The best book on the Texas Revolution

1. Best book on the revolution

Every few years, someone publishes a list of the most important books about Texas. The best was by the late A.C. Greene of Abilene. It appeared first as an article in Texas Monthly and later as a thin book. The second edition was expanded to The 50+ Best Books on Texas, and I recommend it as a good way to start an argument.

All good books are kindling for good arguments. But the book I want to talk about — the book that most helped me to better understand Texas — isn’t on Greene’s list.

That book is the diary of Jose Enrique de la Peña, a lieutenant colonel of engineers in the army that Major Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna led to Texas in 1836. De la Peña’s diary was published as With Santa Anna in Texas by Texas A&M University Press.

Most of us have a poor understanding of the war. We grew up hearing stories of the courageous fight at the Alamo. We saw the movie with Davy Crockett swinging his rifle defiantly, even after he was out of ammunition, out of realistic hope. We heard of massacre at Goliad and of vengeance at San Jacinto.

But we know almost nothing about the strategy and even less of the logistics that decided that brief war.

For example, do you know where the invading army crossed the Rio Grande?

Most people assume that Santa Anna crossed somewhere around Matamoros-Brownsville and came up from the south. Actually, the army crossed at Presidio Del Rio — not across from modern-day Del Rio, but at the site of an old fort downriver from Eagle Pass. The Mexican Army hit San Antonio de Béxar from the west, not from the south, which surprised the Texans.

De la Peña’s story is much more interesting than the one written in Hollywood.

2. A note on the author

The Mexican army had an overwhelming advantage in manpower. Santa Anna had about 6,000 soldiers in Texas. The Texans claimed 2,000 and probably had closer to 1,500.

With such numbers, how was it possible to lose? After the Mexican army retreated, people demanded an explanation.

It seems as if half the officers involved in the war wrote tell-all stories to explain why the disaster happened and who was responsible.

A version of De la Peña’s diary was published in Spanish after the war ended. Because his was an insider’s account and because it was so merciless in its criticism of the Mexican high command, some generals referred to it in writing their own accounts, either to rebut or to affirm the criticism.

De la Peña was 28 or 29 when he headed north with Santa Anna’s army. He had trained as a mining engineer, and then joined the navy. His naval career stalled when he wrote some nasty things about the admiral of the Mexican Navy, David Porter, an American-born officer who had been a hero in the War of 1812 but who had resigned his U.S. commission amid controversy and headed south. One of his sons, David Dixon Porter, was the second American admiral, following his adopted brother David G. Farragut.

De la Peña joined the army and fought against the Spanish at the invasion of Tampico — where Santa Anna was the strongman — in 1829. De la Peña was sick with smallpox in 1830, but we know little else about this period of his life.

We next pick him as he joined Santa Anna’s march north in 1836 to suppress the rebellion in Texas. And, instead of official records, we have his diary. From the first pages, we hear the voice of an intelligent, articulate officer who thought his commander in chief was an idiot.

3. Can anyone read a map?

Why would anyone think Santa Anna, a man who had the talent and resources to become president of Mexico, was an idiot?

Look at a map and remember that in that day there were few roads in Texas. The colonies were built along rivers because riverboats were the only way to get supplies in and crops out.

Consider the logistics of supplying an army of 6,000 men. Mexico City is 850 miles from San Antonio, then known as San Antonio de Béxar. Monclava, the last real supply depot, is 300 miles from San Antonio. Think about hauling supplies — mainly food, tents, ammunition — all that way by mules and oxen.

A fully loaded mule could carry about 200 pounds, according to army regulations. And of course mules had to be fed, meaning they ate some of the supplies they carried on their backs and pulled in wagons. On long trips, the draft animals consumed far more fodder than they could carry. It’s a losing proposition — not an efficient way to supply an army.

By contrast, even a modest coastal schooner of the day could carry 200 tons of cargo. The scale of what was needed —  200 tons, as opposed to 200 pounds — tells you all you need to know about why De la Peña considered Santa Anna hopeless.

The Texas Revolution should have been a naval war. The Mexicans had the old Port of El Copano, near Rockport, just northeast of Corpus Christi. From El Copano you could go up the San Antonio River 45 miles to the Presidio de la Bajia at Goliad and on another 90 miles to San Antonio. You could supply an army easily.

But if you looked at the map a bit closer, you could see there was no point in taking San Antonio. It was militarily worthless. All you needed to do was take Goliad to secure the roads to the port of El Copano and head east to take down the Texan army, such as it was.

In De la Peña’s view, Santa Anna had many faults, but his inability to understand the nature of this war was fatal. Over and again, de la Peña made these points:

• The Mexicans were in a logistical nightmare because they were at the end of an impossibly long supply line of mules and oxcarts. The army could be properly supplied and supported only by ship, meaning the first fight should have been on sea rather than on land.

• There was no reason — other than pride — for the Mexican army to go to San Antonio. Military strategy would call for attacking Goliad, not San Antonio, and turning east. Even the Texans, who were not overburdened by military geniuses, could see that and defended San Antonio, at least initially, with fewer than 150 men. They concentrated a force of 350 to 400 at Goliad.

4. Wrong plan, wrong target

So why did Santa Anna go to San Antonio?

Ego.

Santa Anna was president of Mexico when revolts erupted in several Mexican States, including Texas. The Mexican constitution said that the president could not serve as army commander. So Santa Anna, lusting for glory, left a deputy in charge as interim president and rushed to lead the army, first against Zacatecas and then against Texas.

San Antonio was a target because one of Santa Anna’s brothers-in-law, Gen. Martin Perfecto de Cos, had been military governor of Texas when the revolt broke out in 1835. Cos surrendered in San Antonio in December.

Santa Anna wanted to make an example of the community that had humiliated the Mexican army and his family.

Santa Anna, supplied from Monclava, crossed the Rio Grande with the main body of the army at Presidio Del Rio and came on San Antonio from the west and north. An independent division of about 550 men under Gen. Urrea came through Matamoros and marched on Goliad.

The main army — Santa Anna’s striking force — was under Maj. Gen. Vicente Filosola, a professional soldier, born in Italy, who became Santa Anna’s deputy commander. From the beginning, a pattern emerged. Filosola plodded forward with the main army while Santa Anna dashed ahead, seeking glory, with a small striking force.

The army that marched on San Antonio was organized into three brigades.

• The Vanguard Brigade, commanded by Brig. Gen. Joaquin Ramierez y Sesma, had about 1,000 men and 8 guns and arrived in Béxar on Feb. 23. That started the “siege” of the Alamo.

• The 1st Brigade, commanded by Brig. Gen. Antonoa Gaone, had 1,600 infantry and 6 guns. Part of this unit marched with Gen. Cos and arrived March 3, in time for the final assault on the Alamo. But the bulk arrived March 8, two days after the Alamo fell.

• The 2nd Brigade, commanded by Brig. Gen. Eugenio Tolsa, had 1,700 infantry and 6 guns. These men arrived March 16 — 10 days after the Alamo fell.

Santa Anna’s command — which totaled some 6,000, including garrisons — was scattered over 300 miles.

One of the fundamental rules of strategy is that you do not divide your forces in the face of the enemy. That was especially true in the kind of terrain Santa Anna faced. Texas rivers tend to flood in late winter and spring. If you cross an almost dry river one day with part of your army, you might find, on the next day, that the two parts of your army are cut off. They can no longer support each other in case of an attack. Time and again, Santa Anna’s generals warned him of that danger.

Had the Texas Army commanded by Col. James Fannin come out of its fortress at Goliad it might have gotten between the widely separated Mexican units and fought each of them on relatively equal terms, one at a time.

Santa Anna’s generals warned him. But Santa Anna was no military genius — and neither was any of the Texan commanders facing him.

