Battle of the Medina - Strategy and Revenge - "La Noche Triste" - "The Black Hole" - "The Quinta" - A Tragedy Unparalleled in American History.

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     About the middle of July, General Jose Maria Alvarez de Toledo arrived in San Antonio as successor of Gutierres.  He was well received by the Americans and most of the Mexicans.  His elegant manners, stately military bearing, and fine personal appearance won the respect an confidence of the major part of the troops.  The only official to oppose Toledo was Captain Menchaca, and his opposition amounted to only a mild protest.  This distinguished Mexican was born and reared in San Antonio, every inch a patriot,

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Historic old "Quinta."  Here Arredondo imprisoned the San Antonio women after the Battle of Medina.  This was San Antonio's firt postoffice during the Republic.

wise, brave, and a born leader, and his intuitive foresight was far more penetrating than that of his superior officers.  His presentiment that Toledo, the Gachupin (Spaniard), would prove the undoing of the republican cause, and that he would yet be holding a commission under the crown of Spain, proved a fulfilled prophecy.
     In August, hearing that a Spanish army was approaching from Laredo, commanded by General Arredondo, the republican army from San Antonio march out to meet them.  Arredondo, learning of their approach, hid the main part of his army near

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the Medina River, and sent a small force ahead with instructions to engage the enemy in a slight skirmish, then seem to become confused and begin to fall back.  The Americans thinking the whole army was in retreat, fell into the pitfall laid for them.   In an open space concealed from view by a strip of dense chaparral, Arredondo had drawn up his reserves, forming three sides of a square with his artillery so posted as to sweep the open side of this square which was open to the Americans, and into which they unwittingly rushed, Toledo having abandoned a strong and almost impregnable position to thus court defeat and litter annihilation.  Exposed to a withering fire, the Americans maintained the unequal struggle.  In all that host there was not a single coward.  They were the sons of brave Revolutionary sires, they were the bravest of the brave, and it was not hard to die.
     Finally, when nearly all had fallen and there was no longer a cartridge left to the bleeding, staggering survivors, the battle was ended, and the flight to Bexar was on.  The city was at the mercy of the relentless avenger, making this a pretext of retaliation for the blood of Herrera and Salcedo.  For many years afterward the people of San Antonio spoke of that awful night as ''La Noche Triste" - the night of sorrow.
     With his main army Arredondo reached Bexar early in the afternoon of the 20th.  The patio, or parade ground, in the Alamo barracks, had been con-

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verted into a sort of carcel, more properly, a prison pen, and upon the royalist general 's arrival, he found that his industrious subordinate, Elisondo, had cooped up in this pen nearly 800 prisoners, including citizens of all stations - all awaiting the verdict of the commander-in-chief, who lost no time in establishing his tribunal of death, - Arredondo was the tribunal and from his decision there was no appeal.  Those who were taken with arms in their hands were first led into his presence, only to be ordered to immediate execution, and until sunset that evening intermittent volleys of musketry on Military Plaza, proclaimed to the terrified inhabitants the revengeful policy of the triumphant Gachupin.
     In former years a merchant who dealt largely in grain erected a large granary in the rear of his store on Main Plaza.  On account of an insect known as the gorgojo (weevil), which was very destructive in that climate, and rendered it difficult to preserve corn from its ravages any great length of time, this granary was built as a protection against that pest.  It was 20 by 40 feet in dimensions.  The walls were about twelve feet in height, with flat roof, and contained only two small openings besides the doorway.  These openings were in the south wall near the roof, merely for ventilation, and could be closed at will.  The entire building was of adobe and when the door was closed the interior was almost wholly without ventilation.  At sunset on the 20th, further execu-

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tions were deferred until the following morning.  A list of the patriots whose sympathies for the revolutionists were well known, was furnished Arredondo, and from this list of names - men already under arrest - he selected 300 of these patriots and ordered them transferred at once from the Alamo carcel to this granary on the Main Plaza.  This order was immediately carried into execution.  It was a still, sultry August night, and the temperature, even at best, in the open air was intensely oppressive, and without a drop of water and without any means of ventilation, these 300 citizens were thrust into that small space, the door was closed, guards were stationed on the outside, and later, one of these was severely punished for having repeated to a citizen how these unfortunate prisoners fought and struggled for a position near the little openings where they might obtain a breath of fresh air.  The next morning when the door was thrown open, eighteen had died of suffocation, four others expired shortly after being removed, while more than half of the survivors had to be lifted and carried from the building.  These, when partially restored, were taken before Arredondo, and before the noon hour most of them were stood up against the bloody wall on Military Plaza.
     Unsatiated with the blood of patriots and to give broader scope to his consummate malignity, the inhuman Gachupin turned the vials of his fiendish rage against the innocent women and young girls of the

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devoted city, and more than 600 of these wives, mothers and daughters were arrested and driven into an enclosure near the banks of the river known as the "Quinta."  These were furnished with metates, seized and taken from their own homes, and with these stone implements they were forced to grind the corn and bake the tortillas for the entire Spanish army.  Over these unhappy women was placed as guard and taskmaster, a Spanish sergeant, brutal, cruel, beastly obscene and immoral, and he, with the troop under his command, no less cowardly and depraved, found their chief delight in the infliction of every indignity, injury and mortification upon these helpless women and girls.
     Until the first of September public executions were of daily occurrence on Military Plaza; the adjacent country, even at great distances, was scoured in quest of refugees, who, when found, were brought in, the women sent to the ''Quinta," the children turned upon the streets to starve, and the men delivered into the hands of the executioner.  Property owned by patriots and all suspects was confiscated and passed into the ownership of royalists, chiefly Arredondo's officers and favorites.  Elisondo, with 500 dragoons, had been dispatched in pursuit of Toledo, and slaughter marked his path from Bexar to the Sabine.
     Thus the Province of Texas once more became prostrate under the iron heel of the tyrant; her once beautiful capital, San Antonio, a city of desolation, strewn

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with the wrecks of her former glory, and clad in the habiliments of irretrievable woe, her homes tenantless, her fathers and sons seeking asylum in the fastness of the mountains, in the solitude of the wilderness, or consigned to bloody graves, while her gentle matrons and fair daughters became the enforced slaves of inhuman masters. ''Truly, Texas is fallen, and the Spaniard has stamped in burning characters of hell his eternal shame on the walls of Bexar."
     The tragedy of the Medina stands without a parallel in American history.

     The foregoing is a summary of an autobiographical account of the "Battle of the Medina," written by an American named Beltran, a resident of Bexar at the time, who participated in the bloody conflicts waged in and around that city in 1813.  He married Henrietta Rodriguez, a member of a distinguished San Antonio family, and with her went to Chihuahua where he lived until death.  His autobiography, written in Spanish, recently came into the possession of John Warren Hunter of San Angelo, by whom it was translated and furnished to the San Antonio Express.  In mentioning one of the early prominent families of San Antonio, space must also be given to others - the Garza family, Veramendi, Navarro, Leal, Ramon, Menchaca, Cassiano, Chavez, Yturri, Plores, Alejo Perez, Barrera, Seguin, Indo, Montes de Oca, Perez and Ruiz, all of whom contributed to the interesting business and social life of the city in its early days.*

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     *This list is taken from the late Judge J. M. Rodriguez' "Memoirs of Early Texas.

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