50 Fun Facts About Texas Revolution

Which former Tennessee congressman and frontier folk hero died defending the Alamo in 1836?

Davy Crockett reached the Alamo only about two weeks before Santa Anna's army did. He had set out for Texas after losing his 1835 re-election race.

What did Mexican dragoons try to take back from Texian settlers in 1835, sparking the Texas Revolution's first battle?

A borrowed cannon, lent to the settlers in 1831 to fend off Comanche raids, was the prize. They refused to return it and raised a homemade flag daring the soldiers to come and take it.

Sam Houston's army routed Santa Anna at San Jacinto in April 1836 in a battle lasting about how long?

18 minutes was all it took to overrun the Mexican camp, though the killing went on for hours. Santa Anna himself slipped away and was captured the next day.

Which British rock drummer and singer gave Texas his collection of hundreds of Alamo artifacts in 2014?

Phil Collins had already published a book about his hoard, The Alamo and Beyond, and narrated a light and sound show about the battle.

Santa Anna, who personally led the 1836 invasion of Texas, called himself which conqueror "of the West"?

Napoleon of the West was the title Santa Anna gave himself, his boldest piece of self-promotion after he defeated a Spanish invasion force at Tampico in 1829.

Before the 1836 siege made it famous, the Alamo in San Antonio had been founded by Spain as what?

A Catholic mission, San Antonio de Valero, was founded there in the 18th century. The name Alamo, Spanish for cottonwood, likely came from a military company posted there later.

Years after losing Texas, Santa Anna brought a shipment of chicle to New York, where it gave rise to which product?

Chewing gum emerged after the American assigned to assist him failed to turn the sap into a rubber substitute. Santa Anna himself made no money from it.

Which Alamo co-commander, famed for a brawl called the Sandbar Fight, was bedridden during the final assault?

Jim Bowie led the Alamo's volunteers until an illness his doctors could not diagnose confined him to bed. The most widely accepted accounts say he died there.

During the 1836 siege of the Alamo, the blood-red flag Santa Anna's troops raised over San Antonio signalled what?

No quarter would be given, the flag warned. A Mexican decree issued weeks earlier classed armed foreigners fighting in Texas as pirates, and captured pirates were executed.

Santa Anna was captured the day after San Jacinto disguised in the uniform jacket of what rank?

A private was what he passed for until other Mexican prisoners cried out in recognition of their commander. He had spent the night hiding in a marsh.

After leaving home as a Tennessee teenager, Sam Houston lived for three years among which Native American nation?

Cherokee villagers took in the teenage Houston and knew him as Raven. He went back to live among them in 1829 after resigning as governor of Tennessee.

What name was given to the 1836 flight of Texas settlers eastward ahead of Santa Anna's advancing army?

Runaway Scrape was the name for the panic that emptied Texas settlements after the Alamo fell. Even the interim government packed up and fled with the civilians.

Texas declared independence from Mexico on which date in 1836, which was also Sam Houston's 43rd birthday?

March 2 is still celebrated as Texas Independence Day. The declaration was adopted while the Alamo was under siege, four days before it fell.

Which 26-year-old lawyer commanded the Alamo and addressed a plea for help to the people of Texas and all Americans?

William B. Travis sent the appeal out by courier on the second day of the siege. Transcripts were appearing in newspapers about a week later.

What did the captive Santa Anna sign in May 1836, ordering Mexican troops out of Texas?

Treaties of Velasco came as a pair, one public and one secret. Mexico's government ratified neither, on the grounds that its president had signed under duress as a prisoner.

Before the Texas Revolution, Texas shared a Mexican state with which neighbour, a union settlers petitioned to end?

Coahuila dominated the joint state, whose capital lay hundreds of miles from the Texas settlements. The Convention of 1833 asked Mexico to make Texas a state of its own.

Mexico's Law of April 6, 1830, a leading grievance behind the Texas Revolution, banned further what?

American immigration was halted after a general toured Texas and warned that the United States might annex it. The same law stopped settlers bringing in more slaves.

