Texas
On this day in 1836, as the Mexican Army under Generalissimo Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna lay seige to the beleagered men of the Alamo in San Antonio, leaders of the unruly colony met in a town aptly named Independence. There, in an unfinished hall near the banks of the river named after the arms of God (Brazos de Dios) they signed a Declaration of Independence and established a provisional government.
Then, on the forty-third birthday of one of the most famous-and infamous-people in America, they made him "General of the Army". With that combination of laurel and albatross thrown about his shoulders Houston set out for his army's encampment at Gonzales, on a donkey.
