Santa Anna Mound
Gonzales, Gonzales County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Formerly DeWitt Mound now site DeWitt Family Cemetery. Here Mexican troops camped between September 29 and October 1, 1835, awaiting delivery of the Gonzales cannon. Colonists refusing to surrender cannon, the Mexicans retreated toward Bexar, where on October 2, five miles west, the Texans overtook them. The Battle of Gonzales ensued with Texans as victors.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Despite its name, this rise — once the DeWitt Mound and now a family cemetery — marks a moment in the Texas Revolution, not an ancient site. Here Mexican troops camped from September 29 to October 1, 1835, waiting for the Gonzales colonists to hand over their small cannon. When the Texans refused, the soldiers withdrew toward Béxar; the colonists overtook them, and on October 2 the Battle of Gonzales opened the revolution in Texan victory.
Why it matters
This quiet mound witnessed the standoff that lit the Texas Revolution — the "Lexington of Texas" where colonists first chose to fight rather than surrender.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the fall of 1835, the DeWitt colony around Gonzales was a frontier settlement on the edge of open rebellion. Tensions between Anglo colonists and the Mexican government had been building for years, and that autumn they came to a head over a small, almost symbolic object: a cannon.
The surrounding country was rolling grassland and river bottom, thinly settled, where a rise in the land could serve as a campsite, a landmark, or — as here — a burial ground. The mound that this marker describes was known as the DeWitt Mound, tied to one of the colony's founding families, before it became a family cemetery.
This was the landscape into which a Mexican detachment rode in late September 1835, and where the first shots of a revolution would soon be fired.
People & events
The name attached to this mound is misleading, and it's worth saying so plainly: the famous Mexican general Santa Anna was not here. The troops who camped on this rise between September 29 and October 1, 1835, were a detachment of Mexican soldiers under the officer sent to Gonzales, waiting for the colonists to hand over their cannon.
The colonists refused. Rather than force the issue on the spot, the Mexican soldiers withdrew, turning back toward Béxar (present-day San Antonio). But the Texans were not content to let the matter rest. They pursued, and about five miles to the west they overtook the retreating column.
There, on October 2, 1835, the Battle of Gonzales was fought — a brief, sharp engagement that ended in a Texan victory. What had begun as a standoff over a single artillery piece had become the opening battle of the Texas Revolution, and this quiet mound had served as the stage for its tense prelude.
Its place in the American story
The Battle of Gonzales is often called the "Lexington of Texas," and the comparison is apt. Like the skirmish that opened the American Revolution, it was small in scale but enormous in meaning — the moment a community chose to fight rather than submit.
What this site preserves is the pause before that choice became irreversible: the days when soldiers camped and colonists deliberated, when the outcome was still uncertain. Revolutions are remembered for their battles, but they turn on these quieter standoffs, where ordinary people decide how far they are willing to go.
That the site is now a family cemetery gives it a second layer of meaning. The same ground that witnessed the spark of a revolution became a resting place for the settlers whose descendants would inherit the country that revolution created — history and memory folded into a single low rise of Texas earth.
If you visit
You'll find this site near Gonzales, roughly seventy miles east of San Antonio, on a modest rise that today serves as the DeWitt family cemetery. Don't come expecting a dramatic monument — come for the quiet, and for the sense of standing where a revolution held its breath.
Let the name be your first lesson. Reading "Santa Anna Mound," a visitor naturally pictures the general himself; knowing he was never here is a small but real correction, and a reminder of how place names can drift from the facts over time.
Walk the ground and picture the geography: soldiers encamped here, the disputed cannon in the town, and the road west toward Béxar where the colonists caught up with the retreating column. Gonzales embraces its founding role in Texas history, so pair this stop with the town's other revolutionary sites and give the whole story an unhurried afternoon.
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 events
- · Battle of Gonzales
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sarah Seely Dewitt
Gonzales, TX
Sarah Seely DeWitt came to Texas in 1826 with her husband Green DeWitt, the empresario who colonized the Gonzales area, and their five children. When Mexican troops demanded the colonists' cannon in 1835, Sarah and her daughter Evaline sewed the defiant "Come and Take It" banner flown at the Battle of Gonzales — the first battle flag of the Texas Revolution. She is buried on the DeWitt land that bears her name.
Old Eighteen
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On this site in late September 1835, eighteen Texans conferred with the alcalde of Gonzales and stalled some 150 Mexican dragoons sent to seize the town's cannon. Their delay bought precious days for colonists to gather recruits, setting the stage for the Battle of Gonzales — the opening clash of the Texas Revolution.
Gonzales Cannon
Gonzales, TX
Here on September 29, 1835, Mexican troops arrived to reclaim a small cannon the government had lent the colonists of Gonzales for defense against raids. The Texians stalled for two days while reinforcements gathered, then flung back their famous answer — "Come and Take It." The standoff over that little gun helped ignite the Texas Revolution.
Campsite Marking Start of San Jacinto Campaign
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In March 1836, as the Texas Revolution reached its most desperate hour, Sam Houston reached Gonzales to muster a second volunteer army. Word arrived here of the fall of the Alamo and of Santa Anna's advance, and Houston ordered the town put to the torch before withdrawing eastward. That long, calculated retreat set the stage for the decisive Texian victory at San Jacinto on April 21.