Joe Barton: “179 years ago, in a hamlet in what is now Grimes County, Texas, called Washington-on-the-Brazos, a handful of brave…”

“179 years ago, in a hamlet in what is now Grimes County, Texas, called Washington-on-the-Brazos, a handful of brave Texans voted to declare independence from Mexico. We call this day Texas Independence Day. As those brave men were declaring their independence at a decrepit old mission in San Antonio, Texas, less than 200 patriots--led by people like Davy Crockett and William Barret Travis and James Bowie-- were fending off an army of somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 Mexican soldiers under the leadership of a General Santa Ana. The Alamo fell on March 6, but on April 21, 1836, General Sam Houston, at a bayou called San Jacinto, led about 350 Texans in a surprise attack on the Mexican Army and won independence for Texas from Mexico. God bless Texas, and God bless all those patriots 179 years ago for what they did. ____________________”