The Battle of San Jacinto was fought on Peggy McCormick’s property (Marc Rioux photo)
Texas won its independence from Mexico on April 21, 1836, at the Battle of San Jacinto. Sam Houston’s Texan Army defeated Santa Anna’s Mexican Army in only 18 minutes. In the battle, 639 Mexicans and nine Texans were killed.
But, who should be responsible for burying the dead soldiers?
Margaret “Peggy” McCormick owned the land where the battle took place. Peggy, her husband, and two sons had immigrated to Stephen F. Austin’s Old Three Hundred colony from Ireland. The McCormicks were granted a league of land on the south side of Buffalo Bayou where it intersected with the San Jacinto River. After her husband’s death, Aunt Peggy, as her neighbors called her, and her sons managed their land and cattle.
In April 1836, as Santa Anna’s troops approached the San Jacinto River, Peggy and her sons were forced to leave their land as part of the Runaway Scrape, in which Texans fled from their homes as Santa Anna’s army moved into Texas. Several days after the Battle of San Jacinto, when the family returned, they found that their house had been ransacked. Their livestock and corn crop had been eaten by both the Texan and Mexican armies. The corpses of the Mexican soldiers were strewn about their land.
Peggy made her way to Sam Houston’s camp and demanded that the bodies be buried. Both Houston and Santa Anna, now a prisoner in the camp, refused. Houston told her how significant her land would become in history because the battle for Texas independence took place there. Peggy and her sons, Michael and John, buried the bodies themselves.
As Peggy continued to live on her land, her cattle operation grew to be among the largest in Harris County. Unfortunately, unscrupulous county officials ordered a new land survey and that effectively stole most of her land. Peggy was apparently illiterate and signed her name on the corresponding documents with an “X.” The survey was not uncovered until after her death in 1854. She died in a house fire that some considered arson.
Sam Houston’s words to Peggy about her land being historically significant did come to fruition. Today the land is part of the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site. To honor this remarkable woman, one of the lakes on the site was named “Peggy’s Lake.”
