Battle of Nacogdoches
Nacogdoches, Nacogdoches County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(August 2, 1832) One of the opening actions of the Texas War for Independence, this battle occurred soon after settlers drove out the Mexican garrisons at Anahuac and Velasco. In 1832 Col. Jose de las Piedras, in command of over 300 soldiers here, ordered the residents to surrender all firearms. Citizens of Nacogdoches and other East Texas towns resisted by forming the "National Militia," commanded by James W. Bullock. When Piedras refused to support the constitution of 1824, the militia marched toward the Mexicans on the square and the Mexicans opened fire. In hand-to-hand combat, the militia took the stone fort and several nearby structures, but the Mexicans continued to hold Piedras' headquarters in the red house. Adolphus Sterne showed San Augustine "redlanders" how to outflank the Mexicans. Piedras' men fled during the night and were captured August 3 by militiamen near Loco Creek. Fighting ended after the Mexicans arrested their leader at John Durst's home. A peace treaty was signed on August 6. Piedras lost 47 men.Four Texans died, including the alcalde of Nacogdoches, Encarnacion Chireno. Because of this incident, Mexican troops were never again stationed in East Texas, leaving settlers free to meet and air their grievances.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On August 2, 1832, in one of the opening clashes leading toward Texas independence, Nacogdoches settlers resisted Mexican commander Col. José de las Piedras after he ordered them to surrender their firearms. Forming a "National Militia" under James W. Bullock, the townspeople fought house-to-house, seized the stone fort, and drove Piedras's roughly 300 troops from the square. The Mexicans fled in the night, were captured the next day, and a peace treaty followed on August 6—after which Mexican troops were never again garrisoned in East Texas.
Why it matters
The battle helped clear East Texas of Mexican garrisons, freeing settlers to organize the grievances that would soon erupt into the Texas Revolution.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
To stand where the Battle of Nacogdoches was fought is to stand in Mexican Texas, a place and moment most Americans have forgotten. In 1832 Texas was not a republic and not a state — it was a far northern frontier of the young Republic of Mexico, thinly garrisoned by soldiers and increasingly filled with settlers who had their own ideas about how they should be governed.
Mexico had won its independence from Spain only a decade earlier, and its politics were turbulent. Much of the tension in Texas turned on a single document: the liberal Constitution of 1824, which many colonists and reform-minded Mexicans alike had come to see as the guarantee of their rights. When the national government drifted toward centralized power, loyalty to that constitution became a rallying cry.
The summer of 1832 was the fuse. Settlers along the coast had already confronted and driven out the Mexican garrisons at Anahuac and Velasco. Word of that resistance traveled fast, and in Nacogdoches — one of the oldest and most strategically placed towns in Texas, close to the Louisiana border — the pressure was about to break into open fighting.
People & events
The spark was an order. Colonel José de las Piedras, commanding more than three hundred soldiers in the town, demanded that the residents surrender all their firearms. On a frontier where a rifle meant food and safety, that was an intolerable command, and the townspeople refused it in the strongest possible way — by organizing.
Citizens of Nacogdoches and other East Texas towns formed what they called the "National Militia" under the command of James W. Bullock. When Piedras would not declare his support for the Constitution of 1824, the militia marched on the soldiers gathered in the town square, and the Mexicans opened fire. What followed was close, brutal work: hand-to-hand fighting through the streets as the militia seized the old stone fort and the buildings around it, while Piedras's men clung to his headquarters in the "red house."
Local knowledge decided it. Adolphus Sterne showed the San Augustine "redlanders" how to flank the defenders, and under that pressure Piedras's men slipped away in the night — only to be captured the next day near Loco Creek. The fighting truly ended when the Mexican soldiers arrested their own commander, and a peace treaty was signed on August 6. The cost was real: Piedras lost forty-seven men, and four Texans died, among them Encarnación Chireno, the town's own alcalde.
Its place in the American story
The marker calls this one of the opening actions of the Texas War for Independence, and that framing matters. The Texas Revolution did not begin with a single dramatic declaration; it built through a series of local confrontations like this one, in which ordinary settlers tested how far they were willing to go against constituted authority.
The practical result was decisive for East Texas. After Nacogdoches, Mexican troops were never again stationed in the region — and that absence changed everything. With no garrison looking over their shoulders, settlers were free to gather, to argue, and to air the grievances that would soon coalesce into a full revolution. A cleared field is a quiet thing, but it is often where movements grow.
It is worth noting, too, that in 1832 the fighters framed their cause not as separation from Mexico but as defense of a Mexican constitution. That is a reminder of how revolutions evolve: the men on the square that day were insisting on rights they believed they already held, and only later would that insistence harden into a demand for independence.
If you visit
Nacogdoches wears its long history openly, and the old town square is the natural place to begin. Try to picture the ground not as a peaceful plaza but as a contested space — soldiers on one side, townspeople gathering on the other, and the close-quarters struggle that surged through the surrounding streets and buildings.
The landscape itself helps tell the story. This is a town of old stone and old routes, close to the historic road toward Louisiana, and the very features that made it strategically important in 1832 are still legible if you slow down and look. Let the marker anchor you, then walk outward and imagine the flanking movement that finally broke the defenders' hold.
Because so much early Texas history is concentrated here, the battle fits well into a wider tour of the region's founding-era sites. Give yourself time to read the surrounding markers and monuments; together they turn a short stop into a fuller picture of how Texas moved, step by contested step, toward revolution.
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
- · José de las Piedras
- · James W. Bullock
- · Adolphus Sterne
Related events
- · Battle of Nacogdoches
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Nine Flags of Nacogdoches
Nacogdoches, TX
A frontier gateway for centuries, Nacogdoches has flown nine flags rather than the six familiar to Texas history. Beyond Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the United States, and the Confederacy, three short-lived banners rose from failed bids for independence: the emerald flag of the 1812-13 Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition, the star-and-stripes of James Long's 1819 republic, and the red-and-white flag of Haden Edwards's 1826-27 Republic of Fredonia. Each rebellion collapsed, but together they marked the town as a crucible of revolutionary ferment on the Texas frontier.
Site of the Home of John S. Roberts
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John S. Roberts, a Virginia native who reached Texas in 1826, threw himself into the fight for Texas independence—fighting at the Battle of Nacogdoches, sitting as a delegate to the 1835 Consultation, helping storm Bexar, and finally signing the Texas Declaration of Independence in March 1836. His home once stood on this Nacogdoches site, marked by the state during the 1936 centennial of Texas independence. He represents the ordinary settlers who became revolutionaries.
Sam Houston's First Home in Texas
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When Sam Houston left Washington for Texas in late 1832, he chose Nacogdoches as his first home, drawn by fellow Tennesseans and Masons like Adolphus Sterne and Henry Raguet. He boarded with the Sternes, set up a law practice, and was baptized Catholic so he could own property under Mexican law. From here he was elected a delegate to the conventions that led toward revolution, and his lifelong friendship with Thomas J. Rusk — later a fellow Texas senator — was forged in this town.
Old "Red" House
Nacogdoches, TX
This site once held the "Red House," headquarters of Colonel José de las Piedras, commander of the Mexican garrison at Nacogdoches in the years before the Texas Revolution. After the revolution the property belonged to General Thomas J. Rusk, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, and from 1845 to 1852 it served as classrooms for the University of Nacogdoches. Its history spans Mexican rule, the fight for independence, and the schooling of the new republic.