The approximately 1,238 Texians involved in the Battle of San Jacinto changed the course of Texas history. Their names are memorialized on this plaque and the corresponding one in the Jesse H. Jones Theatre for Texas Studies.
The veteran plaques are based on the research of Texas historian Louis Wiltz Kemp, a member of the Texas Centennial Commission and a long-time trustee of the San Jacinto Museum. Using donation and headright certificates, military service records, county deeds, and oral histories from veterans’ descendants, Kemp wrote biographical sketches of the Texian soldiers who fought at the Battle of San Jacinto.
Their names were then engraved on two bronze plaques, which were installed when the Museum opened in 1939. The plaque in the theater lists the 936 men who fought in the battle, while this one lists the 302 men stationed at Camp Harrisburg, either due to illness or to guard the baggage.
The lists have been updated twice, in 1986 and 2011, based on new research that uncovered the names of additional men who played a part in winning Texas’s independence.
Learn more about the individual men who fought here at the Veteran Biographies section of our website.