[♪ sentimental music ♪]
-[Burnet] General Houston, sir, the enemy are laughing you to scorn.
You must fight them.
You must retreat no further.
The country expects you to fight.
The salvation of the country depends on your doing so.
-David Burnet, President of Texas
-[Yarborough] After the Alamo fell,
and Santa Anna ordered all prisoners shot,
he had said he was going to kill everybody
that's opposing the Mexican government.
There's a terrific panic over the country,
and uh, every family that could got their belongings together
in a buggy or a wagon or whatever they had-- horseback--
some didn't have any vehicle.
Walk and carry what you could, drag it, put it on a mule,
and then the families just abandoned their homes.
And that was called the Runaway Scrape,
and they were trying to get across the Sabine River
to get into New Orleans before they got killed.
-[narrator] The fledgling government of Texas
retreated to the little town of Harrisburg.
There, they demanded that Sam Houston stand and fight,
but Houston kept his own counsel,
poring over Caesar's commentaries on war,
gnawing on the raw ears of corn with which he filled his saddlebags.
-[Houston] Had I consulted the wishes of all,
I should have been like the ass between two stacks of hay.
I consulted no one.
I held no counsels of war.
If I err, the blame is mine.
[military drumming]
-[narrator] Houston and his small army
were in full retreat, zig-zagging across Texas,
keeping just out of range of the advancing Mexicans.
Rumors spread that alcohol had undercut his courage.
Settlers jeered him from the roadside.
-[Yarborough] The men under him said he was a coward,
and Sidney Sherman, the colonel, tried to replace him.
Sam Houston said, "Anybody that tries to remove me from this command,
"I'll execute him on the spot."
[drumming]
-[narrator] For more than a month,
Santa Anna pursued Houston's elusive army.
Then the Mexican general made a mistake.
He divided his troops and veered off
in hopes of capturing the provisional government.
Houston slipped up behind him
in a bend in a river called the San Jacinto.
-[man] April 21, 1836.
We are in preparation to meet Santa Anna.
It's the only chance of saving Texas.
We go to conquer.
It is wisdom growing out of necessity to meet the enemy now.
-[narrator] Santa Anna's army was surrounded by water on three sides.
Houston's 800 men moved into position on the fourth.
-[Yarborough] There were trees there.
Houston had men up in those trees watching him,
and calling down to him what to do,
and he says the cavalry over there have taken their saddles off;
they're taking their horses to drink.
This is siesta time. It's about 3:30,
and most of the Mexicans is having their siesta.
Houston immediately ordered them to line up.
[horse neighing]
[military drumming]
-[narrator] "Trust in God and fear not," he told his men.
"Remember Goliad. Remember the Alamo."
[cannonfire]
-[narrator] Houston led the charge himself, swinging his saber.
His horse fell, hit five times.
Houston climbed onto another horse.
It too was killed,
and this time Houston's right leg was splintered by a musketball.
[gunfire, horse neighing]
But Santa Anna's army was on the run.
The Texans and the company of Tejanos under Juan Seguín
were right behind them.
The fighting lasted just 18 minutes,
[horse neighs, gunfire]
but the slaughter went on for another hour.
[♪ sentimental music ♪]
When it was all over, 600 Mexican soldiers lay dead.
Nearly 700 more had surrendered.
The surprise had been so complete, the blow so sudden,
that only six Texans died during the Battle of San Jacinto.
Santa Anna himself was made Sam Houston's prisoner,
and forced to sign a piece of paper ceding Texan independence.
Now there were three independent republics in North America:
Mexico,
the United States,
and, under President Sam Houston, the new Republic of Texas.