5. The Alamo

After an exhausting march with inadequate supplies, the advance column of the Mexican army got to San Antonio. Surprised, the Texan commander, Lt. Col. William Barrett Travis, moved his troops from the Spanish presidio on Military Plaza to the Alamo, an old mission just outside town. Because Travis was surprised, he was able to take only part of his supplies with him.

Only the Mexican Vanguard Brigade arrived on Feb. 23. Most of the Mexican army was far back on the trail. Initially, the “siege” was porous. Soldiers could get in and out, and an entire company from Gonzales did, in fact, reinforce the Alamo.

Travis could have marched his men east to join other parts of the army. He chose to die in San Antonio.

Conversely, Santa Anna could have posted a guard to watch Travis’s little force and gone on to the strategically important crossroads of Goliad.

Instead, he chose a costly, unnecessary fight.

Santa Anna did not wait for his entire army to come up. He also didn’t wait for his big guns to arrive. He could have used that artillery to flatten the walls.

De la Peña thought the lack of planning and preparation was criminal. The scaling ladders were inadequate — too few and too short.

Worse, the medical corps was nonexistent. Santa Anna ordered a frontal assault against riflemen behind stone and adobe walls, knowing he had no doctors and no medical supplies to care for the casualties.

Nevertheless, the Mexican soldiers fought through the difficulties and prevailed.

De la Peña said that as soon as the shooting died down, Santa Anna began to lie. He claimed 600 Texans had been killed. De la Peña said there were 253 bodies inside the Alamo, including some civilian townspeople. He said there were about 300 Mexican casualties, the result of Santa Anna’s ego.

6. Davy Crockett

One famous part of the diary has kept it from becoming a part of the literature of Texas.

De la Peña said that after the shooting was over, several people surrendered, including the famous “naturalist” David Crockett. Santa Anna ordered the prisoners executed as pirates. Some Mexican officers protested, but others, wanting to curry favor with Santa Anna, jumped on Crockett and the others with swords.

Though tortured before being killed, the prisoners didn’t disgrace themselves, De la Peña said. He said he turned away because he could not witness the crime.

When the English translation of the diary appeared, this brief passage was all anyone talked about. People who liked the traditional story decried the book as unreliable. To this day, an important book about Texas history has been largely rejected because it conflicts with Hollywood myth.

7. The runaway scrape

While Santa Anna was wasting good infantry in a frontal assault on the Alamo, Gen. Urrea, with his independent division, was running wild on the coast. These were small battles, skirmishes really. But you can safely say this: Wherever Urrea fought, he won. He used mixed arms — infantry, cavalry and light artillery — with audacity and speed. The Texans rarely anticipated where and when he would strike.

He did suffer a temporary setback — at Refugio, where he drove his men so hard some died of exposure. One Mexican general said that whenever Urrea attacked he deserved a court martial, a reference to an audacity that bordered on recklessness. Urrea was something like Stonewall Jackson or George S. Patton, a general with a mind for offensive warfare. The Texans never came up with an answer for him.

Part of the conventional history of the revolution is that, after the Alamo fell, the Texas colonists fled east before Santa Anna’s army. It was called the great “Runaway Scrape.”

Actually, the problem for the colonists was Urrea. Because Urrea advanced so rapidly up the coast, the Texas army had no choice other than to retreat. Urrea had outflanked the Texan citadel at Goliad. Its commander, Col. Fannin, should have retreated immediately. Instead, he dithered. When it was too late to escape, he finally tried. He was cut off by Urrea and forced to surrender.

Fannin and his men were held as prisoners at the old presidio until Santa Anna arrived and ordered them shot.

De la Peña raged in his diary that massacring prisoners was a crime that would disgrace the Mexican army for generations. He also thought that, as a practical matter, it just made matters worse, stiffening the resolve of the rebels and driving away any prospective allies that might have otherwise sided with Mexico.

8. Unheeded warnings

But Santa Anna didn’t listen to his generals.

As the army moved east, the country got greener and the rivers got bigger. With each river Santa Anna crossed, his generals warned about the dangers of crossing rivers that could flood. They warned him at the Guadalupe. They warned him at the Colorado. They warned him at the Brazos.

