Welcome to a new history of Old Texas.

I'm Brandon Seale.

On the night of August 17th, 1813, the Republican Army of the North bivouacked somewhere near the Medina River about 15 miles south of San Antonio.

Their scouts had been following the advance of a Spanish royalist army for almost a month now as it marched toward them to put an end to their self-proclaimed republic.

And those scouts had just returned to camp with the news that the enemy was just a few miles away.

The Royalist Army not only outnumbered the Ragtag Republican Army, it far out stripped it in terms of training and equipment.

Its 1,830 men were commanded by an elite educated officer corps, many of them veterans of the previous

decade's Napoleonic wars. Two-thirds of the royalists were mounted, heirs to the high

equestrian traditions of the Iberian Peninsula, and armed with lances and quick-firing

carbine rifles. The men in this royalist army in particular had spent the last three years crushing Mexico's fledgling independence movement as a unit and had won for themselves a fearsome reputation.

Though short on supplies, and in some cases even clothing, they faced the South Texas August Sun with a confidence and eagerness that even their one-eyed general could see.

That general, Joaquin de Arredondo, was himself their one-eyed general could see. That general,

Joaquin de Arredondo, was himself a 20-year veteran of military commands throughout the far-flung

Spanish Empire. That he had chosen to lead this expedition personally, however, suggested

the magnitude of the threat posed by this Republican Army of the North in Little Frontier San Antonio

to continued Spanish

rule in the Americas. The 1,400-man Republican Army, by contrast, was an improbable mix of

Tejanos, Native Americans, and volunteers from the United States. The Tejanos, who constituted

a majority of the force, stood out in their short-crowned, wide-rimmed, felt cowboy hats, quote,

sombreros de fieltro of anchas alas, and aplastada copa, end quote, their high shanked leather boots, and their pommeled saddles.

They made quite the impression on these early American immigrants to Texas, as did the painted Apaches and Tonkawas riding alongside them.

For many of the Americans, it was the first time they had encountered this sort of frontier style,

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