Muster at Gonzales--The Siege of Bexar

[Don Guillermo]

This month Texian Web Consortium member, Sons of DeWitt Colony Texas features

MUSTER AT GONZALES----THE SIEGE AND BATTLE OF BEXAR

DISCUSS--

Did?
The Siege and Battle shape the course of the Texas struggle for independence as told through its participants.

Should?[/b]
"Remember Bexar" be an equally strong symbolic cry for local self-determination, sacrifice and anti-central government as "Remember the Alamo" and "Remember La Bahia"--Don Guillermo.

Did the event?[/b]
Unite Hispanic-Mexican Texians, Anglo-Mexican Texians and US Volunteers.

Was the event?[/b]
......"the most glorious feat of arms of the Texas Revolution."---Francis Lubbock

Was?[/b]
....."the departure of the forces under Cos was the turning point in the struggle for Texas independence. Hereafter, all Mexican troops in Texas would be invaders, not defenders, and Texas was destined to remain Texan evermore."---Richard Santos

Was Col. Sanchez representative of the Mexican Centralist government?[/b]
"All has been lost save honor!"---Centralist officer Sanchez Navarro

Don Guillermo

[stuart]

Some fruitful topics for further discussion there Don. Leaving my personal interest aside I'm always struck by how much is ignored in concentrating on the Alamo.

Goliad is a good example in that few people seem to know or are interested in what really happened there despite how it impacted on the Alamo story. There's still this belief that if only Fannin had been man enough...

It doesn't end there of course. Until I wrote my book how many "Alamo historians" were aware that Texian troops went across the Rio Grande?

I'll give some thought to a couple of your topics

[TRK]

The Siege of Bexar section Don Guillermo has assembled at Sons of DeWitt Colony's website is a nicely organized treasure house of information--correspondence, army orders, reports, narratives from books and newspapers, and more. I'd urge all here to go and browse or delve deeply into this resource; you never know what you might turn up.

One effect I think the siege had on the Texans during the revolution was to make them overconfident that they could defeat many times their own numbers in Mexicans. You can see this in Bowie's letter to Cos of October 31, 1835, in which he boasts "I fought you on the 28th [at the Battle of Concepción] with only a small detachment of ninety-two men." There may have been some of this spirit at the Alamo several months later. It worked at San Jacinto and in a number of Texas Mounted Volunteers operations in the Mexican War, for example, but the "we can beat XX times our number in Mexicans" mentality would resurface after the revolution with disastrous results at Mier.

The Siege of Bexar also has significance in that it was the prototype of a Texan style of urban warfare that would resurface at Mier in 1842 and the siege of Monterrey in 1846. I'm curious how many of the Texans in 1842 and '46 improvised their tactics (busting through roofs and partition walls to get at pockets of resistance; seizing city blocks and using them as strongholds for leapfrogging to the next objective; sniping enemy troops from rooftops; etc.) from remembered accounts of the storming of Bexar. It's interesting to speculate how the U.S. Army of 1846 would have proceeded about the storming of Monterrey if it hadn't had the Texan troops at its disposal.

[lorinfriesen]

Nov 1, 2007 19:25:54 GMT -5 Don Guillermo said:

This month Texian Web Consortium member, Sons of DeWitt Colony Texas features

MUSTER AT GONZALES----THE SIEGE AND BATTLE OF BEXAR

DISCUSS--

Did?
The Siege and Battle shape the course of the Texas struggle for independence as told through its participants.

Should?

[/b]
"Remember Bexar" be an equally strong symbolic cry for local self-determination, sacrifice and anti-central government as "Remember the Alamo" and "Remember La Bahia"--Don Guillermo.

Did the event?[/b]
Unite Hispanic-Mexican Texians, Anglo-Mexican Texians and US Volunteers.

Was the event?[/b]
......"the most glorious feat of arms of the Texas Revolution."---Francis Lubbock

Was?[/b]
....."the departure of the forces under Cos was the turning point in the struggle for Texas independence. Hereafter, all Mexican troops in Texas would be invaders, not defenders, and Texas was destined to remain Texan evermore."---Richard Santos

Was Col. Sanchez representative of the Mexican Centralist government?[/b]
"All has been lost save honor!"---Centralist officer Sanchez Navarro

Don Guillermo
[/quote]

I was just reviewing some earlier posts here and noticed this one of yours Don Guillermo. Could we revisit that month's subject again?

