t and began knocking them in the head.(Hoyt 163)"Juan Seguin's Tejanos were in the thick of it, shouting, "Recuerda el Alamo!" A Mexican officer recognized Tejano soldier Antonio Menchaca as an acquaintance and pleaded with him as a brother Mexican to intercede for his life. Menchaca looked at him coldly. "No, damn you, " he said, "I'm not Mexican. I'm an American," and turning to his Texan comrades, he said, "Shoot him!(Hoyt 163)"In the end, Colonel Almonte managed to round up 400 Mexicans to surrender to Secretary Rusk, who took personal charge of them and brought them to safety. In all there were 730 prisoners, 200 of them wounded, and 630 bodies. The Texas Army lost nine men. The Mexican death toll in this Battle of San Jacinto was higher than that of Texas in all the previous battles of the war. General Houston had pursued his strategy, he had chosen the time and place to fight, and he had won(Hoyt 163).In spite of his wound, General Houston had remained in the saddle all during the battle and well after the senseless killing began. He finally felt weak from loss of blood and rode back across the field, accepting the cheers of his men and waving. He reached the big oak tree where he had slept the night before, tried to dismount, and collapsed. His men got him onto a blanket underneath the tree and called the surgeon(Hoyt 164).On the day after the battle, a party searching for Mexican prisoners picked up a man, but did not recognize in this ragged figure, in faded white linen trousers and an old trooper's jacket, the supreme commander of the Mexican army. The Texas soldiers told him they were looking for General Santa Anna and asked if he knew where he was. His feet were bleeding from walking on them for so long and he collapsed. But one of the search party's officers took pity on him and gave him a hand up, so he rode into camp on the back of his captor's horse. As they came up to a band of prisoners, there were cries of "El P...
