Locating the Site of the Battle of Medina: A Research Note

A detail of the area near San Antonio de Béxar (visible in upper right) from Stephen F. Austin’s Mapa Geografico de la Provincia de Texas. Adapted from Eugene C. Barker, The Life of Stephen F Austin (reprint; Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1949).

Students of Texas history generally know of the climactic battle between the Republican Army of the North, the military arm of the 1812–1813 Gutiérrez-Magee filibustering expedition, and Spanish royalists in the August 18, 1813, Battle of Medina.¹ However, the exact location of the Medina battleground, site of the bloodiest battle ever fought in Texas and one that ended the short life of the first Republic of Texas, has long been forgotten. The purpose of this research note is to reveal that by critical analyses of known archival records the battle site can be located.

The earliest published indication of the location of the Medina battleground was on Stephen F. Austin’s 1822 map of Texas.² Austin marked the site of the Medina battle by the words “Toledo Defeated” on a road that ran between San Antonio de Béxar and Laredo and close to that road’s junction with the Lower Presidio Road, also known as the Camino Real (Frontispiece). The Lower Presidio Road was an early route from San Antonio de Béxar to the Presidio de San Juan Bautista near the Rio Grande. Austin’s 1830 map of Texas marked the site with the words “Genl Toledo Defeated 1813” and a crossed-sabers symbol about midway between the Medina and Atascosa Rivers astride the road that ran toward Laredo (Figure 1). The battle site indicated by Austin on the 1830 map was at approximately the same location he marked on his 1822 map, but the Lower Presidio Road is not shown on the 1830 map. The Laredo Road shown on both maps was first suggested in 1767 archival records that indicate the existence of a trail between the Lower Presidio Road and the road between San Antonio de Béxar and Laredo. That connecting path was referred to by royalist General Joaquín de Arredondo in his Medina campaign report³ as the “camino que cortaba”⁴ (road that connects).

Figure 1.

Map of Béxar and vicinity from Stephen F. Austin’s 1830 map of Texas.

The junction of the Lower Presidio Road and the camino que cortaba was shown on an 1807 Spanish map,⁵ the 1822 and 1828⁶ Stephen F. Austin maps of Texas, and the 1867 map of Texas by Charles Pressler⁷ (Figure 2), and was exactly located by the 1915 Zivley survey, (Figure 3) which was commissioned by the state of Texas.⁸ By the Mexican Republic period, the camino que cortaba route of the San Antonio de Béxar to Laredo Road would become the most commonly traveled route and was generally called the Laredo Road.

Although a study of the Stephen F. Austin maps of Texas certainly indicates that he knew that the Battle of Medina took place astride the camino que cortaba route of the San Antonio de Béxar to Laredo Road, the exact geographic location of the Medina battleground on that road cannot be determined solely by the Austin maps. However, analyses of two archival records not previously noted by historians indicate the location on that road of the long-forgotten Medina battleground.⁹

A published 1828 sketch map of San Antonio de Béxar and vicinity¹⁰ (Figure 4), probably by Jean Louis Berlandier,¹¹ shows the route taken by the Mexican Comisión de Límites (Boundary Commission)¹² under the command of Gen. Manuel de Mier y Terán, which included Berlandier as naturalist, went passed the Medina battleground during its travel from the Rancherías/La Loma de San Cristobal (the hill of St. Christopher) area en route to their near Medina River campsite on February 29, 1828.¹³ Published 1828 diaries...