   They would assault a very battle-hardened, fairly well to very well trained, accustomed-to-victory army of at least 1,900 soldiers.   In baseball, this would have been akin to a major league team condescending to play a scrimmage game with a single A or at best AA minor-league team.

    One side had two cannons, known as the Twin Sisters, while the other side had managed to lug 9 cannons literally across almost the entirety of Texas.
       There were 8 more brass Napoleons and the big 12-pounder on-site in the middle of camp.  Another 30 cannons were within a day's arrival distance, along with another 5,000 mediocre to crack, excellent assault forces including the much feared cavalry with their lancers.  Let us say....24 to 36 hours of forced march distant.
 

     It was Sunday.   Each side knew of the other's exact position and strength.  They were well within direct observation, one of the other.There was no chance for deception save for one thing.   That would be the choice of one side or the other concerning ....."When?".     Houston settled that issue during the early morning hours of the 21st Instant.   Houston began a walk among the troops at 04:00 telling them to form up.
       As the orders went out a few short minutes later that the men muster and prepare for their deployment and orders to advance....fear, joy, excitement, commitment, final bonding between battle-mates, quieting of mounts who sensed something was up, and then....the predictable orders up and down the line...."No firing until the order is given....no firing until the order is given!!!!"  And then, quietly at first, and walking; then, a trotting but still silent advance;  and then the bolting of the small cavalry group in the advance and to the right of the line of infantry....sweeping forward at breakneck towards the enemy still sleeping during the Sunday afternoon siesta period, in the face of the enemy during those "second-dawning" moments.....and then the entrance into the most formidable military encampment on the North American Continent at that moment....carnage of the worst sort...the devastation of the entire Presidential Divisional Forces....hundreds dead and wounded, many drowning in the San Jacinto River and its surrounding swamps.  Official numbers seem to back up these:   Mexican forces had 630 killed, 208 wounded, and 730 P.O.W.  while the Texians had 9 killed and 30 wounded.       
     These figures are corroborated by Mexican estimates, and might even indicate that  the Texian forces were probably over-adrenaline infected.   But it is a very mystical coincidence that the number of Mexican effectives killed very closely estimates the number of Texian effectives who were essentially murdered by order of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna at the detention in Goliad added to the number that were lost at La Mision del Alamo.

     It was a horrible disaster for the hopes of a Mexican totalitarian's vision of empire stretching from the Arctic Circle to the doorstep of South America.   And, it was a exhilarating moment for the men who had won against all odds and established in Texas some hope for common law, natural law, and the sovereignty of the individual.

    The capture of the man who at once was the head of the government, the army, and the entire Mexican political reality at that time had learned his military craft as a young Royalist officer in the Spanish Army.  He was a white Criollo (Spaniard born in the New World), and learned to relish his time and activity in the Army.   He served in various venues, including during a sweep of Texas many years before where opponents of the Crown were  picked up and executed even after surrender....and their heads removed and displayed for days in prominent viewing areas so as to chill the fervour of those disposed to revolt.  It was his experience and he had enjoyed it.

    Late in the Wars for Mexican Independence he changed sides (one of his more predictable characteristics) and brought his considerable abilities to the service of the Mexicans in their efforts to secure Independence.  By 'considerable abilities' we are not being sarcastic.  One "misunderestimated" Lopez de Santa Anna at one's own jeopardy.  He was one of those few practitioners of the military arts and sciences who could think in Theatre Strategy and battalion level tactics, simultaneously.  Luckily, his biggest enemy was his own ego and sense of self-importance.

    He held various military and political positions, always at or near the edges of power until, around 1830, he began to have irresistible control and effect upon the exercise of political power at the highest levels.  It was his abrogation of the Mexican Constitution of 1824, a liberal reform document providing for an American style tri-partite government with the citizens having certain inalienable rights, that put Zacatecas, Durango, Coahuila y Texas, the Yucatan Peninsula, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosi, Chihuahua and certain other regions into full rebellion against Santa Anna as a person and as a political force.

This depiction is near the age of  Lopez  de  Santa Anna around the time of his invasion of Texas

     To show how important and improbable this victory by the Texians was. it should be noted that with all it inefficiencies and breakdowns, the forces of Lopez de Santa Anna during the period from 1835 through 1836 had 28 major engagements that could be called battles or at least very significant battalion level engagements.  Lopez de Santa Anna's forces lost only two.   The first one and....the last one.    The decision of General Urrea to acquiesce to the demand that Mexican forces withdraw to the south of the Rio Bravo (Grande) before any consideration of dealing with the captured Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was also a source of wonderment to historians and contemporaries to the issue.