Santa Anna blistered his generals as being dull, overly cautious and bureaucratic. He thought the war was over. After crossing the Brazos, the council of generals warned him about the San Jacinto. Santa Anna scoffed, took a battalion from each of the brigades and rushed across a swollen river.

He left most of his army in camp. He had about 4,000 soldiers in the area of Fort Bend, southwest of present-day Houston.

The Texans had only about 900 at San Jacinto, about 50 miles away. They could have done nothing against the entire Mexican army. But when Santa Anna recklessly dashed ahead with his detachment, the Texans were ready to fight.

Santa Anna, impatient with his own generals, allowed himself to get penned into a spot — at least three days’ march across swollen creeks and rivers — where his main army couldn’t reach him. The battle of San Jacinto was over within the minutes. Santa Anna was captured.

10. The inexplicable retreat

At the headquarters of Gen. Filisola, the main body of the Mexican Army had no idea what had happened. Stragglers appeared, saying all four battalions that had been with Santa Anna had been wiped out. Others said survivors were hiding in the woods. Those men had to be rescued. Was Santa Anna dead? Or was he, too, hiding in the woods?

Filisola and the other generals and staff officers had no idea that Santa Anna had been captured, had signed a secret treaty and had betrayed the national interests to save his own life.

De la Peña said Santa Anna’s sycophants turned on him when they heard he was dead. Then, when they learned Santa Anna was alive, they feared for their lives.

De la Peña said Santa Anna should have put a bullet in his brain rather than disgrace himself and the country.

Santa Anna was a demagogue, a liar, a man who never failed to enrich himself and his family at the cost of the country. His capture was not a tragedy, militarily, for Mexico.

The military question was: Why retreat? The Mexican army still had overwhelming superiority in Texas — probably 4,000 in the area of Fort Bend. The Texas army probably had 1,500, including all the troops in Galveston, Nacogdoches and other scattered posts.

Why didn’t the Mexican high command simply regroup and finish the job?

De la Peña’s answer was that it was a failure of leadership. Santa Anna obviously was unworthy of high command, and Filisola proved that he was incapable too.

The generals took counsel and decided to retreat beyond the Colorado to resupply and regroup. But once they got beyond the Colorado, they kept going.

They didn’t get orders from Mexico City until May — a month after the battle — and the orders were contradictory. Spare Santa Anna’s life and preserve the honor of the army.

Many junior officers assumed Gen. Urrea would disobey orders and finish off Sam Houston and his army. They volunteered to go with him. But Urrea joined the retreat. Later, he led a revolt against the central government. He fought Santa Anna in 1838 at the Battle of Mazatlán. But he did nothing to keep Filosola from leading the Mexican Army across the Rio Grande.

De la Peña was unequivocal: The retreat was a complete failure of leadership. That judgment is harsh but fair.

11. Some main points

De la Pena tells a long, interesting story. He gives us so much that helps us understand the war that it’s easy to lose the key points in the flood of information. So let’s go back and take a look at the main ideas that make this book one of the most significant written about Texas.

• First, the Texans could have lost that war. And, conversely, the Mexicans could have won it — easily. Any competent general could have done it.

• The first point leads to the second: Leadership counts. Santa Anna was not a competent general, and he was so arrogant he would not listen to his professional soldiers. He assumed command of the army when he wasn’t qualified to lead it. He bullied his generals into one bad strategic move after another. His string of stupid mistakes was a long one, and his last mistake was catastrophic. When catastrophe struck, he didn’t hesitate to sell out Mexico’s interests to save his skin.

• Third, we think of Alamo as another Thermopylae, a glorious feat of arms. But while there was a strategic reason to fight at Thermopylae, there was no reason to fight in San Antonio. We all learned in school that the heroic stand there gave the Texan army time to organize. Look at a map and look at a calendar. Two weeks after the Alamo feel, the Mexican army scored a larger victory 90 miles away. Think of that — the front moving 90 miles in the days before mechanized divisions. Saying the Alamo defenders bought Sam Houston time to regroup is a bit like a football fan praising a team that gives up only 25 yards a play. It’s nonsense.

