History Under The Star
The Battle of San Jacinto: Myths, Mistakes and Misunderstandings
WHAT ARE SOME OF OUR POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS about the Battle of San Jacinto? Why has it been argued by some that the monument to the decisive moment in the Texas Revolution was put in the wrong place? Why does the monument that the State of Texas erected in that exact place in 1936 stand only six inches tall? Moreover, if the popular legacy of San Jacinto is that the Texans won their independence on their own – without the help of other nations – how does the story of Texan independence told by Mexican historians legitimately contradict that version of historical truth? Finally, what were some of the misconceptions about the Battle of San Jacinto that were circulating in Texas in the years after the battle? And how did one narrative of the battle, published in Texas in 1843, help to solve one of the great mysteries of that other famous battle – that of the Alamo?
Find out from James E. Crisp at the History Under the Star lecture series on Saturday, March 16, 2024. The talk will run from 5:00 to 6:00 and will be followed by a time for questions and answers, and a reception.
Cost: $5 per person/$3 for Museum members; students are free. Purchase your ticket today.
The History Under the Stars lecture series is made possible by a generous grant from the George and Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation. Videography and Video Production made possible by Humanities Texas.
James E. Crisp, a native Texan, is a Rice University graduate who received his doctorate in History from Yale University. He retired as Professor Emeritus from North Carolina State University in 2017 after forty-five years of teaching the history of the American West and Antebellum South – both of which happen to include Texas. He has won multiple awards for teaching and writing, including the prize from the Philosophical Society of Texas for the best non-fiction book about Texas published in 2021: Inside the Texas Revolution: The Enigmatic Memoir of Herman Ehrenberg. His most well-known work is Sleuthing the Alamo: Davy Crockett’s Last Stand and Other Mysteries of the Texas Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2004). He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife Lynn, a native of Houston.
