On This Day in Texas History: April 7, 1836
Believing that his best odds for victory lay in the eastern colonies, following the news of the fall of the Alamo, Texas General Sam Houston began marching his army eastward. This strategic decision forced the Mexican Army, which had already marched around 400 miles to reach San Antonio, to march another 200 miles in pursuit of the Texans. As they traveled eastward, the Mexicans encountered abandoned settlements, many of which had been burned, whose residents were fleeing the Mexican Army in what is known as the Runaway Scrape. On April 7th, Santa Anna arrived in San Felipe de Austin, the largest town in Stephen F. Austin’s colony and the de facto capitol of the colonies.
The Texas Army had been in San Felipe just over a week earlier before moving twenty miles north to Groce’s Landing. Captain Mosley Baker and his company were left behind to guard the San Felipe crossing. Baker’s company engaged Santa Anna’s troops on the 7th with one casualty. The following is Santa Anna’s account of his arrival in San Felipe de Austin:
“General Gaona was supposed to have been on his march toward San Felipe de Austin, according to his reply from Bastrop, a town located on the east bank of the Colorado, thirty leagues west of San Felipe de Austin; while General Urrea was supposed to be marching toward Brazoria, situated on the west bank of the Brazos, twenty-five leagues south of the above mentioned San Felipe. I, therefore, continued towards the San Bernard with the division of General Sesma on the 6th, and early on the 7th arrived at San Felipe de Austin. This town, located on the west bank of the Brazos, was no more, for the enemy had set fire to it and forced its inhabitants to flee to the interior as it did at Gonzales.[1] An Anglo-American who was arrested among the ruins declared that he belonged to a detachment of about 150 men that had been detained to defend the crossing on the opposite side of the river; that the towns were burnt by order to deprive the Mexicans of all the supplies as commanded by General Sam Houston, who was now in the woods at Groce’s Crossing, fifteen leagues distant to our left; that he had only eight hundred men, and that he intended to retire to the Trinity if the Mexicans crossed the Brazos.
When our forces came in sight of the said detachment, it opened fire from behind a redoubt. I ordered a trench to be made facing the redoubt; and, placing two six pounders behind it, we returned the fire without interruption, suffering no loss on our part. I immediately reconnoitered the river for a distance of two leagues to our right and left in order to find a crossing to surprise the enemy during the night, but it was all a useless effort. The river is wide and deep, the water was rising, and there was not a single boat to be found. The great rivers that water that country present insuperable obstacles to an expeditionary army. They are all large and subject to floods in the spring, occasioned by the melting of the snows in the mountains and the sudden showers. The latter cause considerable delay in the movements of an army.”
Source: “Santa Anna to the Secretary of War and Marine, Mango de Clavo, March 11, 1837” in “The Mexican Side of the Texas Revolution.” Translated by Carlos E. Castaneda. Washington, DC: Documentary Publications, 1971, p. 73.
[1] The burning of San Felipe is the source of some controversy. Baker says that he was ordered to burn the town by General Houston, however, Houston maintained that he never gave any such order and that the decision to burn the town was that of the residents.
