Friends and Family

During the mid-afternoon period to-day, there was a peculiar, very brief power outage.  It was enough to reset the digital clocks to 12:00 and such.   But the biggest thing was that El Gringo Viejo was prepping an old article and a new submission for this blog.  They were being "operated on" in the "operating room" when - ZAP - they were gone.  No where is where they were.  The Universe consumed them.

    Finally a call went out to the daughter and the son and to El Zorro who lives on the other side of the mountain.  "Did you see the original submission on your computer in the posted blog section? Can you advise and forward it if so?"  Or something to that effect.

     In a few minutes, all three had their "copies" entering into my email and all was saved.   Both the analysis from several years back, with the emphasis on the Mexican commandancy and other technical and battle matters, and the other more political and philosophical analysis.   OROGs deserve fresh treatment of auld topics.  And they deserve new treatment of old and interesting topics in which there will be perpetual debate and interests.

These children and this friend bespeak of what the value of such things is. 




Thank you all for your patience.
El Gringo Viejo

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True Meaning - San Jacinto

    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 re-iterate what 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 full-statehood cause, and then with the move to Independence from the control by Mexico City and its bi-polar political posturing.

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.   On the day of the engagement....this day....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.

    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 nearby 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.

     It was Sunday.   Each side knew of the other's exact position and strength.  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.  As the orders went out a few hours 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....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.

     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.  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.  It was his abrogation of the Mexican Constitution of 1824, 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, artibitrary nature, and generally corrupt manner caused him to take advantage of this chance to humiliate the despised generalissimo.

     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.

     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 lighthouse of 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. 

     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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Observations on San Jacinto and some interesting facts

This is a reprint from a previous post.  We had a new set of commentaries about San Jacinto that suffered from an electrical problem during editing.   We are attempting to either resuscitate or re-write the lost submission.

San Jacinto Day - 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.

Gen. Jose' Urrea

    The commander in chief Lopez de Santa Anna, and the lowest ranking general officer were Mexicans.   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, 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 Victoria del Rio Guadalupe 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.

     Here, El Gringo Viejo enters a well-documented but rather neglected fact about the issues of personality, strategy, tactics, honour, and the business of war that the Centralist Mexicans were undergoing even as they were winning, fairly easily against the erstwhile Republican insurrectionists.  To wit:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Words of the hapless Coronel Nicolas de la Portilla to General Urrea - March, 1836      "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.      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 (1761–1836) 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 honorable 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 second lieutentant 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."

Honored 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. (then Lt. Col.) Somervell, commander-in-charge, 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 cavalry squadron in the thickest of the fight  was Capt. Juan Seguin, an arch-enemy of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.   Major Mirabeau Bonaparte Lamar was the overall commander of the mounted part of the Texian force, and he would later become a President of Texas for a term.

     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 the best general in the field, but also the one most prone to err through arrogance and hubris.   Some say his membership in the Scottish Rite Masonic 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 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.

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

True Meanings - San Jacinto

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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 re-iterate what 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 full-statehood cause, and then with the move to Independence from the control by Mexico City and its bi-polar political posturing.

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.   On the day of the engagement....this day....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.

    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 nearby 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.

     It was Sunday.   Each side knew of the other's exact position and strength.  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.  As the orders went out a few hours 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 in the face of the enemy during those dawning moments.....and then the entrance into the most formidable military encampment on the North American Continent....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.

     It was a horrible disaster for the hopes of a Mexican totalitarian's 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.  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.  It was his abrogation of the Mexican Constitution of 1824, 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, artibitrary nature, and generally corrupt manner caused him to take advantage of this chance to humiliate the despised generalissimo.

     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.

     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 lighthouse of 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. 

     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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Observations and Comments that Rattle Around in My Mind

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     Things run together in what remains of the brain of El Gringo Viejo.   The work on the Quinta Treasure of the Sierra Madre was tiring.   The labour shortage in Mexico is hitting our area in spades.   Three different maestros who are normally available had to defer from helping on our job due to existing and future commitments.

    We finally had to go back to the original maestro....the one who is most capable...but who also had history of shady dealings and a tendency to never reach the end of the project.  But, he said yes...and he has good equipment.  This time he worked through the project in three days.

      One advantage is that he had Alvaro and me to help.   Rafael, the neighbour, is an engineer.  He approved my design and helped in several ways.   In any regard, it was a success.