What Spanish title was held by Stephen F. Austin and other agents contracted by Mexico to settle families in Texas?

Empresario still means businessman or entrepreneur in modern Spanish. Each agent received a sizeable land grant in return for recruiting settler families.

Early in the Texas Revolution, many Texians claimed to fight for which federalist charter Santa Anna had overturned?

Constitution of 1824 was the cause the Texian delegates pledged themselves to in November 1835. Outright independence was declared only four months later.

Stephen F. Austin, arrested in 1834 on suspicion of inciting insurrection, was held for over a year in which capital?

Mexico City was where Austin was taken after being seized in Saltillo. Officials believed he was steering Texas toward independence.

Which Alamo survivor, spared with her infant daughter Angelina, carried news of the garrison's fall to Sam Houston?

Susanna Dickinson lost her husband Almaron in the battle. Her account of Santa Anna's strength led Houston to tell civilians to evacuate and to order his army to retreat.

Which town, nicknamed the Lexington of Texas, sent 32 men through Mexican lines to reinforce the besieged Alamo?

Gonzales got the nickname from newspapers after the revolution's opening skirmish was fought there. Its relief party slipped into the Alamo in the dark and died with the garrison.

On which Christian holy day in 1836 were hundreds of Texian prisoners shot in the Goliad Massacre?

Palm Sunday was the day the prisoners were marched out in three columns between rows of soldiers. They had surrendered believing they would be freed within weeks.

Which Texian scout captured a Mexican courier whose dispatches revealed Santa Anna's position days before San Jacinto?

Deaf Smith, nicknamed for hearing loss since childhood, was then sent to destroy Vince's Bridge. Santa Anna fled toward it after the battle and found it gone.

Which Tejano captain carried a message out of the besieged Alamo and later fought at San Jacinto?

Juan Seguín returned to San Antonio that June to accept the formal surrender of the Mexican forces at the Alamo. A Texas city is named after him.

Which Texian colonel, a West Point dropout, surrendered at Coleto Creek and was executed with his men at Goliad?

James Fannin asked to be shot in the heart, not the face, and to be given a Christian burial. He was shot in the face and his body was burned.

Which New Jersey-born lawyer was chosen as interim president of Texas by the 1836 independence convention?

David G. Burnet had once lived for two years among the Comanche. As interim president he put his name beside Santa Anna's on the agreements that ended the war.

Which Yucatán-born former Mexican finance minister became the first vice president of the Republic of Texas?

Lorenzo de Zavala was Mexico's minister to France when Santa Anna assumed dictatorial powers. He resigned in protest, ignored an order to return home and settled in Texas.

Which former Nashville newspaper editor is credited as the main author of the Texas Declaration of Independence?

George Childress had been in Texas for less than three months when the convention met. He probably wrote most of the text himself, though four other delegates sat on the committee.

Which Kentucky-born Texian rallied volunteers to storm San Antonio in December 1835 and was shot dead in the assault?

Ben Milam was killed instantly by a Mexican rifleman while studying a church tower through a telescope. The town's garrison surrendered a few days later.

Which Mexican general, said to be Santa Anna's brother-in-law, surrendered San Antonio to the Texians in December 1835?

Martín Perfecto de Cos was released on a pledge that Texans felt he broke when he came back months later to lead a column against the Alamo. He was captured after San Jacinto.

Which US president recognized the Republic of Texas in 1837 by naming a diplomat to it just before leaving office?

Andrew Jackson had commanded a young Sam Houston in the War of 1812. He made the appointment on his last full day as president.

Legend links Emily West, said to have distracted Santa Anna before San Jacinto, with which folk song?

The Yellow Rose of Texas was first tied to West in the 20th century. No account from the time places a woman with Santa Anna, though an English traveller recorded the tale in 1842.

Sam Houston's horse was shot from under him at San Jacinto, and a stray bullet shattered which of his joints?

Ankle shattered, Houston still received the captured Santa Anna the next day and spared his life. He later went to the United States to have the wound treated.