• Fourth, the decision to execute prisoners has a history, dating back to the Battle of the Medina in August 1813. The Spanish army crushed an army of rebels near the Medina River south of San Antonio and executed the rebels as pirates. Two decades later, there were open meetings in the United States, covered by newspapers, suggesting that volunteer units be organized to take territory away from Mexico. There was a lot of flagrant, racist talk about manifest destiny. The Mexican congress passed a law saying that any armed rebels would be treated as pirates and shot. Still, Mexican Army officers were overwhelmingly opposed, arguing that shooting prisoners would destroy Mexico’s standing and honor in the world of nations and destroy morale. It did both, and it hurt the Mexican cause.

• Fifth, even after San Jacinto, the Mexican army could and should have won the war. Filisola had overwhelming numbers. He had position in the heart of the rich farmlands just southwest of modern-day Houston. With Santa Anna out of the way, the Mexican army could have had competent leadership under Urrea — or even under Filisola had he been willing to lead. The Mexicans could have brought 4,000 men against Sam Houston’s 1,500. Why didn’t they?

12. Why stronger armies lose wars

Superior arms don’t necessarily win wars. Americans, in my lifetime, allegedly learned that lesson in Vietnam, only to have to learn it again in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Victory takes leadership, but it also takes logistics, meaning leaders who are capable of setting up systems to take care of their troops. The Mexican supply system was riddled with corruption. Starving soldiers frequently had to guard loot that was “liberated” from the enemy and became the property of generals who were connected to Santa Anna.

The soldiers rightly lacked confidence that someone would adequately feed them. More appalling was the lack of any medical care. It just hadn’t been thought about. The health of the soldiers hadn’t been considered. Wounded soldiers had no doctors. When a winter storm hit in February 1836, some soldiers died of exposure.

There were other problems.

• Ignorance of the land and its people. De la Peña said the Mexican army was fighting on its own soil but it felt like a foreign war.

• Diplomacy was an afterthought. At the last minute, the Mexican government had to send an envoy to Washington to make sure where the U.S. government stood.

Even the most patriotic soldiers — and De la Peña was one — became less confident that Mexico could win the war, given so many dysfunctional systems. The Mexican soldier’s confidence that the war could be won was gone long before the army’s capability of winning it finally eroded away.

The Mexican soldiers who marched into Texas followed a populist leader who was seen as a charismatic patriot who wanted to make Mexico great. They did not know that he was an incompetent soldier, a liar and a corrupt self-interested grafter who would sign a treaty that humiliated Mexico to save himself. The Mexican soldiers who marched into Texas could have won the war — but not with leadership like that.

13. Bibliography

• Jose Enrique de la Peña, With Santa Anna in Texas, translated by Carmen Perry; College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1975.

• Gen. Vicente Filosola, Evacuation of Texas; Waco: Texian Press, 1965. This is Filosola’s official account of the disastrous campaign presented to the government in Mexico City. The pamphlet was published in Mexico City. Stephen F. Austin, then secretary of state for the Republic of Texas, got a copy and suggested it be translated and published at public expense since the topic was of public interest. The English version was published in 1837 as “The Representation addressed to the Supreme Government by Gen. Vicente Filisola in Defense of His Honore and Explanation of His Operations as Commander-in-Chief of the Army Against Texas.” Gen. Urrea was famous, while Lt. Col. De la Peña was far less so, so Filosola spent most of his time rebutting Urrea’s claims. Filosola said he exposed the “cabal and intrigue” led by Urrea and urged that Urrea should be charged with crimes.

• A.C. Greene, The 50+ Best Books on Texas; Denton: University of North Texas Press, 1998.

Note: This essay began as a talk to a reading club at the Rosenberg Library, Galveston, Texas.