A Massacre Long Forgotten - The Battle of Medina Part 2

 

Routed from the field, General Toledo’s Republican Army fled toward San Antonio with the royalist cavalry, under Lt. Colonel Ygnacio Elizondo, behind them. The more than six hundred dead republicans on the battlefield were never buried but left to rot for nine years. To stamp out dissent in Texas, Arredondo took an unmerciful, heavy-handed approach toward any captured rebels. Wounded republicans on the battlefield were bayonetted on the spot. The Americans serving under Toledo met a more gruesome fate at the hands of Tejanos anxious to prove their support to the advancing royalists. Republican Captain Ephraim McClane wrote, ”They butchered most of those who had broken down, cut them in quarters, and suspended them on poles and limbs of trees like beef or pork for the packer; and when the enemy advanced, they displayed them as trophies of their loyalty.”  

Upon the royalists’ arrival in San Antonio, those who had supported the Republican government were rounded up and shot by firing squads. One prisoner, John Villars, reported three hundred male prisoners were placed in irons before Arredondo “had executed some of them, then dragging them round the public square, and then cutting off their arms and heads and placing them in public places- these scenes continued until he disposed of most of the unfortunate fellows.” Rebel property was confiscated and sold at auction; the money going to the royalist soldiers. In Arredondo’s eyes, all residents of San Antonio were guilty of treason. There were to be no trials, just incarceration followed by execution. One of Arredondo’s officers was especially impressed with his excessive brutality, a young lieutenant named Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.

Female republican supporters suffered cruelty worse than slow death. Spanish soldiers confined them to a makeshift prison they nicknamed “La Quinta,” a Spanish term meaning country retreat. Inside, they were forced to grind corn on their hands and knees to make tortillas for the soldiers. While laboring constantly every day, the exhausted women were subjected to sexual abuse. Resistance could lead to a severe lashing or worse. While their parents were imprisoned or shot, the children were forced out into the streets to beg for food and shelter.

To crush dissent throughout Texas, Arredondo dispatched Elizondo and five hundred cavalrymen east to the Louisiana border, taking prisoners (mostly Tejanos) along the way. Seventy-one rebels were executed. Elizondo took two hundred prisoners along with all the plunder his men could carry back to San Antonio. While camped on the Brazos River, one Elizondo’s officers, Lt. Miguel Serrano, lost his sanity over the horrors he witnessed. He stabbed Elizondo in his commander’s tent with a saber after killing Elizondo’s cousin, Captain Ysidro de la Garza. Elizondo later died on the way back and was buried on the banks of the San Marcos River. More executions followed after the prisoners arrived in San Antonio.  Their bodies were hung around the plaza for months as a grizzly warning throughout the city. As if the executions were not bad enough, there was an increase in Indian raids. In response, all males were forced to join the local militia after they were ordered to abandon their farms and ranches. Lipan Apaches and Comanches burned them to the ground and killed the livestock, leading to a severe meat shortage. Though peace overtures were made, they were only a temporary fix. Arredondo’s reign of terror lasted until the Spring of 1814 when he returned to Mexico, leaving Texas firmly in the Spanish control. To keep that control, defend against Indian raids and deter American encroachment, Arredondo approved the petition of Moses Austin (father of Stephen F. Austin) to establish a settlement in Texas.  On July 3, 1821, he switched his allegiance to an independent Mexico.  Arrodondo retired to Cuba where he died in 1837.

General Toledo, Henry Perry and Gutierrez escaped into the United States. Though eager to renew their revolutionary efforts, the U.S. was preoccupied with the War of 1812 and had little interest in supporting them. Gutierrez eventually returned to an independent Mexico where he was elected Governor of Tamaulipas. He died on May 13, 1841. Toledo made peace with the Spanish Government and later returned to Europe as a diplomat, dying in Paris in 1858. Perry never gave up his filibustering ways. He tried to seize La Bahia in Texas, leading fifty men in a doomed effort. In 1817, he committed suicide near Nacogdoches rather than surrendering to Spanish troops.

In the shadow of the Alamo, Goliad and San Jacinto, the Battle of Medina has become a mere historical footnote. Though the casualties were much higher and certainly more horrific than those of the Texas Revolution, there are few to zero historical sites concerning the battle and following massacre in San Antonio. To this day, the exact location of the battle has not been found. No graveyards, no breastworks, no relics and shifting soil has made a location an educated guess at best. Three markers exist for the battle’s possible site:

1)    A State of Texas marker at the intersection of U.S. Route 281 and Farm to Market Road  2537 in Bexar County.

2)    A State of Texas marker placed in 2005 at the intersection of Old Applewhite Road and Bruce Road near the community of Leming in Atascosa County.

3)    A marker (not recognized by the State of Texas) placed in 2013 by retired petroleum geologist Robert P. Marshall on Old Pleasanton Road based on Marshall’s own research.

A long-time Texas History enthusiast, Marshall used old maps, diaries, and his oilfield-honed mathematical skills to produce a 40-page report declaring he had found the site of the Battle of Medina. “I’ve taken the same approach as a geologist trying to find an oilfield, using facts and mathematics,” he stated. However, there is no archeological evidence to back his report. In 2022, a team of archeologists, anthropologists and volunteers searched the grounds near Losoya Middle School in San Antonio, unearthing a piece of iron grape shot and several musket balls – not a conclusive find. Today, with increasing interest in Tejano history and culture, the actual site may soon be found. Such a horrific battle and its aftermath certainly deserves more attention than it has in the past.