    There were enough forces to overwhelm the Texians in a second, but some think that Urrea's hatred for Lopez de Santa Anna and his war crimes, arrogance, arbitrary nature, and generally corrupt manner caused him to take advantage of this chance to humiliate the despised generalissimo.   Militarily, had the wish been upon them, Urrea and Filisola and Perfecto de Cos could have easily circled the Texian forces, especially to the north, cutting them off from retreat into Louisiana, and committed a "Fannin's Fool's Mate" upon them.  Houston and Somerville were hopelessly exposed.  There was no cover, little forage save for gaseous swamp grass that did little or no good for ox, mule, donkey, or cavalry charger.  Only the Mexican Centralists had oats, corn, and wheat, mouldy though it might have been.

    Such mould, if fresh, was actually good for the beasts...and to this day....corn mould known in the Nahuatl {Aztec}language at 'Huitlacoche (wui - lah - KO - chei) is considered a delicacy by all classes, especially in the central areas of Mexico.  El Gringo Viejo eats it by preference....it is one of those "good bacteria" things like beer, yogurt, sour cream, etc.  Excellent canned varieties can be found in the more elaborate HEBs in Texas and other such stores.

     Urrea would die a few years later during a duel in Mexico City, but Lopez de Santa Anna would live on to torment the Americans and the Mexicans before dying, broke and friendless in June of 1876 at the age of 80.  His death occurred naturally and in solitude.

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     But Texas as a continually evolving, conservative, imperfect, common-law, and natural-law political entity lives on.   It is the central beaming, casting light of that airport beacon-light on the side of the mountain...that most brilliant light within the that shining city that people from around the world wish their side of the mountain could be.   Texas remains a concept that is bigger than reality, bigger than itself, bigger than Hollywood, bigger than any imitator, and a force entirely capable of returning to freestanding status.

     Recent serious surveys had found that a plurality, about 38% of Texans, now seriously believe that Texas should seek a path apart.   Among Latins in Texas 25% favour separation and the re-establishment of the Republic of Texas....that number being roughly equal to the number of Latins who are active and/or self-identifying Republicans.

      That we could have come from San Jacinto against all odds, been annexed, seceded, "Reconstructed", re-admitted, and then arrived back to the point where we began....rejecting an arbitrary, arrogant, corrupt and far-removed central government, is a matter of interest to observers of contemporary as well as historical Texian issues.    (Up-dated polling during the past couple of years indicates that Texians are favouring withdrawal, at this time, by a two X one margin.   My suspicion is that the Latins of the white collar professional, skilled blue-collar, and proprietor class would be in favour to the same or greater degree.)

   So, true meanings?   Until Gabriel plays that last tune, the true meaning of the Battle of San Jacinto is not known.  We should hope, however, that it does not mean that Texas is resigned to be a dull piece of gravel in an recovered aluminium-metal crown that marks the monarchy of fools such as we have in the White House and executive department of to-day's central government.

Thank you all, as always for your time and interest.  We shall try to be "back in the saddle". 

El Gringo Viejo

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Sorry Harry, but you just ain't got no class.

    The recently deposed Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, also recently referred to the remuda of Republican potential candidates to the presidency of the American Union as "losers".   A real headscratcher.

 

Let us see, here's a GOP short list:

 

     Governor Bush                         winner

     Governor Christi                     winner

     Governor Huckabee               winner
Governor Jindal                           winner
Governor Martinez                      winner

    Governor Sandoval                  winner

     Governor Walker                      winner

 

 

     Businesswoman Fiorina        winner

     Neurosurgeon Carson             winner

 

     Texas - US Senator Cruz         winner

     Florida - US Senator Rubio   winner

     Kentucky US Senator Paul    winner

 

 

     Hillary Rodham   -  lying, elitist, arrogant, marxist hypocrite who associates only with wealthy crooks and cronies of the leftist, crony-capitalist Solyndra class of maggots and parasites, with plenty of blood-on-the-hands, mendacity, and avoidance of reality to fill any private room at the Obamacare Psychiatric Facility for washed-up, useless old political crooks.   Perhaps she can get a room next to you Harry....and you can laugh about how you told everyone that you had it on good authority that Romney paid no income taxes for ten years.   Neither of you two is good enough to even earn the title of "loser".....corrupt, self-consumed parasites....is close....still not good enough, but this is a "family blog".

 

El Gringo Viejo

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How to tell when the press is lying.....And how to remember that Valerie Jarrett is a Persian by birth

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  We were almost pleased when we saw the article come up on the national news on an Obsolete Media outlet.  It was predictable....similar to the "A video insulting the Prophet Mohammed caused rioting that resulted in the burning of facilities and casualties among the embassy and consular staff."    But we could rest assured that an element of the truth would be used to defame and deface the truth.

