April 21st or San Jacinto Day in a nutshell was one of the shortest battles in history and a very decisive battle in Texas history. All my Texas friends should know this already and if not shame on you, get on over to Arkansas.

The Texans lead by Sam Houston came upon the napping Mexicans (thus why napping is bad) and thanks to that the battle was short. If your mom always told you that 1pm was nap time she probably didn’t mean that you still had to follow while in the army, but I suppose if your leader said it was nap time it’s ok… unless the opposing army is hunting you down. Just a tactical oversight, I’m sure. Once the Texans had rounded up the prisoners it became apparent that they couldn’t find their leader, Santa Ana. At least they couldn’t until a soldier saluted him and yelled “El Presidente” which roughly translates to “hey guys, here’s our leader – I almost didn’t recognize him because he wasn’t dolled up like he normally is – gosh, that guy always trying to blend in and be one of the men.” Thankfully, some of the Texans were fluent in Spanish and understood the subtleties of the language.

There are reports that some of the Texans were rather brutal and shouted out “Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!” while hunting down soldiers who were fleeing the battle and executing them. In those particular battles no prisoners were taken and the Texans were a bit tired of that. It’s reported that many of the Mexicans were saying, “Me no Alamo! Me no Goliad!” to try to get across that they weren’t at either of those battles. Who knows? To me it sounds like a story told by people who didn’t speak Spanish and were mocking the soldiers, but that’s just me.

Anyway, that’s been your skewed history lesson on San Jacinto Day. For the real history you can easily look it up on the internet. As for me, I’ll be enjoying a lovely day off.