On this day in 1836. . . VICTORY AT SAN JACINTO

[echeese]

This day in history - April 21, 1836:
 
"On this day in 1836, Texas forces won the battle of San Jacinto, the concluding military event of the Texas Revolution. Facing General Santa Anna's Mexican army of some 1,200 men encamped in what is now southeastern Harris County, General Sam Houston disposed his forces in battle order about 3:30 p.m., during siesta time. The Texans' movements were screened by trees and the rising ground, and evidently Santa Anna had no lookouts posted. The Texan line sprang forward on the run with the cries "Remember the Alamo!" and "Remember Goliad!" The battle lasted but eighteen minutes. According to Houston's official report, the casualties were 630 Mexicans killed and 730 taken prisoner. Against this, only nine of the 910 Texans were killed or mortally wounded and thirty were wounded less seriously."
 
 
LONG LIVE TEXAS  
 

 

[streettopeschel]

cheese...you're always good about posting these things. good stuff.

 

[armadillo slim]

ahem, i would be remiss if i didn't point out the obvious connection with one of my long lost, yet most colorful ancestors.  i am unsure of the precise genealogy, but wth a last name like that, i can claim relationship, however remote.  just like the captain on the bottle of a certain famous rum beverage, we Morgans have played a colorful role in the development of western civilization.  

My father was a professor at our great university for over 50 years, but what he really wanted to be........ was a pirate.  The story of the true heroine of that battle is summarized below.

and yes, you're welcome.     

Emily D. West (c.1815–1891), also known as Emily Morgan, is a folk heroine whose legendary activities during theTexas Revolution have come to be identified with the song "The Yellow Rose of Texas".

Biography[SIZE=small][[/SIZE]edit]

West was a free woman of color, of mixed race, or a "high yellow" in the terminology used in those times. She was born in New Haven, Connecticut.[1] In 1835 she was contracted to James Morgan in New York to work as an indentured servant for one year in Morgan's Point, Texas, at the New Washington Association's hotel as a housekeeper.[1] Several months into her year of indentureship, on April 16, 1836, West and other residents were kidnapped by Mexican cavalry. West was forced to travel with the forces of General Antonio López de Santa Anna as they prepared to face the army led by Sam Houston, and was in the Mexican camp on April 21 when Houston's force attacked. The Texans won theBattle of San Jacinto in 18 minutes.[2]

According to legend, Santa Anna had been caught unprepared because he was having sex with West. No contemporary accounts indicate that Santa Anna was with a woman at the time, but the story was recorded in the journal of Englishman William Bollaert in 1842, who heard it from a veteran during a steamer trip.[1] After Bollaert's diary was published in 1956, amateur historians began to expand the tale, with Henderson Shuffler suggesting that West fit the description of the girl in the then-popular folk song "The Yellow Rose of Texas."[1] The story continued to grow, with many references to her West's beauty, as the legend took hold by the 1986 Texas Sesquicentennial.

After the Battle of San Jacinto, the real Emily West wanted to leave Texas, but the papers that declared her "free" had been lost. Major Isaac Moreland, commandant of the garrison at Galveston,[3] vouched for Emily in her application for a passport.[4] Emily possibly returned to New York in March 1837.[1]

 

[echeese]

Now that is a great addition to the story . .. . 

 

[monarch]

LL"T"