Background
Although Antonio López de Santa Anna, the ruler of Mexico, was defeated at the Battle of San Jacinto and signed the Treaties of Velasco in 1836, ceding Texas territory from Mexican control, his forces continued to invade the Republic of Texas hoping to regain control.
On September 17, 1842, Texan and Mexican forces engaged at Salado Creek, east of San Antonio. After a separate favorable Texan engagement earlier in the day, a reinforcement company of fifty-four men, mostly from Fayette County, under the command of Nicholas Mosby Dawson, began advancing on the rear of the Mexican Army. The Mexican commander, General Adrian Woll, sent 500 of his cavalrymen and two cannons to attack the group. The Texans were able to hold their own against the Mexican soldiers, but once the cannon were within firing range the Texan fatalities mounted quickly. The battle, which lasted just over an hour, ended with thirty-six Texans dead and fifteen captured in what became known as the Dawson Massacre.
Read more about this topic: Mier Expedition
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)