This Day In Texas History - August 18

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This Day In Texas History - August 18

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1813 - The battle of Medina was fought on August 18, 1813, between the republican forces of the Gutiérrez-Magee expedition under Gen. José Álvarez de Toledo y Dubois and a Spanish royalist army under Gen. Joaquín de Arredondo. This bloodiest battle ever fought on Texas soil took place twenty miles south of San Antonio in a sandy oak forest region then called el encinal de Medina. A Texas counterpart to the Mexican War of Independence, the Gutiérrez-Magee expedition of 1812–13 came literally to a dead end at the battle of Medina. So disastrous was la batalla del encinal de Medina that its battlefield has become lost, its "Green Flag" has remained largely unrecognized, and its participants have been generally unknown, unhonored, and unsung. It is noteworthy, however, that some of its participants were sons of American revolutionaries, some fought later with Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812, and some fought again during the second Texas Revolution in 1835–36. By 1992 neither the Medina battlefield nor the burial sites of the soldiers had been archeologically confirmed. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qfm01 ]

1824 - Mexico adopted a federal system similar to that of the United States, and the federal Congress passed the national colonization law on August 18, 1824. This law, and the state law of Coahuila and Texas passed the following year, became the basis of all colonization contracts affecting Texas, with the exception of that of Stephen F. Austin. Among the members of the congressional committee that drafted the legislation was Erasmo Seguín, the father of Juan N. Seguín. In effect, the national law surrendered to the states authority to set up regulations to dispose of unappropriated lands within their limits for colonization, subject to certain limitations, but reserved the right to stop immigration from particular nations in the interest of national security. Six years later the federal government invoked this reservation in forbidding the settlement in Texas of emigrants from the United States; the resulting Law of April 6, 1830, helped touch off the Texas Revolution. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ugm01 ]

1846 - The organization of Limestone county was completed on August 18, 1846, with the election of county officials.

1853 - William Hallam Ross, one of the first county agriculture agents in Texas, was born in Waco on August 18, 1853.

1857 - The first organized meeting of the newly formed Palo Pinto county court was held.

1860 - The San Antonio Alamo Express, a weekly Union newspaper, was first published in San Antonio by James P. Newcomb on August 18, 1860. The paper may have ceased in November of 1860. It was succeeded, beginning on February 4, 1861, by the Weekly Alamo Express, which was published in weekly and tri-weekly editions by Newcomb and Baccus. In May 1861 the press was destroyed by secession sympathizers and Newcomb fled to Mexico. The San Antonio Express took its name from the Alamo Express.

1862 - Following the outbreak of the Civil War, a regiment of men from Hill County, Waco, and Round Rock was organized into ten companies of around 800 men for Confederate service on August 18, 1862, near Waco and designated First Texas Partisan Rangers. On that same day, Jouett (or Jewett) Harbert was elected major of the regiment which subsequently became designated the Thirtieth Texas Cavalry Regiment and was assigned to protect the Red River entrance to Texas as part of Trans-Mississippi Department. The unit saw action in Arkansas and the Indian Territory. On May 26, 1865, the unit disbanded in Austin after surrendering along with the rest of Gen. Edmund Kirby Smith’s army.
[ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qkt08 ]

1863 - At the beginning of the Civil War there was a increasing scarcity of guns. Governor Edward Clark adopted a policy of keeping the remaining state-owned weapons within the confines of Texas. According to a report read in the Confederate Congress on August 18, 1863, Texas had four gun factories making 800 arms a month, two powder mills, and a percussion cap factory. The gun factories were those of Billup and Hassell at Plentitude, Whitescarver and Campbell at Rusk, N. B. Tanner at Bastrop, and Short and Biscoe at Tyler. Powder mills were established at Marshall and Waxahachie. Cap factories were established at Austin, Houston, and Fredericksburg. A cartridge factory was set up in the old land office building in Austin. Arms were repaired at Houston, San Antonio, and Bonham. Cannon were cast at the state foundry at Austin and by Ebenezar B. Nichols at Galveston.

When Little Rock, Arkansas, was evacuated in September 1863, the arsenal was removed to Arkadelphia, and in October 1863 the Little Rock and Arkadelphia machinery was removed to Tyler, Texas, as headquarters of the Trans-Mississippi Department. The Tyler gun plant was bought by the Confederate government for $100,000, and a Colonel Hill was placed in charge to make rifles of both the Enfield and Austrian models. Some 200 persons were employed. Near the close of the war Gen. Joseph O. Shelby carried 2,500 Tyler rifles with him on his retreat into Mexico. Texas had been the proving ground for the Colt revolver, and the state undertook to manufacture that popular weapon. Tucker, Sherrod, and Company of Lancaster was given a contract to make revolvers on the Colt dragoon model, and 1,464 were delivered up to September 30, 1863. The superintendent of this factory was John M. Crockett, mayor of Dallas and lieutenant-governor.

One other pistol factory in Texas was that of Dance Brothers and Park. George and William Dance had started at Old Columbia what is said to have been the first machine shop in Texas, and during the war the plant made both army and navy revolvers on the Colt model. When the federals captured Old Columbia and burned the pistol factory, the firm had time to remove the pistol-making machinery to Anderson, where it was set up again.

1952 - Patrick Swayze, actor and dancer, was born in Houston, Texas, on August 18, 1952, to Patricia “Patsy” Yvonne Helen (Karnes), a choreographer and dance instructor, and Jesse Wayne “Buddy” Swayze, a mechanical engineer, former draftsman, butcher, and rancher. Swayze, the second-eldest of four siblings, was part of an “arts family” of humble means living in the Oak Forest neighborhood of Houston. [ For an interesting read on this popular actor: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fsw35 ]

1983 - Twenty-one people were killed and over $1 billion in damage was caused when hurricane Alicia hit the Texas coast.
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