Gen Antonio López de Santa Anna 4

The Lone Star Republic -Don Gray, reporting from San Antonio de Bexar, TX, February 21, 1836 SANTA ANNA CELEBRATES HIS BIRTHDAY ON THE BANKS OF THE MEDINA RIVER, NEAR BEXAR Santa Anna (see photo below), who turns 42 today, is now celebrating his birthday on the banks of the Medina River, only a day or two from San Antonio de Bexar, some 22 miles to the east. Waiting there for his arrival were dragoons under the command of Colonel Ramirez y Sesma, who had arrived at the Medina River the previous evening. Santa Anna’s army is stretched out behind him for nearly 300 miles. The river is the official border between Texas and its neighboring state of Coahuila. Though Santa Anna’s army is stretched out for some 300 hundred miles behind him, Santa Anna has managed to cross more than 500 miles of hostile terrain in horribly cold weather and is now poised to surprise the Texians who are not expecting him to arrive for several weeks to come. The main reason that Santa Anna has decided to choose Bexar as his base of operations is that he expects to find sympathetic citizenry there. However, he must not yet realize that many of Bexar’s leading families are adding the Texians and that a large percentage of Bexar’s population is doing the same. Santa Anna was born this day in 1794 in Jalapa, MX to Spanish parents who had only recently immigrated to Mexico. TEJANO VOLUNTEERS AT THE ALAMO RESIGN TO HELP THEIR FAMILIES EVACUATE Today fifteen of the Tejano volunteers at the Alamo resigned. Scout Juan Seguin had asked Travis to release the men so that they could help evacuate their families, who were in the path Santa Anna would take to reach Bexar. -Don Gray Portrait: Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna