Slow and Steady Wins the Race

Texas won it's independence from Mexico via war and the name of the President of Mexico during the fight for independence was Santa Anna. He told his soldiers to take all the weapons from the Texans. When the Mexican soldiers tried to take the cannon at Gonzales the Texans hung a sign on the cannon that said, "Come and Take It!" You can still see that today in Texas on T-shirts, bumper stickers, coffee mugs, and other items.

During the Battle of the Alamo the Texans had 200 soldiers and the Mexicans had 6000 soldiers! The leader of the Texas army at the Alamo was General Travis. The Mexicans were demanding for the Texans to surrender, and Travis responded by using their ammo to fire a cannon. I think of Travis as the "do or die guy" because in his letter he wrote, "victory or death!"

The final battle in the Texas War for Independence was fought at San Jacinto and the leader of the Texas army was Sam Houston. The Texans were impatient to start the battle, but Sam Houston said, "No ,wait for the Mexicans to make mistakes," and it happened! That is why we titled this post, "Slow and Steady Wins the Race." The Mexicans made two mistakes which led to Texas victory. Number 1 was they set up camp in a place with no escape. The place where they set up camp was in the swampy marsh and Sam Houston had destroyed all the bridges. Number 2 was they decided to take a nap. Come on... Lazy!!! This meant the Texans could sneak up and start the battle while the Mexicans were asleep, and they had no place to retreat.

The first President of Texas was... surprise, surprise... Sam Houston.

Believe it or not, Texas was its own country for ten whole years! The Republic of Texas was bigger in size than it is today. During the days of independence Texas was known as the wild west. Texas eventually became a state of the U.S. because they were having trouble keeping law and order.