Most Texans believe the Battle of San Jacinto settled everything. Once Mexican Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna was decisively defeated, he signed a treaty guaranteeing Texas independence. So Mexican troops would never again set foot on Texas soil nor darken our door—right?
Not quite. Just six years after Santa Anna’s Pyrrhic victory at the Alamo, Mexican forces twice tramped to San Antonio. First Gen. Rafael Vásquez showed up with 700 men to a mostly evacuated city in March 1842. They headed back across the Rio Grande after just two days, having set off a panic in Texas.
Then six months later, Santa Anna sent another army to sack San Antonio and occupy the Alamo. Gen. Adrián Woll led a force of about 1,400 troops who awakened the town with the heart-stopping boom of a cannon blast at dawn, followed by military trumpeters playing reveille. They quickly pacified minor resistance on their way to the central plaza. This was the 19th-century version of shock and awe.
Near the plaza, Texas patriots quickly put up fierce resistance, shooting through rifle loopholes in the walls, but it was fruitless. They were surrounded by a Mexican force of many hundreds.
How did such a large army make it all the way to San Antonio without anybody noticing? Woll, a French mercenary, was quite wily. He crossed the Rio Grande about 20 miles south of Eagle Pass and then swung north of the most traveled roads, bushwhacking his way through mesquite and mottes of trees.
When the Texians put up the white flag, they asked to return to their homes. Woll told them that “if they did not surrender at discretion, they would be exterminated without exception.”
Woll took 62 prisoners, among them several high-value civilians: seven lawyers, a judge, two doctors, a surgeon and prominent business leaders. He told them they would return with him to the border, where they would be released.
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Instead, they were marched all the way to Mexico’s infamous Perote Prison, where many were held for two years, subjected to hard labor and chains. A few died en route, and some died in captivity.
Woll didn’t occupy San Antonio long. His goal was to be a disruptive force, preventing Texians from feeling secure and also to inhibit migration from the U.S. Woll’s other objective was to determine if there were credible military buildups for a Texas invasion of Mexico.
Meanwhile, Texians sounded the alarm that San Antonio had fallen. Volunteers grabbed their guns and saddled their horses. They gathered in Seguin, pushed on to Salado Creek and tempted Woll to pursue them. Woll took the bait, and the Texians, from the cover of the woods, killed and wounded more than 60 Mexican soldiers while the Texians lost only one. Sadly, on another portion of the creek, three dozen Texians were killed.
Santa Anna had once again underestimated Texas. He wanted to unsettle the new republic with fear and chaos and keep them isolated. Instead, he drove the Texians toward a collective desire to join the U.S., which they did three years later.
Correction: July 10, 2023
This story was updated to correct how many years passed after the 1842 attacks on San Antonio before Texas became a state in 1845.
