The Battle of San Jacinto was fought on 21 April 1836 and decided the Texas Revolution. After weeks of retreat following the fall of the Alamo, General Sam Houston turned and attacked Santa Anna's resting camp in the afternoon. Shouting "Remember the Alamo" and "Remember Goliad," the Texians overran the Mexican army in about 18 minutes. Santa Anna was captured the next day and agreed to withdraw his forces, opening the way to an independent Republic of Texas.3
In the spring of 1836 the Texian rebellion seemed lost. The Alamo had fallen, the garrison at Goliad had been executed, and Sam Houston's small army was in retreat. Then, on a spring afternoon by the San Jacinto River, Houston turned and attacked.4
A revolution in retreat
After the fall of the Alamo in March 1836, General Sam Houston led the Texian army east in a long retreat, criticized by many of his own men, while Santa Anna pursued with part of his army. The prisoners at Goliad were executed while the retreat was under way.5
Houston's army left Gonzales on 13 March, two days after he learned there that the Alamo had fallen. By 20 March it was camped on the Colorado River near present-day Columbus and had grown to about 1,200 men, but news of the defeat at Goliad, which reached the camp on 25 March, sent many of them home to help their families escape. Settlers all over Texas were already fleeing east in what Texans called the Runaway Scrape, and the retreat turned it into a mass flight. From the end of March Houston halted for about two weeks at Jared Groce's plantation on the Brazos River to drill his recruits, while the interim president, David G. Burnet, ordered him to stop retreating.6
Houston turns
By April Santa Anna had divided his forces. Near the junction of Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River, Houston brought his roughly 900 men face to face with the Mexican president's camp of about 1,200 to 1,300 soldiers, reinforced that morning.7
Santa Anna had pushed ahead of his main columns. According to the Handbook of Texas, he crossed the Brazos at present-day Richmond on 11 April, reached Harrisburg on 15 April with about 700 men and burned it, then hurried on to New Washington in a vain attempt to seize the Texas government, which escaped to Galveston. Houston, for his part, took the road toward Harrisburg on 17 April rather than the road east to Louisiana, and left about 248 sick men behind with the baggage. Late on 19 April the Texians crossed Buffalo Bayou, and on 20 April they reached Lynch's Ferry, where they captured a boat loaded with Mexican supplies. That afternoon a cavalry clash led by Sidney Sherman almost brought on a full battle, and a private, Mirabeau B. Lamar, distinguished himself so well that he was given command of the cavalry.8
On the morning of 21 April General Martín Perfecto de Cos crossed Vince's Bridge with reinforcements, about 540 men by the Handbook's count, which brought Santa Anna's force to roughly 1,200. Houston sent his scout Erastus "Deaf" Smith to destroy the bridge. That stopped any further Mexican reinforcements, but it also closed the road of retreat for both armies.9
Eighteen minutes
On the afternoon of 21 April, while much of the Mexican camp was resting, the Texians advanced across the open ground behind a screen of trees and rising ground, with two small cannon known as the Twin Sisters. Crying "Remember the Alamo" and "Remember Goliad," they overran the camp in about 18 minutes. Hundreds of Mexican soldiers were killed in the rout that followed.10
Houston formed his line at about 3:30 in the afternoon, during the Mexican siesta, and the Twin Sisters were wheeled into position. The Handbook of Texas notes that Santa Anna evidently had no lookouts posted, and in its account Edward Burleson's regiment held the center, Sherman's the left, and the artillery under George W. Hockley, Henry Millard's infantry and Lamar's cavalry the right. Some men shouted "Remember La Bahía," the old Spanish name for Goliad. Once the Mexican line broke, the Texians went on pursuing and killing fleeing soldiers long after the battle itself had ended. Houston was hit by a musket ball that shattered his ankle.11
How many soldiers fought at San Jacinto, and how many died?
About 900 Texians fought at San Jacinto, 910 by Houston's own count, against roughly 1,200 to 1,300 Mexican soldiers. Houston reported 9 of his men killed or mortally wounded and 30 wounded. He put Mexican losses at 630 killed and 730 taken prisoner, figures that together exceed most estimates of the force Santa Anna had on the field.12
Houston's men were, in the words of the Texas Historical Commission, an army of settlers, Tejanos and foreign volunteers. According to the Handbook of Texas, they also captured large stores of muskets, pistols, sabers, horses, mules, provisions and tents, along with $12,000 in silver.13
Why did Santa Anna lose at San Jacinto?
Santa Anna lost because he was caught by surprise with only part of his army. He camped beside a marsh with the bayou behind him, apparently posted no lookouts, and let his men rest in the afternoon. The Texians approached unseen behind trees and rising ground, and with Vince's Bridge destroyed there was no easy escape.14
The Mexican army in Texas was much larger than the force at San Jacinto. In early April Santa Anna had split it into three columns: a northern one under General Antonio Gaona, a central one under himself and General Joaquín Ramírez y Sesma, and a coastal one under General José de Urrea. By racing ahead to catch the Texas government, he left himself with a detached force far from the rest of his army, the chance Houston had been waiting for.15
The president in captivity
Santa Anna escaped from the field but was captured the next day, dressed as a common soldier. Held as a prisoner, he signed the Treaties of Velasco, agreeing to withdraw the Mexican army beyond the Rio Grande.16
According to the Handbook of Texas, a search party found him hiding in the grass on the morning of 22 April, wet and in a common soldier's clothes, and did not know who he was until other prisoners greeted him as "el presidente." The two Treaties of Velasco, signed by Santa Anna and Burnet on 14 May 1836, were a public treaty that ended hostilities and sent the Mexican army back beyond the Rio Grande, and a secret one that promised Santa Anna his freedom if he worked for Mexican recognition of Texas independence. General Vicente Filisola began the withdrawal on 26 May, but the government in Mexico City declared void everything Santa Anna had signed as a captive, and the Texas army refused to let him go home. Neither government accepted the treaties, and Mexico did not recognize the loss of Texas until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.17
Why San Jacinto mattered
San Jacinto secured the independence of the Republic of Texas, which joined the United States in 1845. It made Sam Houston a national hero, and the cry "Remember the Alamo" became part of American memory. So did the names of the Alamo's defenders, among them the frontiersman Davy Crockett.18
The Texas State Library says the battle "sealed the fate of three republics." Mexico never regained the territory, and the annexation of Texas led to the Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848, whose battles included Chapultepec in 1847 and which ended with the United States taking Mexico's lands to the west as well. One of the inscriptions on the San Jacinto Monument claims that almost a third of the present area of the United States changed hands as a result. For the families of the Runaway Scrape the news meant they could turn for home, though many found their homes destroyed.19
Can you visit the San Jacinto battlefield today?
Yes. The battlefield is preserved as the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site in La Porte, beside the Houston Ship Channel about 20 miles east of Houston. The 1,200-acre site, run by the Texas Historical Commission since 2019, includes the San Jacinto Museum and the 567-foot San Jacinto Monument, and the grounds are free to visit.20
The monument was built between 1936 and 1939 for the centennial of the battle and dedicated in April 1939. The museum's association calls it the tallest war memorial in the world, at 567.31 feet, taller than the Washington Monument, and it is crowned by a 34-foot star, the Lone Star of Texas. Eight carved panels around its base tell the story of Texas, and one of its inscriptions calls San Jacinto "one of the decisive battles of the world."21
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