San Jacinto 1836: Santa Anna's Afternoon Nap and an 18-Minute Rout

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Antonio López de Santa Anna presented himself as a federalist reformer, then on taking the presidency in 1833 turned centralist and overturned the Mexican Constitution of 1824, stripping local authority from Coahuila y Tejas. Stephen F. Austin was jailed for most of 1834 after proposing separate statehood, and in late 1835 the Tornel Decree declared foreigners joining the Texas rebellion to be pirates, subject to execution rather than capture. After the Alamo fell on March 6, 1836, following a 90-minute assault, Sam Houston began the Runaway Scrape: he burned Gonzales, sank his only two cannons in the Guadalupe River, and retreated east through flooded rivers and mud while interim President David G. Burnet accused him of cowardice. The retreat stretched Mexican supply lines, and Santa Anna raced ahead with a small column, missing Burnet's family by minutes as they escaped in a rowboat.

Scouts Deaf Smith and Henry Karnes captured a courier revealing Santa Anna's position, and Houston placed his men in oak groves along Buffalo Bayou. Santa Anna camped on an open plain backed by marsh and Peggy Lake. On April 21, General Martín Perfecto de Cos arrived with 540 exhausted recruits, and in the afternoon the troops rested and Santa Anna took a nap. Smith destroyed Vince's Bridge, and at 4:30 p.m. the Texians attacked with the Twin Sisters cannons, shouting Remember the Alamo and Remember Goliad. In 18 minutes about 650 Mexican soldiers were killed, 208 wounded and 300 captured, against 11 Texians killed or fatally wounded.

• Colonel Pedro Delgado wrote that the campsite violated all military rules and any youngster would have done better.
• Fleeing soldiers caught at the marsh cried me no Alamo as Texian riflemen kept firing.
• Santa Anna was caught in a private's jacket and exposed when fellow prisoners saluted him as El Presidente.
• He signed the Treaties of Velasco and ordered generals Urrea and Filisola south, and Filisola admitted his rain-soaked army could not have resisted pursuit.
• Landowner Peggy McCormick begged Houston to bury the dead on her property, and he told her she should be honored by the victory instead.