Lorenzo

[sloanrodgers]

Have at it, why dontcha? ;D

[lorinfriesen]

I wish I had time right now to talk but am hard at painting my next titled Chrome Horse in time for the Republic of Texas Biker Rally.

I will attempt combine future conversations through other history sites in unison. This special Alamo Studies Forum is my first place at explaining myself for "The Rise Begins". I hope to garner some lively debates as to why this honoring must happen for history's sake. If Texas owned it, that is publicly honored Texas Revolution Day, for I just read that Stephen F. Austin declared war officially on October 4th for the battle at Gonzales, then there would be little need for my painting this scene.

Since reviewing Austin's letters in my addressing this forum, he spoke many times of Americanizing Texas. I now feel it most appropriate to open this conversation to a broader America who may be intrigued to hear of this more completed story of the Rise of the Alamo.

[lorinfriesen]

Nov 1, 2007 19:25:54 GMT -5 Don Guillermo said:

This month Texian Web Consortium member, Sons of DeWitt Colony Texas features

MUSTER AT GONZALES----THE SIEGE AND BATTLE OF BEXAR

DISCUSS--

Did?
The Siege and Battle shape the course of the Texas struggle for independence as told through its participants.

Don Guillermo

The Muster at Gonzales was a defensive reaction to the first attempted action by the Cenralist militia. Thankfully Texas had it's eyes and ears opened for any such action with the warning call for preparations by Austin. After first blood action was taken against the Texans, the Siege was merely a defensive reaction.

These American's after having made Texas home, still maintained their inherent bill of rights to defend themselves against the Centralist doctrine declaring they had no such rights.

The ensuing battles at Bexar in their months long struggles to remove all Mexican militia, did shape their future stand to maintain freedom. Santa Anna's rejection of Texas' uprising insured their call for independence.

Does anyone agree?

[Hiram]

Today is the eve of the Battle of Bexar, so I thought it would be an opportune time to revive this thread.

I'm in process of transcribing a newspaper article published in The San Antonio Express, December 8, 1935. It is a reprint of an interview done on December 9, 1905 with S.F. Sparks, a veteran of both Bexar and San Jac, and the last president of the Texas Veterans Association.

The interview was conducted by Capt. John Elgin. The first item of note is a "debate" between Houston and Austin while encamped on the Salado.

(The parenthetical remarks are mine.)

"...Houston got up and made a stump speech before the army, in which he told them of their weakness in numbers, their poor equipment of squirrel rifles, shotguns and muskets, their total ignorance of military training, the superior numbers of seasoned and well-drilled regulars within a fortified city who were amply supplied with artillery and were commanded by officers trained under some of the greatest generals in Europe; men who had had years of experience in the war with Spain and the succeeding local revolutions in Mexico. The Texans, Houston went on, were being led to slaughter and it would be suicide to attack San Antonio."

(Neither a rousing endorsement nor particularly prophetic.)

"This speech caused a great uproar in the army and created much indignation among the officers. Even those who agreed with what he said denounced him bitterly for making the speech before the army instead of calling a council of officers. It resulted in division and bitter feelings among the men many of them denouncing him as a coward, renegade, drunkard and gambler."

(There is no evidence to indicate that Houston responded, I am NOT a gambler!)

“But Austin arose and his quiet, sensible way answered Houston’s speech and quieted the men. In case of a rash foolhardy attack upon San Antonio, he said that Houston might be right; but he insisted that the city must be taken at any cost, saying that if this stronghold and base were left in the hands of Santa Anna we might as well abandon the revolution, disband the army and return home to carry our families to a place of safety on the Sabine under the protection of the United States Army.

(This obviously becomes the prevailing strategy and ultimately sets the stage for Bexar and the Alamo.)

“This speech quieted the men but it did not destroy the effects of Houston’s speech, for it may be traced to the subsequent lack of confidence and even hatred and contempt for Houston which caused insubordination and divisions which so nearly wrecked the destinies of Texas, resulting in the terrible sacrifice at the Alamo, the massacre at Goliad, as well as the wonderful capture of Bexar and the accidental victory at San Jacinto, all of which events were the result of insubordination of Houston’s orders.

(Division within the ranks as we all know was present throughout the revolution and created an environment conducive to military failures.)

more to follow...

[Kevin Young]

Nice-and good to hear from you Hiram!

[Allen Wiener]

Very good! Thanks for posting Hiram!

[Seguin]

Interesting post! Thanks...