The Grass Fight

🏛️The era

By the autumn of 1835, Texas was a province of Mexico simmering toward open revolt. The centralist government in Mexico City had swept aside the more federalist constitution many Texans had lived under, and settlers—both Anglo colonists and Tejanos, the Spanish-speaking Texans whose roots ran deep in the land—found themselves increasingly at odds with the national regime. That autumn, that tension boiled into war.

San Antonio de Bexar was the prize. It was the largest town in Texas and the seat of Mexican military power in the region, held by a garrison of the centralist army. For more than a month, a rough Texan force camped outside the town, watching and waiting for a chance to strike a real blow.

This was a revolution still finding its feet—an army that was more a gathering of volunteers than a disciplined force, camped on the open country west of town near the junction of Alazan, Apache, and San Pedro Creeks. It was hungry for a victory, and for something to break the long, tense stalemate.

👥People & events

The opportunity came from a rumor and a sharp-eyed scout. Erastus "Deaf" Smith, one of the most celebrated scouts of the Texas cause, learned that a Mexican pack train was approaching Bexar. Word had spread that it carried silver—pay for the garrison—and on November 26, 1835, when Smith sighted the caravan, he raced to alert the Texan camp.

The reaction was immediate. Colonel James Bowie—already a famous frontier figure—led about a hundred volunteers forward, while others followed Colonel Edward Burleson. Near the creek junctions, the Texans overtook the pack train. Soldiers from the Bexar garrison rode out to defend it, but the Texans drove them back and seized the pack animals. Around fifty Mexican soldiers were killed in the fighting; the Texans lost none, with only two wounded.

Then came the anticlimax that gave the fight its name. The Texans tore open the packs expecting silver—and found grass, the hay Mexican troops had foraged to feed their livestock. The "Grass Fight" it became, a battle over fodder dressed up as a hunt for treasure.

Yet the small victory rippled outward. Two weeks later, with a contingent led by Tejano commander Juan N. Seguin among the volunteers, Ben Milam led the Texans in storming Bexar itself, driving the centralist army out of the town.

🇺🇸Its place in the American story

The Grass Fight is a reminder that history rarely unfolds the way legend would script it. One of the war's most talked-about clashes turned on a load of hay, not a fortune in silver—and it is remembered as much for that wry disappointment as for its outcome.

But its meaning runs deeper than the joke. This was a shared struggle: the marker is careful to note that the Texan forces were composed of both Anglo- and Mexican-Texans. The Texas Revolution was not simply Americans against Mexicans; it was a fight in which Tejanos like Juan Seguin took up arms alongside newcomers, and their role is central to any honest telling of it.

The skirmish also helped set in motion the events that would echo across the nation. The storming of Bexar cleared the centralist army from San Antonio and set the stage for the famous Siege of the Alamo the following spring. What began here as a scramble over pack animals belongs to the opening chapter of the story that would end with Texas independence—and, eventually, Texas joining the United States.

🧭If you visit

You'll be standing in what is now part of the city of San Antonio, near where the old creeks—Alazan, Apache, and San Pedro—once met in open country. The landscape has changed beyond recognition since 1835, so let the marker do what markers do best: anchor a vivid moment to a specific patch of ground.

As you read, picture the confusion and the rush—the shout going up in camp, Bowie's volunteers pounding toward the caravan, the brief, sharp fight, and then the almost comic letdown of hay spilling from the packs. It's a very human scene, and that humanity is what makes it stick.

The Grass Fight pairs beautifully with a broader visit to San Antonio's revolutionary history, from the Alamo to the other sites of the Siege of Bexar. Reading them together, you begin to feel the shape of an entire revolution—the small clashes and large ones, the Anglo and Tejano volunteers alike—rather than just its most famous moment.