     Across the Rio Grande, back up in Texas, we learned that the Chief Deputy of the Sheriff's Department had been "picked-up" for engineering illegal campaign contributions for his boss's re-election.   His boss, of course, is (now was) the Sheriff of the 6th most populous of Texas's 254 counties.   Within a couple of weeks, our Sheriff had pled guilty at arraignment....no indictment, no trial....just guilty to charges so deep and wide and corrupt that the whole ugly thing could puke a buzzard off a gut-wagon.

     While Republicans have their problems here and there and now and then, Hidalgo County has had 3 elected Sheriffs in a row who ended their terms at the licence plate factory.   At least this Sheriff's son managed to be convicted of multiple felonies and sent to a federal licence plate factory,   The Sheriff's son was the head of a special tactical "anti-drug"  and "anti-organised crime" unit.  The unit was composed of 9 commissioned peace officers.   One of them is the son of a local police chief.   All making licence plate for Chairman Mao.

     And the last primary elections, inside the Democrat Party primary in Hidalgo and the surrounding counties, there was so much voter fraud, officially recognised voter fraud, that it will be difficult to try all the cases.  In the case of Hidalgo, Texas there were precincts where over 20% of the voters required "voter assistance", allowing  thereby a "helper" into the voting booth in order to "assist" the hapless voter.   This manoeuvre is very commonplace in many voting precincts throughout South Texas.

     A County Commissioner for Hidalgo County, a woman who had, according to community common knowledge, been a bar-maid not long before becoming a member of the County Commissioner's Court, set quite a record for public service.   After doing so much for women's and children's issues like other heroines of the Democrat Women Defenders Association....she managed to use public money for private purposes, while also arranging welfare for illegal alien women whom she would hire as maids and slaves...also on the taxpayers' dimes....she finally was assigned her place in the Women's Licence Plate Factory.

    It really serves no great purpose to keep naming the hundreds along with their transgressions against the common good.   A party built on welfare, fraud, covetousness, and the sale of the canard of "....the Party for the Poor".   And not a smidgen of corruption in any of it.

     We have come to the point where it looks more and more like something may be going to happen in the IRS case, and perhaps even the Fast and Furious case.   We shall discuss this in more depth later. 

     It was and is all so depressing.

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     Then, we have an event, a woman throwing a shoe at (Sir Edmund) Hillary.

As one reviews the video of the incident, it is very apparent that the Queen of All Universes is completely unaware that anything had been thrown in her direction....the shoe passes well to her right while she is looking down and beginning to look up.   The shoe is 15 feet past her when she makes her first reaction to the situation.

     Like almost everything pertaining to this hideous narcissist, the whole thing wreaks of a set-up.   The cooing, wowing, and fawning admiration for Hillary's "quick reaction" and "really sharp comeback lines" among the chattering of the Obsolete Media robotrons was another opportunity for me to drink another bottle of Pepto Bismol.   

     It was as if the "spontaneous comments" advisory had been passed around even before the event.   Vince Foster's briefcase spontaneously appears on his cold, hard, desk three days after the police have gone through the room, making notes and photographs of every possible thing....never noting the briefcase on top of the desk.   And lo and behold, there just happens to be a "suicide note" inside the convenient briefcase AND it just happens to be torn into 30 or so very convenient to tape together pieces.    No fingerprints...so it was good that Vince wore his latex gloves to write his suicide note.   He had done a pretty mediocre, but interesting job in imitating his own printing (not cursive).

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     We had an phenomena during this last stay of the arrival of numerous ring-necked doves.   There were perhaps 20 pairs.  They are coloured like milk with a slight bit of chocolate syrup, and they are bigger even than a large whitewing dove.   We had been told by the "ecology" people that there were no more ring necked doves....that the Tea Party and George Bush had killed them all.   Just an observation.

    More later.  It is time to consider Holy Saturday and the Feast of the Resurrection

El Gringo Viejo

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Back Home

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     We have returned from our place in Mexico.  It was a lengthy stay, and we did a considerable amount of repair, reconstruction, and gardening work.   The last few nights were very cold....mid-thirties, but there was no damage to the avocados or other delicate growies.   Lots of birds.   Some good rains.

     There is a considerable amount of commentary to read and also to type up.  We should be here for a while, although we are going Central Texas to visit with the rest of the Tribe this weekend.

     We shall make an effort to make a few comments to-morrow.

El Gringo Viejo

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