As significant battles go, the size of the armies involved in the decisive engagement that led to Texas becoming a nation 175 years ago this week was relatively modest.
Even more compelling was the duration of the fighting at San Jacinto -- just 18 minutes.
But in true Texas fashion, the monument that commemorates the battle is 536 feet tall -- the world's tallest war memorial.
Hey, in terms of numbers, the Battle of Britain "was relatively modest." Doesn't mean it wasn't important.
Not even the carping weenies (i guess every state has them) can deny that San Jacinto had consequences for Mexico, Texas, and the United States.
1 comment:
The 1845 Battle of Cahuenga Pass in what's now Studio City, CA had important long term consequences even though the only casualty was a mule. It was a battle between rebellious Californios and the Mexican Army. Both sides set their lone cannon up just out of range of the other's cannon and fired cannonballs back and forth all day, picking them up when they stopped rolling, dusting them off, and shooting them back. Eventually, the guys operating the cannon on one side noticed that the guys operating the cannon on the other side were, like them, Yanks from Boston who had jumped ship in California and married into local landowning families. "Ezra, Ezra Huntington, is that you? It's me, Ebenezer Eliot from Beacon Hill!"
That was the point at which the Americans in California realized that, just like Richard Henry Dana had hinted in his 1840 book Two Years before the Mast, the earth's most pleasant province was ripe for the taking. By 1851, California was a state.
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