After San Jacinto, Santa Anna agreed to pull Mexican troops back across which river, later claimed as the Texas border?

Rio Grande was the boundary Texas went on to claim, while Mexico insisted the line was the Nueces River farther north. The quarrel outlived the republic.

The defiant motto on the banner Texian rebels raised in 1835 echoes a reply attributed to which ancient Greek leader?

Leonidas is said to have answered that way when Persia's king demanded the Spartans' weapons before Thermopylae. An American fort commander reused the reply in 1778.

Which Hollywood star directed the 1960 epic The Alamo and played the Tennessee frontiersman who died there?

John Wayne wanted only to produce and direct, but backers would not put up the money unless he also appeared on screen. He sank $1.5 million of his own into the film.

What name is given to settler Haden Edwards's 1826 attempt to found an independent republic near Nacogdoches, Texas?

Fredonian Rebellion lasted barely six weeks before its leaders fled to the United States, but it alarmed Mexico enough to send a general to inspect Texas.

Which Texas port saw settler uprisings in 1832 and 1835 over customs duties and the conduct of its Mexican garrison?

Anahuac is where a young lawyer was arrested in 1832 on suspicion of plotting insurrection. Four years later the same man commanded the Alamo.

Which Mexican president's 1829 decree abolishing slavery alarmed Anglo settlers in Texas, who won an exemption?

Vicente Guerrero issued the decree using emergency powers granted to meet a Spanish invasion. He was overthrown three months later.

Santa Anna crushed a federalist revolt in which Mexican state in May 1835, months before turning his army on Texas?

Zacatecas paid dearly: Santa Anna let his troops loot the city, and the state was stripped of the territory that became Aguascalientes.

Which Mexican general, unbeaten in the Texas Revolution, pleaded in vain for the lives of the Goliad prisoners?

José de Urrea was born in a Spanish presidio at Tucson, in what is now Arizona. The executions were carried out in his absence, on orders sent straight from Santa Anna.

The San Jacinto column, built on the 1836 battlefield near Houston, stands slightly taller than which landmark?

Washington Monument is the world's tallest stone monument, while the Texas shaft, topped by a 220-ton Lone Star, ranks as the tallest masonry column.

Which volunteer unit, formed in a coffee house in 1835 and named for its uniforms, lost 23 men at the Alamo?

New Orleans Greys stood out among Texian volunteers for looking like real soldiers, with uniforms, good rifles and some discipline. Another 21 were lost in the Goliad campaign.

Which nickname did Francita Alavez, companion of a Mexican captain, earn during the Texas Revolution?

Angel of Goliad was the name she earned by pleading for Texian prisoners, some of whom were spared the massacre there. Records give her first name as Panchita, Francisca or Francita.

As Santa Anna's cavalry closed in during April 1836, the interim Texas president escaped by rowboat toward which island?

Galveston Island was the refuge. The Mexican colonel who reached the shore found the rowboat still in range but held his men's fire because the president's family was aboard.

Which Mexican general's inspection tour of Texas produced the report that led to the Law of April 6, 1830?

Manuel de Mier y Terán despaired of Mexico ever holding Texas. In 1832 he threw himself on his sword at the spot where Emperor Iturbide had been executed.

Which centralist charter turned Mexico's states into departments under appointed governors, fuelling revolt in Texas?

Siete Leyes, or Seven Laws, replaced Mexico's federal system with rule from the capital. Its first law limited citizenship to those with an income of at least 100 pesos a year.

In which 1832 document did Texian settlers pledge support for Santa Anna as a champion of federalism?

Turtle Bayou Resolutions urged all Texans to back Santa Anna, then leading a federalist revolt against a centralist regime. Four years later he was the centralist they fought.

Which Texas town did Santa Anna burn in April 1836 after narrowly missing the fleeing interim government there?

Harrisburg had been abandoned by the government only hours before Mexican troops rode in. Santa Anna torched it and pressed on, sure the revolt was in its death throes.