Re-Collections of the Revolution

Palm Sunday, March 27, 1836. Three hundred and forty-two Texian prisoners are marched from Presidio La Bahía at Goliad and executed in three columns along three roads. One nineteen-year-old German volunteer, Herman Ehrenberg, survives by plunging into the San Antonio River. This episode follows General José de Urrea's advance up the Texas coast, James Fannin's fatal hesitation at Goliad, t...

In this episode of Re‑Collections of the Revolution , we step inside the ruins of the Alamo at dawn, guided by a nineteenth‑century hand‑colored print that presents the site as calm, abandoned, and timeless. From that image, we explore how a violent siege became a powerful symbol—and why that transformation mattered. This episode follows the siege of the Alamo as it unfolded: the exhaustion of the...

In March of 1836, as a blue norther rattled the unfinished walls of Washington‑on‑the‑Brazos, a fragile republic struggled to take shape. Re‑Collections of the Revolution brings you inside those cold rooms where delegates—divided, exhausted, and uncertain—attempted to answer a single, defining question: What was Texas fighting for? At the center of this moment stood Lorenzo de Zavala, a seasoned r...

After the chaos and anarchy of the fall of 1835, 59 signers came together to declare Texas a free and sovereign nation. The painting "The Reading of the Texas Declaration of Independence" by Charles and Fanny Norman, finished for the 1936 centennial, is the only painting known to have all 59 signers included. Join us for a special episode as guest presenter Chandler presents the Texas De...

One of the most controversial orders of the Texas Revolution was Sam Houston's order to James Bowie to blow up the Alamo. Sam Houston, busy with the fallout of the Grant-Johnson expedition to Matamoros, ordered Bowie to strip the Alamo of its remaining military supplies and blow it up. Bowie famously ignored the order and remained at the Alamo to die on March 6th. The failure to follow through...

"Dear Sir- I have had much difficulty, and many severe trials since you left here..." On January 15th, 1836, Governor Henry Smith sat down to write down his troubles to Dr. Asa Hoxey. His troubles were the culmination of three months of disfunction between the General Council and himself that had finally plunged Texas into Anarchy. How did Governor Henry Smith get himself impeached? And...

In the fall of 1835, Presido La Bahia emerged as a crucial stronghold in the fight for Texan independence. Join us as we unravel the story of Phillip Dimmit, the fort commander, whose journey from Mexican Federalist to the leader of the first military garrison to declare Texas Independence set the stage for a new era. We’ll explore how this strategic fortification, often called Fort Defiance, play...

On December 20th, 1835, the garrison at Goliad declared its independence from Mexico. William G. Hill, an important planter from Brazoria, was tasked with helping take the declaration to the Committee in San Felipe. As he got ready for the journey, he hastily scrawled a note to his friend General Houston and attached a copy of the declaration. This episode has a special reading of this forgotten f...

The book opens with a warning from the great Roman historian Tacitus about the Germanic barbarians, warning, "Freedom, however, and specious names are their pretexts; but no man has ever been ambitious to enslave another or to win dominion for himself without using those very same words." With this ominous opening, the Minister of War, Jose Maria Tornel, opens his defense of the Texas Re...

Across the United States, militia groups began to form and march to Texas to support American settlers. One of the earliest and most important to organize was the New Orleans Greys, organized on October 13, 1835, at Bank's Arcade. Join us as we explore the New Orleans Greys and other American volunteers' impact on the Texas Revolution, as we follow the adventures of one, 19 year old Thomas...

By October 1835, no one in Texas could deny that War had arrived, but there was little else anyone could agree on. Everyone had their own opinion, seeing themselves as "a king like unto Adam." It was soon recognized that a war could not be fought without cooperation and leadership; decisions had to be made on the war's goals and who would be in charge. A Convention was assembled, and...

José María Jesús Carbajal wrote to his cousin Antonio Menchaca from the confusion of the collapsing 1835 Coahuila y Tejas legislative session that "...all that our rulers want is to abolish the federal system!! Coahuila and Texas shall never be governed by any other form of government." Carbajal, the secretary of the congress and elected representative from Bexar, was a man who could hav...

On September 1st, 1835, the Mexican revenue cutter, the Correo de Mexico, and a Texas merchant ship, the San Felipe, clashed. The shots exchanged between the two ships became some of the first shots of the Texas Revolution. Join us for our fourth episode "Hey, Mexico, Leave Those Ships Alone", as an unassuming cotton traders bill leads us to explore this naval engagement and the spark th...

For the Tejano’s of San Antonio, the brutal impact of the Battle of Medina rippled out for years as a symbol of brutal unchecked tyranny. For the Spanish Royalist forces, however, the victory over the Army of the Green Flag was not tyranny, but the suppression of an illegal revolt that had brought instability and war to New Spain’s fragile northern border. Both sides grappled with justifying their...

In the 1820s, Stephen F. Austin was in a bind. He was land rich and cash poor. He needed his new colony in the Mexican state of Texas to succeed. There was only one major problem. How to attract settlers that was so wild and unknown it didn’t even have a map. In the first episode of our new podcast “The Map is the Thing!” explore the geography of Texas in the 1820s and 30s through the eyes of the...

“To the Austins: May their bones burn in Hell,” cried John H. Wharton in a toast to William T. Austin. We don’t know Austin’s immediate response to the toast, but we know the ending. Those be fightin’ words, and a slap across the face with a glove. (We like to imagine, tragically, we don’t know how the duel was arranged.) In the second episode of our new podcast, “10 Steps to War”, we dive into th...

Revolution: A sudden radical change. These are the stories of the Star of the Republic Museum. Its 18-episode mission: To explore the Texas Revolution's untold stories. To seek out the objects that witnessed such an important historical moment. To boldly go where no Texas Revolution podcast has gone before. Join museum educator Jennifer Parsley every 1st Friday of the month for Re-Collections...