Juan Ximenes, a Texas patriot

Juan Ximenes was my great-great-great grandfather who was born in San Antonio, Texas in 1810 and lived there all of his life. He fought for the Republic of Texas at the Storming of Bexar in 1835. The siege was a house-to-house gun battle that took place in early December when Mexican Gen. Martin Perfecto Cos came to San Antonio to set up his headquarters under orders from dictator Antonio López de Santa Ana. The Texian rebels under the command of Ben Milam heeded the call "who will go with ol´ Ben Milam into San Antonio?" Ximenes and about 300 others volunteered. It was a three-day bloody street battle that forced Cos and his men to flee the town when their supplies evaporated and the troops and animals were nearly starved. Milam was killed a few weeks later in another skirmish. In March 1836, Gen. Santa Ana ambushed some 200 volunteers hold out at the Alamo. Ximenes was not among the valiant who perished. But his brother Damasio Ximenes lost his life fighting with the other defenders. In April 1836, Juan N. Seguin, the town´s mayor who became dissatisfied with Santa Ana´s dictatorship, led a group of Mexican volunteers to San Jacinto to fight alongside with Gen. Sam Houston. Ximenes was one of them. The Battle of San Jacinto lasted less about 20 minutes and cost the Mexican dictator many of his men and his country´s northern territory which became the Republic of Texas. You can read more about Juan Ximenes, as well as view early photos of his family, at http://texas.i-found-it.net/ximenes.html