     El Zorro has commented upon these things four or more times over the past couple of years and El Gringo Viejo has commented perhaps a few more times, since the issue  is one of my specialties, concerning political extremists operating in Mexico. The issue is that  nexus between and among Islamic nutcases, and the unapologetic co-operation with communists, atheists, nihilists, and anarchists.  Some want money, others want to kill heretics, infidels, homosexuals, adulteresses, while still others want to practice their medical art's specialty of female circumcision, and, there is always the cohort that simply wants "Death to America".  

     They have come together, whether the Obsolete Press wishes to acknowledge the fact or not.   The have come together, whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation / Valerie Jarrett unit wishes to admit it or not.   They have come together whether or not the "knowledgeable and reasonable" people wish to recognise the fact.    I shall simply say, Red China, al Qaeda, ISIS, Chavez/Maduro/Venezuela, Fidel/Raul et.al./ Ortega-Nicaragua, et.al./ Eastern European arms dealers, and of course what is left of the "cartels" in Mexico.   It is a deadly, horrid stew.

     And before we strut around too much, even FOX News has been performing at a C- level in this matter.

     To begin, an article aired yesterday by an element of the Obsolete Media showed a nice young reporterette-woman on the Mexican side of the international boundary pointing out how ridiculous the idea of ISIS personnel being shepherded by "cartel"-people is.   As she pointed out, and I agree,(paraphrasing)"Look this is just a working class community, trying to build itself out of necessity.   Look there goes a group of high schoolers with their shovels, rakes, and plastic bags to clean the streets.   Look there is a man teaching his and the neighbourhood children how to ready-mix cement for spot repairs on curbs, your house, and whatever, and look there go school-girls with their school-books laughing and carrying on."

      And do you all know what?   She was correct.   It is a typical working-class scene in Mexico where something is being made out of nothing and where PATERNITY is being practiced by thousands of real men, and where a working class semi-disaster is being changed sociologically in one or one-and-a-half genererations, without obtuse direct welfare, into a blue-collar middle or even upper-middle class social establishment.

     Problem:

      

      (1)    Even while they were filming and she was going sound-on- camera, an attractive young woman, probably well built, went by.  Why does El Gringo Viejo say "probably" ?   She was dressed one step up from a burqa, with long skirt hitting between ankle and ground, and with a habib correctly wrapped about her head area....no hair showing.   She covered her face a bit as she went by the field of view....while any  Mexican girls between the ages of 10 and 80 would probably welcome the chance to be "on-camera". Why would such a girl be in the scene....especially by accident? Statistical probability, anyone?

     (2)   The community named by the Mexican Army and Federal Civil Police after they had actually gone in and found more than reasonably convincing evidence of a presence of ISIS personnel....never was called the site of the corpus delicti.  It is known by everyone there that the camp of the "coyotes" or "cartel coyotes" if one wishes, is about 9 miles to the west-southwest of this community.   It was picked up by night-time helicopter reconnaissance and "CIs" involved in the trafficking of illegal entrants into Gringolandia.

     (3)    There have been several of these places encountered in various parts of Mexico.   The Army and Naval Infantry....it is our understanding....has been somewhat vigorous in the searching out of Middle-eastern personalities with Mattel-Passports.    As we have pointed out, it is easy for a Middle-eastern person to become lost especially in large urban areas in Mexico and almost anywhere in the northern half of Mexico....due to the Andalusia-factor in the racial/ethnic complexion of many if not most Mexicans, especially in the north.

   

     (4)    Please be aware that these are not the brayings of bigots.  Remember please, that El Zorro knows....first hand....the nature of insertion of insurgency as a rule of strategy.   Please understand that El Gringo Viejo has literally scores of year of study, generations of background, and a kind heart towards the Mexicans.....This is not the braying of bigots.

     This is the snorting, whinnying, and hoof-scratching of the horse of El Zorro because there is a snake in the corral. When the night is quiet and the foals are backed  up against their mothers and the stallion is watching sleepily at the tranquil scene....he does not hoof-pound and snort.

     My money, based on years of experience and direct contact is to trust the word of the Mexican Army.   They punish their own wrongdoers by courts martial, and they speak directly to an issue until their words are changed by politicians or "journalists", and they have always dealt with me and mine honestly.   Besides, the same "journalistic" agencies and personalitites who now begin to pooh-pooh these silly things, were toot - tooting their horns about its existence when George Bush still lurked around in the White House.

     Billy Jeff Blythe's "Eagle's Talon" anyone?

Thanks as usual.

El Gringo Viejo

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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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