The Mexican President pompously announced, “I am General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, and a prisoner of war at your disposition.”
General Houston, suffering with pain, received him coldly. He sent for young Moses Austin Bryan and Lorenzo de Zavala Jr. to act as interpreters. Santa Anna cringed with fright as the excited Texas soldiers pressed around him, fearing mob violence. He pleaded for the treatment due a prisoner of war. “You can afford to be generous,” he whined; “you have captured the Napoleon of the West.”
“What claim have you to mercy?” Houston retorted, “when you showed none at the Alamo or at Goliad?”
They talked for nearly two hours, using Bryan, de Zavala and Almonte as interpreters. In the end Santa Anna agreed to write an order commanding all Mexican troops to evacuate Texas. Later, treaties were signed at Velasco, looking to the adjustment of all differences and the recognition of Texas independence.
Thus ended the revolution of 1836, with an eighteen-minute battle which established Texas as a free republic and opened the way for the United States to extend its boundaries to the Rio Grande on the southwest and to the Pacific on the west. Few military engagements in history have been more decisive or of more far-reaching ultimate influence than the battle of San Jacinto.
Opposing Commanders’ Reports
It is interesting to compare the accounts of the battle of San Jacinto written by leaders of the opposing Texan and Mexican forces.
General Sam Houston, in his official report of the engagement to President David G. Burnet, dated April 25, 1836, reviewed his movements during the three days preceding the battle, and then said: