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Early Republic

At the Forks of the Agua Dulce

Banquete, Nueces County, Texas

Marker Inscription

At the forks of the Agua Dulce fifteen miles southwest of San Patricio fell Dr. James Grant, Major Robert C. Morris, Captain Thomas Lewellen, Dr. Charles P. Heartt, Stephen Dennison, J.T. Howard, Joseph Smith Johnston, H. Obed Marshall, John C. McLanglin, J.W. Wentworth, Stephen Winship, and two or three other Texan volunteers who were killed in a running fight with General Jose Urrea's Mexican Cavalry March 2, 1836. Erected by the State of Texas 1936

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

In the opening weeks of the Texas Revolution, a party of Texan volunteers under Dr. James Grant was caught by General José Urrea's Mexican cavalry near the forks of the Agua Dulce on March 2, 1836. Grant, Major Robert C. Morris and roughly a dozen others were killed in a running fight across the coastal brush country southwest of San Patricio. The State of Texas raised this marker in 1936 to name the fallen on the revolution's centennial.

Why it matters

The skirmish was part of the bloody southern campaign that, alongside the Alamo and Goliad, steeled Texan resolve in the fight for independence that reshaped the map of North America.

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Related people

  • · James Grant
  • · Robert C. Morris
  • · José Urrea

Related events

  • · Battle of Agua Dulce Creek
  • · Texas Revolution

Themes & tags

Military & WartimeWestward ExpansionFrontier HistoryBattlefield

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Battle of Agua Dulce

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In the winter of 1835–36, as Texas fought for independence from Mexico, a freelance expedition led by Dr. James Grant and Frances W. Johnson set out to seize Matamoros — a scheme Sam Houston distrusted and that bled away recruits before it reached the Nueces. General José de Urrea's cavalry ran the scattered volunteers down, overwhelming Johnson's camp at San Patricio and then surprising Grant's horse-hunting party at Agua Dulce Creek. The clash fell on March 2, 1836 — the very day delegates at Washington-on-the-Brazos signed the Texas Declaration of Independence.

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Fort Lipantitlán was a Mexican garrison thrown up in 1831 along the Nueces to choke off further Anglo-American colonization. When the Texas Revolution erupted, Texan volunteers under Ira Westover seized the earthwork in November 1835, and in 1842 a small garrison held it against a far larger force led by General Antonio Canales. The state acquired the ground in 1937 through a donation from the Bluntzer heirs.

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