2019 Battle of Béjar Reenactment
Experience the excitement up close at the annual Battle of Béjar Reenactment (aka Capitulation of General Cos) on December 6-7, 2019 at La Villita in San Antonio, Texas. Join the San Antonio Living History Association as they recreate the climactic conclusion to the Texas Revolution Campaign of 1835. The Battle of Béjar Reenactment is hosted by the La Villita Merchants Association and the City’s Department of Cultural & Creative Development.
Battle of Béjar Reenactment
Hours: Daily 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Location
Maverick Plaza at La Villita
418 Villita Street
San Antonio, TX 78205
For More Information
San Antonio Living History Asso: 210-273-1730 salivinghistoryevents@gmail.com
The Battle of Béjar Reenactment Unfolds . . .
As shoppers drift between art galleries and cafés in downtown’s La Villita, men dressed in hats and coats from the 19th century will hide behind walls and pillars, staring down their rifles at others dressed as soldiers in the Mexican army. Shouts and booms from gunpowder and cannon fire will fill the air as members of the San Antonio Living History Association re-enact the Battle of Bejar, the final days of an 1835 siege by Texian rebels against Mexican forces in what was once La Villa de Bexar, an alternate spelling. The re-enactment is one of several put on each year by the association, whose members stage events around Texas commemorating the significant events of the Texas Revolution.
Battle of Béjar Reenactment Mini Gallery
The re-enactors stage the surrender of Cos and one of his officers on La Villita’s central plaza. After a cease-fire ends the volleys coming from both sides, a re-enactor playing Cos agrees to a parley with another playing Edward Burleson.
Reenactors visit with the public and try and explain different things about history, not to slant it to one side or the other. The combatants from both sides fought with honorable intention. The Mexicans were defending the homeland. The Texian Federalist Army basically wanted to rule ourselves.
About the Battle of Béjar
The battle began on Dec. 5, 1835, when Texian leaders launched a surprise attack on the Mexicans. They fought for five days, and the battle ended with the surrender of Mexican General Martín Cos, who returned to the interior of Mexico with some of his surviving troops. This was the impetus that initiated [Antonio Lopez de] Santa Ana to start his march on San Antonio to get here in late February. It starts that whole scene of the Texas Revolution.”
The Battle of Béjar was literally house-to-house fighting. They were actually digging through walls, going into the next house and dropping down through ceilings. It was hand-to-hand. Probably the most brutal combat besides the Alamo. The re-enactors put painstaking effort into their research of period dress and their efforts to simulate the battles. Members come from all over Texas and neighboring states to re-enact events at historic places in San Antonio, San Jacinto, and Goliad.
Though most people remember the Battle of the Alamo as the only important battle in the Texas Revolution, the Battle of Bejar was a point of escalation in the war for Texas independence when the Texans ran the Mexicans out of the Alamo before the Mexicans ran the Texans out.
Mark your calendar today so you don’t miss the next Battle of Béjar Reenactment (aka Capitulation of General Cos) on the 1st Saturday in December each year at La Villita in San Antonio, Texas.
Tags: Battle of Béjar Reenactment, Siege of Bejar Reenactment, Capitulation of General Cos, Bejar Battle Reenactment, Texas Revolution, Texas Revolution Reenactment, Texas Revolution Living History