he took over after the battle of san jacinto. the general and the mexican army had no idea what in the world happened to santa ana or the troops at san jacinto other than it was a terrible disaster. they didn't know in santa ana was alive or dead. there were about probably 1500 troops, mexican troops, here at old fort and another 1,000 down here at columbia. he got reya to join him and they ended up at madam powell's near kendleton on highway 59. we have excavated and found a lot of artifact there is. they met there and stayed there for about a day and a half. now, they still had no clue what happened to santa ana. they had no orders from santa ana, but they had a meeting of the generals on april 25th, 1836, at madam powell's, and what they decided to do was they decided to retreat. they were going to go down to this crossing, which is the one that was used on the way north, and they were going to come down to victoria and they were going to wait for orders from the mexican government. they didn't know what they wanted to do. the

well, there's a boat that came down from san jacinto to give them the news. and we know they're in galveston because we have this receipt. it says "receives of messrs. horton and clements." 2 21 shovels and 13 spades for use of the republic of texas by order of the president. april 1836. which implies that it was signed on board of a boat. when i first saw this receipt, i was wondering why would there be a presidential order for shovels and spades? that's like something a quartermaster would issue. a friend of mine dated this. he said jim, this is a duplicate. i said i know, because it says duplicate on the back. he said the original's in the texas state library. and the one in the texas state library at the top says "april the 26th, 1836." the rest of the language is exactly the same right down to the misspelling with republic with a k on the end of it. so we know it's the same one. one was signed first. one was signed second. april the 26th of 1836 would have been about the time that they received the news of the battle of san jacinto but before the cabinet

he's walking around san jacinto. and he runs into david g. burnett. and president burnett says triplett, i need to talk to you about that land. he goes i'm really getting a lot of political heat for it, is there some way we can undo? he said what do you mean undo it? he said it's going to be really unpopular with the soldiers, can we just suspend it? and these are triplett's words. granted they're standing in the middle of san jacinto after a battle. and he says, "i was now prepared to proceed to new orleans and the president came to me to say that great excitement had been created in consequence of him issuing the grant for a section of land on galveston island and he wished to see if on some terms it could not be annulled." not good. "i replied i'd assign half of it to dr. neblitt," who'd gone to the united states," but the president seemed uneasy and said he would only want to temporarily suspend things and then things would get calm and he'd reissue it." he said i'll tell the cabinet, i'll reissue it under the table, don't worry about it. and he s

williams was indeed a fireman aboard the "san jacinto." there's also -- oh. there's also a william bryan who is aboard the ship, but we don't know that that's our william bryan. if that was william bryan, he was a very healthy man. he was taken to the assistant surgeon for a throat infection and for boils. other than that, he was well hale and hardy. we see on march 6th of 1856, in the medical journal, robert williams was treated for prostratia, which would be exhaustion or dehydration. we see he was treated again -- we have a robert williams who was 26 years old and born in wales and if you go to the previous slide, he was 27. so his age bounces around considerably. in hong kong, he was treated for lymphocitis, soreness. on november 2nd of 1857, we see rheumatismis in the calf of the leg. we see in the medical report for the older man in the turret that he had arthritis. on march 30th, 1857, he is noted as being 36 years old. there was no other robert williams on this ship, much less a fireman born in wales. it's tempting to think that th

a battle fought at san jacinto, even if a victory, even if a victory is not going to achieve houston's political goals, which remember, is to bring texas in to the united states. if gaines had engaged santana on texas soil, gaines defeats the mexican army. i think we can know that's going to happen. texans secure their independence. what had formally been a texan war now becomes an american war. having spent their blood in treasure, americans have an investment in texas. texas joins the union much sooner than it did historically and the bottom line, houston finally achieves his long-term ambition of bringing texas into the union. but that didn't happen. why didn't it happen? because of the soldiers, themselves, and t.j. rusk who doesn't get much credit at all. so what's the takeaway? what happens if houston had gotten his way? the texan army marches into east texas? santana pursues houston across the natchez river and gaines intervenes. the battle that follows is an american victory. texas takes the fast track to annexation. the republic of texas exists for one year instead of ten. tex

on our website, the friends of the san jacinto battleground, you can win up to $500 if you can prove this is an alla mow cannon. there's hints on there for where you might want to start looking. another place you can find texas history is in the archives. now they have the mexican military archives online and i stumbled across this document by empudilla, and he was in the sea of mud so i knew the name right away, i also realized he was at the alamo. this is a document he wrote to santa ana the day after the alamo fell and it's all about how the mexican artillery got involved. one of the things he says in there, and we didn't know that he and several artillery officers went into the alamo during the assault, got one of the texans' cannons, rolled it down a ramp, and fired probably at the long barracks and silenced what he said was a deadly fire that was coming against their infantry. well, one of the lighter cannons at the alamo was this one. if this is indeed an alla mow cannon. talk about tying things together. there's a decent chance if indeed this is an alamo cannon, this could be

what was houston thinking, understanding houston's bizarre behavior during the texas -- during the san jacinto campaign. please welcome dr. stephen hardin. >> thank you, bobby. when governor perry was kind enough to name me an admiral in the texas navy, i informed my wife, debra, that henceforth i expected her to call me admiral. i won't tell you what she called me. but it wasn't admiral. there we go. when sam houston first booted his horse across the red river on december 2nd, 1832, he had but one object in mind, and that was to west texas from the mexican republic and append it to the united states. notwithstanding pledges of allegiance to mexico, houston remained an american expansionist, a protege of andrew jackson, and a political operative. while many will find this a remarkably bold assertion, there is abundant documentary evidence to support it. and once one comprehends that houston's predominant aspiration was to add texas to the federal union, such knowledge does much to decode his behavior during the san jacinto campaign four years later. okay. let's look at the evidence. this is a