Postscript
The Victors and the Vanquished
Hank MacElrae returned home to Bastrop with Julie and Auggey, eventually siring four more children by Julie. Hank, hailed as a hero of the Texas Revolution, was elected mayor of Bastrop four successive terms. Late in life, Hank was appointed historian for the State of Texas. Although this honor was certainly related to the fact that he was by then the last remaining Texian soldier alive who had been at the Alamo, it was also due in no small measure to Hawk Banks, who had spurred Hank on to make learning his lifelong challenge. During the last decade of his life, Hank was instrumental in assuring the heroes of the revolution would be remembered, securing named sites for the likes of Milam, Bowie, Crockett, Houston, Austin, Seguin and Smith. He passed away peacefully on April 21, 1886, the 50th anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto.
Julie MacElrae would live to the age of 103, long enough to see the birth of four children, sixteen grandchildren, forty-three great grandchildren, and more than a hundred great great grandchildren. She and Hank are buried alongside Hawk Banks. The medallion given to Julie by Hank at the end of the revolution is today the proudest heirloom of the descendants of Hank and Julie, and each year on April 21st, the story is retold of the great events of long ago.
Auggey MacElrae was the youngest soldier to fight in the Texas Revolution. Nee Augustus, he eventually shortened his last name to McCrae, joined the Texas Rangers, and went on to become one of the most beloved characters in Texas history.
Teresa Perez grew to adulthood under the expert parenting of Hawk. She never married, and never left his side, living with him to the end of his life. She died peacefully in her sleep at the age of 93 in Dallas.
Mephistopheles, one of the few survivors of the Alamo, came home with Auggey and Jackson, where he lived out his days chasing bugs. Jackson, who learned that Mephistopheles loved to be rubbed on his tummy, gave as good as he got.
Hawk Banks, true to his promise to Antonia, returned to San Antonio and rescued Teresa. He and his adopted daughter Teresa Banks then joined Hank and Julie on their farm in Bastrop, but his fame was too great for him to remain in anonymity. He was elected sheriff of Bastrop for three successive terms. At the request of Governor Houston he also served for a short time as Captain of the Texas Rangers. Late in life he moved northwards and settled a farm along the Brazos River. He was killed by Comanches in the Elm Creek Raid in 1864. After his death his remains were transported to Bastrop, where more than a thousand people showed up for his funeral. He is buried today in the Bastrop cemetery.
Buffalo Hump went on to become a great warrior chief of the Comanches. He led several raids against Texans before the Comanches were finally subdued in the late 1860’s. He died in 1870 on the Comanche reservation near Fort Cobb, Oklahoma.
Stephen F. Austin lived barely long enough to see Texas become a country. He ran for president of the Republic of Texas, but failed to win when Sam Houston entered the race at the last minute. Austin died of pneumonia on December 27, 1836. Upon hearing of his death, President Sam Houston said, “The Father of Texas is no more; the first pioneer of the wilderness has departed.”
Juan Seguin, the last known man to leave the Alamo alive (with the possible exception of Moses Rose), went on to live a distinguished career in the Republic of Texas. In 1837 he oversaw the burial of the ashes of the heroes of the Alamo. Later, during the Mexican-American War, he would be forced by racial prejudice to flee to Mexico. He died in 1890 in Mexico. His remains were reinterred in Seguin, Texas in 1974.
Susannah Dickinson and her daughter Angelina were perhaps the only Texian survivors from the interior of the Alamo. Susannah gave many verbal accounts of the battle, but did not write an account, as she was illiterate. After the Texas Revolution Susannah remained in Texas, where she lived a long and adventurous life, marrying a total of five times. She died in 1883 and is buried in the Oakwood cemetery.
Angelina Dickinson was raised by her mother and later became a courtesan in Houston. Known as the babe of the Alamo, she died in 1869.
Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna was sent to Washington, where he was paraded around publically for several months, and then returned to Mexico, where against all odds, he once again assumed control of Mexico. He would serve as president of Mexico on no less than eleven different occasions, and in the process, he lost nearly half of the land mass of Mexico to the fledgling United States of America. Despite this he is remembered as one of Mexico’s greatest heroes. He died in 1876 at the age of 82.
