WRONG on two counts!!! First, it's "Anna". Second, Houston didn't capture Santa Anna. Mr. M's great-great grandfather, Sion Record Bostick along with his cousin Joel Robinson and another scout captured Santa Anna and brought him to Houston. Houston let the weasel live and sent him back to Mexico. The famous painting that hangs in the capital and is featured in all Texas history books of Houston wounded under the tree with the Texan army shows Sion and Joel. The problem however, is the artist painted Sion as he was when the artist visited with him - as an old man with a white beard, rather than a boy of 16. Sion is the old white bearded man wearing a black hat standing on the top back row on the mid-left. A more age appropriate Joel is wearing a white shirt with a red scarf (IIRC) and is centered in the portrait. This excerpt of Sion's recollections of the capture of Santa Anna after the Battle of San Jacinto is from the Texas Handbook Online. I have the more colorful story but the language of what he really wanted to do to the prisoner wouldn't have been proper for Handbook. Actually, Santa Anna gave Joel the Masonic handshake which saved his skin or his death would have been a mystery to this day. The Masonic brotherhood played a huge part in Texas history. Susannah Dickinson survived the Alamo because her husband wrapped their baby in his Masonic apron and later Houston let Santa Anna live because they both were Masons.
"Capt. Moseley Baker told me on the morning of the 22nd to scout around on the prairie and see if I could find any escaping Mexicans. I went and fell in with two other scouts, one of whom was named Joel Robinson, and the other Henry Sylvester. We had horses that we had captured from the Mexicans. When we were about eight miles from the battle field, about one o'clock, we saw the head and shoulders of a man above the tall sedge grass, walking through the prairie. As soon as we saw him we started towards him in a gallop. When he discovered us, he squatted in the grass; but we soon came to the place. As we rode up we aimed our guns at him and told him to surrender. He held up his hands, and spoke in Spanish, but I could not understand him. He was dressed like a common soldier with dingy looking white uniform. Under the uniform he had on a fine shirt. As we went back to camp the prisoner rode behind Robinson a while and then rode behind Sylvester. I was the youngest and smallest of the party, and I would not agree to let him ride behind me. I wanted to shoot him. We did not know who he was. He was tolerably dark skinned, weighed about one hundred and forty-five pounds, and wore side whiskers. When we got to camp, the Mexican soldiers, then prisoners, saluted him and said, “el presidente.” We knew then that we had made a big haul. All three of us who had captured him were angry at ourselves for not killing him out on the prairie, to be consumed by the wolves and buzzards. We took him to General Houston, who was wounded and lying under a big oak tree."
According to legend, Santa Anna gave fellow Mason Sam Houston the Masonic handshake indicating distress. Since part of Masonic code is to forgive a fellow Mason in distress, Houston let Santa Anna go.
BTW: Santa Anna is the second most hated man in Mexican history, after General Huerta.
Actually James Austin Sylvester, according to the Texas Handbook Online. Sylvester was a sergeant in the Regular Texas Army, but retained the rank of Captain in the reserves, and was later Commisioned a Captain in the regular Calvary.
El Gato was never a sergeant, but he was a Captain in the Reserves. :)
Captain J.A. Sylvester is buried in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. He never married, and AFAIK left no descendants, and since he was originally from Maryland, probably had no near relatives in Texas or Louisiana where he moved after leaving Texas and where he died. One of these days when I'm down visiting my daughters and granddaughter (the darling Miss V. ) We'll go by the grave and pay our respects. One Captain to another, and one old cat to another.
Actually James Austin Sylvester, according to the Texas Handbook Online. Sylvester was a sergeant in the Regular Texas Army, but retained the rank of Captain in the reserves, and was later Commisioned a Captain in the regular Calvary.
El Gato was never a sergeant, but he was a Captain in the Reserves. :)
Captain J.A. Sylvester is buried in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. He never married, and AFAIK left no descendants, and since he was originally from Maryland, probably had no near relatives in Texas or Louisiana where he moved after leaving Texas and where he died. One of these days when I'm down visiting my daughters and granddaughter (the darling Miss V. ) We'll go by the grave and pay our respects. One Captain to another, and one old cat to another.