Battle of San Jacinto

[Schwerepunkt]

He commanded the Mexican Army against the United States Army during the Mexican American War some 10 years after San Jacinto. Apparently, he did somewhat better but Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott soon had his number.
IMHO, Goliad was truly an inexusable massacre (despite Mexican Law which stated that all rebels were pirates and therefore not eligible to be treated as POWS) and Sam Houston should have executed SA as soon as the latter ordered Mexican Armies to leave Texas.

[Phil Kost]

Originally Posted by Schwerepunkt

He commanded the Mexican Army against the United States Army during the Mexican American War some 10 years after San Jacinto. Apparently, he did somewhat better but Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott soon had his number.

No...he didn't do somewhat better. Santa Anna took command of the Mexican forces in time for the Battle of Buena Vista against Taylor and lost because he had to get back to Mexico City to put down a potential rebellion.

Then he faced Scott and lost every engagement, to include losing his capital city.

[Schwerepunkt]

Thank you for pointing out the Napoleon of the West's great and glorious battle record in the Mexican American war. It is not surprising that he had to return to the capital to surpress an insurrection because he was in and out of the Mexican presidency eleven times.
The above post was made on memory which is not always accurate at my age.

[Phil Kost]

No worries. The US-Mexico War is sort of my obsession.

[Jon Jordan]

To me, an equally interesting question is why there was no Battle of San Jacinto II?

On April 22, Houston had around 900 men (basically the same force as the day before), three cannon (his two plus Santa Anna's), and IIRC around 50 horses (Hardin 209). Houston also would have had to subtract at least 50-60 men to guard the prisoners. Volunteers were drifting in from the United States each day, but in very small numbers and not in such a way that they could have been assimilated well by, say, April 25.

Gen. Vicente Filisola had close to 2800 men (1,500 under his direct command, with four guns; and 900 plus a sapper battalion, pickets, and 60-80 horses, marching south from Nacogdoches under Gen. Gaona (per De la Pena 135-36). At one point, I think I could account for eight guns on the Mexican side, not including Gen. Andrade's San Antonio garrison, which was too far from the front to do any good. Dimmick, whom I greatly respect, counts as many as 3,300 Mexican troops. So Houston was outnumbered by around 3+ to 1 the day after San Jacinto.

We know that Filisola retired to San Antonio upon orders of Santa Anna, but of course those orders were invalid - Filisola knew that as well as anyone. Why quit the fight?

[Pruitt]

Jon,

With the bridge burnt, wouldn't Sam Houston have had to withstand a siege? He did have a steamboat calling on him, but did Filisola have any way to get at the San Jacinto field?

Pruitt

[Jon Jordan]

Originally Posted by Pruitt

Jon,

With the bridge burnt, wouldn't Sam Houston have had to withstand a siege? He did have a steamboat calling on him, but did Filisola have any way to get at the San Jacinto field?

Pruitt

Pruitt:

Good point. I think without bridging equipment, he would have had to have swung to the south rather than take the route Houston used. (Lynch's Ferry was still available, but that would have been a contested river crossing that Houston would never have allowed.) The battlefield is covered from the north and west by Buffalo Bayou (which runs through Houston), and from the north and east by the San Jacinto River and the entrance to Galveston Bay, so it's more a peninsula than an island. If Filisola had moved quickly, he could have trapped Houston on that finger like Cornwallis at Yorktown.

Filisola's other option would be to divert south to Galveston, where the civil government and many prominent civic leaders had fled, hoping to take the Flash and other boats to New Orleans. Once that group had fled or been captured, Filisola could simply stay put in East Texas until Houston's army, with no government to defend, broke up. (Since there was no intervention from the United States, time would have been on Filisola's side - supplies aside.)

That would not have been a very Napoleonic approach, but it might have made Houston's field army more or less irrelevant by depriving the revolutionary army of a revolutionary government to fight for.

[TJAdams]

Originally Posted by Jon Jordan

To me, an equally interesting question is why there was no Battle of San Jacinto II?

On April 22, Houston had around 900 men (basically the same force as the day before), three cannon (his two plus Santa Anna's), and IIRC around 50 horses (Hardin 209). Houston also would have had to subtract at least 50-60 men to guard the prisoners. Volunteers were drifting in from the United States each day, but in very small numbers and not in such a way that they could have been assimilated well by, say, April 25.

Gen. Vicente Filisola had close to 2800 men (1,500 under his direct command, with four guns; and 900 plus a sapper battalion, pickets, and 60-80 horses, marching south from Nacogdoches under Gen. Gaona (per De la Pena 135-36). At one point, I think I could account for eight guns on the Mexican side, not including Gen. Andrade's San Antonio garrison, which was too far from the front to do any good. Dimmick, whom I greatly respect, counts as many as 3,300 Mexican troops. So Houston was outnumbered by around 3+ to 1 the day after San Jacinto.

We know that Filisola retired to San Antonio upon orders of Santa Anna, but of course those orders were invalid - Filisola knew that as well as anyone. Why quit the fight?

You hit on a very solid premise. The Texan Army was not ready for a full campaign of a drawn out war & Houston knew this. He knew this in the face of the adventurous thrill seeker who wanted to continue the war.
As you mention from De la Pena's narrative,
"The disorganization that had reigned in the army (Mexican) from the very beginning increased after the battle at San Jacinto, turning the troops into a formless mass..." p.135

[Schwerepunkt]

Did the manner of Santa Anna's surrender affect the behavior of the Mexican Army after San Jacinto? Were the Mexicans afraid of a US intervention twelve years before it actually took place? I know the massacre at Goliad made many in the US extremely agitated with Mexico and could a defeat of Houston have brought the US Army down in force?

[TJAdams]

Originally Posted by Schwerepunkt

Did the manner of Santa Anna's surrender affect the behavior of the Mexican Army after San Jacinto?...

Second in command Vicente Filisola was ordered by Santa Anna to retreat south of the Rio Grande. But, Santa Anna had hoped Filisola could read between the lines of the communique & reorganize and launch a counteroffensive. Filisola was following secret orders from Tornel to make sure Santa Anna's life wasn't put in any danger. Publicly Tornel argued for the war to go on. Also, there wasn't a great deal of support from key high-ranking officers, Filisola, Urrea, & Sesma to further prosecute the campaign.
"Santa Anna of Mexico" by Will Fowler, pp178-179

[Jon Jordan]

Originally Posted by TJAdams

Second in command Vicente Filisola was ordered by Santa Anna to retreat south of the Rio Grande. But, Santa Anna had hoped Filisola could read between the lines of the communique & reorganize and launch a counteroffensive. Filisola was following secret orders from Tornel to make sure Santa Anna's life wasn't put in any danger. Publicly Tornel argued for the war to go on. Also, there wasn't a great deal of support from key high-ranking officers, Filisola, Urrea, & Sesma to further prosecute the campaign.
"Santa Anna of Mexico" by Will Fowler, pp178-179

Thanks for the reference - I'll check out Fowler's book!

Filisola would have known that any order issued by a captured leader was invalid. But orders from Tornel would have certainly put pressure on Filisola to back away. There were a couple of generals who claimed afterwards to have been disgusted with Filisola's decision to withdraw, but like any memoirs, it is hard to know when the participants are rewriting history.

[TJAdams]

You're very correct Jon.
Memoirs, written safely a few years after an event, often are written with the intent of safely removing oneself from a known bad episode.