Who was the first to cry - "Remember the Alamo! Remember la Bahia!" - on the San Jacinto battlefield?
Mirabeau Lamar credited Colonel Sidney Jefferson Sherman. Sherman commanded the left wing of the Texan army that April afternoon and is said to have opened the attack on the Mexicans with, "Remember the Alamo!"
Frank X. Tolbert, in his book, The Day of San Jacinto, wrote that Houston, in his own official report, also credited Sherman as being the first to shout the battlefield war cry.
J. Frank Dobie, in his book, Coronado's Children, attributed the battle cry to Captain Jesse W. Billingsley, concuring with Harry Alexander Davis, who wrote, The Billingsley family in America.
But one thing is certain about the origin of the battle cry - Recollections and Memoirs written by veterans of the San Jacinto battlefield all agree that General Sam Houston was the first to remind his troops to, "Remember the Alamo."
"He said [Houston] when you engage the enemy, let your battle cry be - Remember the Alamo! Colonel Rusk followed with a short but stirring speech - he said let your battle cry be - The Alamo and La Bahia!" Issac Lafayette Hill. Recollections published in the Texas State Historical Association Quarterly, vol. 7.
"The Genl. [Houston] formed us in solid colm [sic] - rode into our midst, and delivered to us one of the best speeches - told us that when we got into battle to make the Mexicans remember the Alamo - Genl. Rusk followed him, telling us to also make the Mexicans remember the massacre of Fannins men." John Harvey. Memoirs in the veterans papers in the University of Texas Archives, about 1874.
" - he [Houston] closed his address by saying let your war cry be "Remember the Alamo!" Memoirs of Major George Bernard Erath by Lucy Erath.
"He [Houston] told them that the battle cry should be "Remember the Alamo. General Rusk followed Houston eloquently, urging them to let the battle cry be "Remember the Alamo," "Remember Labadie." [sic] San Jacinto Veteran James Monroe Hill 1894.
So while we might never really know who was the first to shout the war cry on the field of battle, - we can be absolutely sure of two things: (1) that General Houston and General Rusk were the first to promote the use of the battle cry, and (2) that the Santanista's pleadings of, "Me no Alamo! Me no la Bahia!" show the terrifying effect the battle cry had on the retreating - fleeing - Mexican army.
And - while not generally known - there was yet another battle cry shouted that April afternoon - "Remember Wash Cottle!" Pvt. James Curtis, 64 and the oldest combantant at San Jacinto, had lost his son-in-law, Wash Cottle in the Alamo and was detertmined to make the Mexicans pay for his loss . . . but that . . . well that's a whole 'nuther story.
Veteran Quotes from Sons of DeWitt Colony archives.
http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/archives.htm
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/SS/qes4.html
Copyright Mike Kearby 2008
