Augustus H. Jones
Gonzales, Gonzales County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Star and Wreath He fought for Texas Independence at Goliad and at the Storming of Bexar, 1835. Erected by the State of texas, 1962
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Augustus H. Jones took up arms during the pivotal year of 1835, when Texian colonists rose against the Mexican government and set the Texas Revolution in motion. He fought at the Storming of Bexar, the hard street-by-street fight that drove Mexican forces from San Antonio, and served in the Goliad area, another flashpoint of that struggle for independence. The state honored his service with a marker bearing the star and wreath, a tribute erected nearly a century and a quarter later.
Why it matters
The Texas Revolution transformed a Mexican borderland into an independent republic that would soon join the United States, and the volunteers who fought at Bexar and Goliad were the ordinary settlers who made that upheaval possible.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By 1835, relations between the American settlers of Mexican Texas and the government in Mexico City had broken down. Santa Anna's move toward a centralized government alarmed many Texians, and tensions over taxes, immigration, and local self-rule turned into open conflict that fall.
The first shots came at Gonzales in early October 1835, where colonists refused to give up a small cannon. Within days, Texian volunteers moved on Goliad and took control of the old Spanish presidio there, which gave them a strategic post near the coast. Then a volunteer army laid siege to San Antonio de Béxar, the main Mexican stronghold in Texas.
That siege ended in December 1835 with the Storming of Bexar, several days of fighting through the town's streets and stone houses. The Mexican commander, General Martín Perfecto de Cos, surrendered, and for a short time no Mexican army remained in Texas. It was the high point of the revolution's first phase, before Santa Anna marched north in 1836.
People & events
Augustus H. Jones belonged to that first wave of volunteers. The marker gives only a few facts: he fought at Goliad and in the Storming of Bexar in 1835. Even so, those two places put him at the center of the revolution's first, successful campaign.
The Storming of Bexar was a hard, close fight. Instead of attacking across open ground, the Texians moved from house to house, sometimes breaking through walls to advance without exposing themselves in the streets. Ben Milam, who rallied the volunteers to make the attack, was killed during the battle, and his name is still closely tied to the fight.
The historical record says little else about Jones here, and it is better to admit that than to fill the gap with guesses. What we can say is that he was one of the citizen-soldiers who left farms and homes in the fall of 1835, joined a loosely organized volunteer army, and helped win the battles that made independence possible. The State of Texas honored that service with this marker in 1962.
Its place in the American story
The 1835 campaign started a chain of events that changed the map of North America. The Texas Revolution produced an independent republic. That republic joined the United States in 1845, and the dispute that followed led to the U.S.–Mexican War, after which much of the present-day American West passed from Mexico to the United States.
The revolution's early battles also shaped how Texans see themselves. Gonzales, Goliad, and Bexar became founding stories, told alongside the Alamo and San Jacinto. Remembering the men who fought there has long been a way for Texans to honor that founding.
As with many wars, the volunteers came from ordinary backgrounds: farmers, tradesmen, and recent settlers. Markers to individual veterans like Jones keep the focus on those people as well as the generals and statesmen.
If you visit
Look for the star and wreath, the emblem the inscription mentions. Texas used this design to honor veterans of the revolution, and once you know it, you will spot it in cemeteries and town squares across the state. It is a small symbol that marks someone who took part in Texas's founding.
The setting adds meaning. Gonzales is where the revolution's first shots were fired in October 1835, and the town takes great pride in that history. Its "Come and Take It" story is worth learning while you are here, and it gives useful background to Jones's later service at Goliad and Bexar.
For a revolution-themed road trip, follow the 1835 campaign. Start in Gonzales, then head to Goliad and its historic presidio, and finish in San Antonio, where the Storming of Bexar happened in the streets of the old town. Along the way you can trace the route Jones and his fellow volunteers took that fall.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Augustus H. Jones
Related events
- · Storming of Bexar
- · Texas Revolution
Themes & tags
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