Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2011/04/18

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Subject: [Leica] [IMG]'s
From: rcmphoto at yahoo.com (R. Clayton McKee)
Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 09:38:53 -0700 (PDT)

About 175 years ago a ragtag bunch of tired, annoyed, and not especially 
well-armed Texans seceded.  From Mexico. (Seceding from the US came later 
and didn't work out as well for them....) They made up their own 
Constitution, their own president (David Burnett), and their own army, 
commanded by General Sam Houston.

The Mexican dictator of the time, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna etc 
etc, objected to this, of course. As a result, a lot of people got shot, 
sliced, and otherwise killed in unpleasant ways.  

After several battles, all ending badly for the Texians, and a whole lot of 
running away across the state, the argument finally  came to a head on April 
20, 1836, when the Texians, somewhere between 700 and 900 of them, turned 
around near Lynch's Ferry.  

After a few inconclusive skirmishes, about midafternoon of April 21, the 
Texians went for an after-lunch stroll and caught SantaAnna's Mexican 
regulars napping. Literally. It was siesta time; the Mexican commanders 
didn't even have guards or pickets posted.  (There are rumors that while 
Santa Anna was entertaining in his tent, he may well NOT have been napping, 
but that's for history to argue.)  

The 18 minutes that followed made the existing maps obsolete.  And if Santa 
Anna was indeed not napping, that was the high point of his day. 

Hundreds of Mexicans were killed, hundreds more captured.  A few escaped, 
but most of those were caught within hours or days.  Santa Anna himself fled 
the battlefield but the Texians had burned the bridge over the bayou leaving 
him nowhere to run, and the next day the Napoleon of the West was captured 
dressed as a private hiding in the weeds. 

Fewer than 20 Texians died.  (I've seen casualty counts of 17 and 19, but 
don't know which is correct.)

The two things to remember, though these days they get harder to believe: 

1.  The good guys won.
2.  The Texians, with their guns, were the good guys.

About 20 years ago various Texas history buffs got together and decided that 
that first 18 minutes was so much fun they wanted to do it again.  So every 
year since, around about the 21st, they do.

I try to make it when I can.  With cameras,of course.    

http://rcmckee.smugmug.com/Other/2011-San-Jacinto-Reenactment/16660270_ZwX5p7


http://tinyurl.com/426cdjq

Enjoy. Send Friends. Buy Prints. Compliment the Photographer.  Have fun.

R. Clayton McKee
PhotoJournalist
from somewhere just south of somewhere else...


Replies: Reply from lluisripollquerol at gmail.com (Lluis Ripoll) ([Leica] [IMG]'s)
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