San Jacinto Memorial

San Jacinto Memorial

Our last stop in the Houston area was the San Jacinto Memorial. This monument was built in 1936, the one hundredth year anniversary of the San Jacinto battle between the Texan army led by Sam Houston and the Mexican army led by Santa Anna. At the time, Santa Anna was not only the General of the Army, but also the President of Mexico. Previously, the Mexican government had shut off Texas to any additional U.S. citizens, worried that not enough Mexicans were residing in this province of Mexico. Texas started a rebellion to become an independent country. In March, the Alamo was captured and most of the Texans and Americans were killed. Soon after another faction of the Texan army tried to surrender at Goliad, but they were slaughtered instead. The remaining army was tracking one of Santa Anna’s units of 700 men which had split off with the main force to capture the Texan government. They failed at this, but Sam Houston saw his opportunity for a victory. The Mexican army was reinforced in the night to 1200 men against Houston’s 900. They expected an attack in the morning, but it didn’t happen. The Mexican army relaxed. Houston attacked in the afternoon, and caught them off guard. In 20 minutes 650 Mexican soldiers were killed and 300 captured while on 11 Texans were killed with 30 others wounded. Best of all, they captured Santa Anna, and fearing for his life, he surrendered even though there were an additional 4000 Mexican troops in Texas. This story is well told by the Museum movie. The displays at the museum are rather old and hard to read, but they have a lot of interesting artifacts.

Battleship Texas

Next door is the Battleship Texas, a ship from World War I. I had planned to tour the ship, but it was closed because of bees. Apparently, the hive of bees was more dangerous than the large guns on the deck. We’re staying at the KOC campground in New Iberia, a large campground with the fastest WiFi we’ve had on the trip.