[Modified using a template from Hardin, Stephen L. Texian Iliad: A Military History of the Texas Revolution. U. Texas Press, Austin, TX, 1994]
[Modified using a template from Hardin, Stephen L. Texian Iliad: A Military History of the Texas Revolution. U. Texas Press, Austin, TX, 1994]
[snip]
One more little incident of San Jacinto and I will have done with my poor account of some of the things I saw there, although the event I am going to relate occured a day or so after I left, but it was told to me by several of the boys who were eyewitnesses. A large amount of ammunition had been captured, among which were quite a lot of cartridges gathered up loose and piled in a heap not far from Santa Anna's tent, which was guarded by a sentinel in front and one in the rear. Tom Nail was on duty that day as guard at the rear of Santa Anna's tent and no man ever breathed that hated the Mexican chief more than Tom. By some means during the day fire got out in the dry grass and reached the pile of cartridges with the result that there was a furious and prolonged explosion. It sounded like the continued rattle of musketry and produced quite an excitement in the camp. Hearing the uproar Santa Anna got the idea that there was an uprising of the prisoners and, rushing to the rear of his tent, he bent low to the ground and, raising the cloth, put his head out to see what was going on. Sentinel Nail was carrying a Mexican escopeta, with a fixed bayonet, and when he saw Santa Anna's head poked out, he made a vicious lunge at it with his bayonet which missing its mark, buried itself to the gun muzzle in the ground. Of course the general's head got back quicker than it came out, but until the day of his death Tom Nail cursed his ill luck in not pinning Santa Anna's head to the ground on that occasion.
Strange to say our histories of Texas say little or nothing about the disposition of the Mexican dead at San Jacinto and the question is often asked if they were buried. As stated, they were not buried but left to decay where they fell. But the sequel proved that these carcasses should have been buried or burned. Dead Mexicans lay everywhere and in every position. It was a ghastly sight I can never forget. Santa Anna evinced no desire to have his slain men interred, and of course we Texans were not concerned about the final disposition of these unfortunate "greasers." The fact is that immediate burial of so large a number of corpses was rendered impracticable by the great fatigue which the Texans had endured, and by the care of the prisoners and captured army property. Soon the bodies, drenched by the heavy rains and heated by the burning sun, presented a fearful, most ghastly sight, swelling to enormous sizes and decaying with a revolting stench. No one, of course, wanted to engage in the gruesome work. The boys saying that they came to kill, but not to bury Mexicans, and it was jocosely suggested that a dead "greaser" would turn to a mummy anyhow---that there was not vitality enough about them to cause decomposition; that at the Alamo and at Goliad our dead were burned, but that we would be more humane and leave the unfortunate Mexicans to rest in peace on the field. [Shields footnote: Colonel Delgado, complaining of the treatment of himself and his fellow prisoners of war, says, still more intolerable was the stench arising from the corpses on the field of San Jacinto, which they (the Texans) did not have the generosity to bury, after the time-honored custom, regardless of their own health and comfort, and those of the surrounding country.]
I have often heard the story of how a Mrs. McCormick, on whose estate the principal portion of the slain Mexicans lay, called at General Houston's headquarters and requested him to "have them stinking Mexicans removed from her land." The general, with mock seriousness, replied, "Madam, your land will be famed in history as the classic spot upon which the glorious victory of San Jacinto was won. Here that last scourge of mankind, the arrogant, self-styled Napoleon of the West, met his fate." "To the devil with your glorious history!" the madam replied, "Take off your stinking Mexicans." No buzzards or wolves came about them, and the odor exuding from the corpses which lay rotting south of our camp, became terrible, causing the army to move up to Harrisburg. After the flesh rotted off, the cattle pawed over and chewed the bones to the extent that their milk and meat was unfit for use. The citizens of the vicinity then gathered up and buried the bones, all except the skulls, which could not be chewed. The skulls lay on the ground and some of them could be seen many years later. Some of them were carried away as souvenirs; but I never had any desire for such relics.
[end snip]