Howdy and welcome to Wise About Texas, the Texas history podcast.

This is your host, Ken Wise.

Thanks so much for tuning in today for a very special episode about the Texas Revolution.

When we think of the Texas Revolution, what do we think of?

We think of the battles. We think of the Army. We think maybe a little bit about the government,

the Declaration of Independence, the new Constitution drafted Washington on the Brazos.

But there's part of the revolution that we really don't give much thought to, and it certainly

hadn't been written about

very much, but it went a long way toward forming our identity as Texans, and that is the

runaway scrape.

The runaway scrape is a term that describes a situation where the citizens of Texas fled for their lives ahead of the Mexican army,

starting a little bit after the fall of the Alamo and lasting all the way through the Battle of San Jacenno.

These people dropped everything. They grabbed only what they could carry, any wagon if they had one,

and they fled east. As Houston marched the Texian army eastward, the citizens followed.

Food was left on tables, milk was left in cups. This was all documented by Mexican army that came onto these farms to take their food.

People gathered in large groups which begat disease. People died and by necessity were buried where they fell.

This was a huge refugeerugee crisis.

But as I said, it hasn't been written about very much until now.

Dr. Stephen Hardin is with us today.

He is, without question, the preeminent historian on the Texas Revolution.

His books include Texian Iliad, which is a military history of the Texas Revolution,

Texian Macabra, which is a story of a hanging in early Houston and is one of the better

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