Martin Perfecto de Cos was taken prisoner after the Battle of San Jacinto. He was later repatriated to Mexico, and served once again in the Mexican Army in the Mexican-American War. He died in 1854 in Mexico.
Deaf Smith, the everyman hero of the Texas revolution, would not live long after the battle of San Jacinto. He died the following year at the age of fifty in Richmond. History will remember him as the person who made the victory at the Battle of San Jacinto a reality.
Francisca Alavez, who later came to be known as the Angel of Goliad, continued to minister to imprisoned and wounded Texians, even after she returned to Matamoros with Captain Alavez, who apparently was not her actual husband. The remainder of her life is shrouded in mystery, but recent evidence suggests that she lived into her nineties, and passed away peacefully on the King Ranch sometime early in the twentieth century.
David G. Burnet so infuriated Texans with his decision to allow Santa Anna to live that he spent much of the remainder of his life defending himself. Upon Houston’s election to the presidency of the Republic of Texas, Burnet resigned his position as Interim President. He held various political offices over the succeeding years, but never ceased fighting with Sam Houston, even going to the extent of writing a pamphlet disparaging Houston. On two separate occasions he challenged Houston to a duel, but Houston demurred on each occasion, famously replying, “Texas is tired of both of us.” Burnet died in Galveston at the age of 82 on December 5, 1870.
Sam Houston went on to become the President of Texas. Later he would become one of the first two senators from Texas in the U.S. Congress. Four years after the Battle of San Jacinto, at the age of 47, Houston married 21 year old Margaret Moffette Lea. She is said to have been a beauty, and, like Houston, extraordinarily tall. Margaret would give him eight children, the last arriving when Houston was 67 years old.
Houston became such a towering figure of American folklore and legend in his own lifetime that he rarely found solitude the remainder of his life. He was much maligned for his handling of the Army of Texas and the Battle of San Jacinto. Later he would be branded a traitor to the Republic when he refused to side with the south in the Civil War.
Houston would pass away peacefully at the age of 71 in Huntsville, in the same month as the Battle of Gettysburg. Thus, he did not live long enough to see his dream of Texas reunited with the United States of America.
Houston is buried today in an unremarkable grave near the state prison in Huntsville. He will be remembered as a great American, and one of the greatest Texans that ever lived. Perhaps fittingly, Houston is today honored with an enormous white statue standing alongside Interstate 45 just outside of Huntsville. It is reputedly the largest likeness of an actual human being ever assembled on earth.
Margaret Houston died of yellow fever four years after her husband’s death. She is buried at a beautiful spot in Independence, Texas, some ninety miles west of her husband’s gravesite.
Travis, Crockett, Bowie, and Bonham, along with numerous other heroes of the Alamo, would be remembered throughout Texas with cities, counties, schools, streets, buildings, and streets named after them. In World War II the liberty ship S.S. James B. Bonham was named for Bonham. Their remains are today entombed in the San Fernando Basilica in downtown San Antonio.
The Alamo would become one of the most famous historical sites on Earth, visited by more Texans than any other place in the world.
Mexico, a pr
oud country with a tradition as rich as the United States, would be so embarrassed by the Texas Revolution that it would be initially omitted from her history, when in truth it was neither her people nor her military who were at fault, but rather her leaders. A decade later, Mexico and The United States of America would face off in a difficult and costly war that would be the last one fought between these two nations.
Texas, the only state in the U.S.A. to ever be recognized as a country, would grow from 30,000 inhabitants in 1836 to a population of 27,000,000 by 2014. Were it still a nation, it would be the 47th most populous and 40th largest in the world, its citizens accounting for the 15th largest economy on earth. Zealot politicians would in the early part of the third millenium build a fence across the entire border of the southern U.S. in an attempt to separate The United States and Mexico. Despite this, by 2010 fully one fourth of the population of Texas would speak Spanish as a first language, a reminder to us all that war is not the answer.
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