“No, take them on” — The Story of Alfonso Steele, the Longest Surviving San Jacinto Combatant
“I was seventeen years old. I had nothing…and decided I would start out for myself and make something…”[1]
These were the ambitions of a young man as he ventured away from home, down the Mississippi River, and into the storm of the oncoming Texas Revolution. The story of Alfonso Steele, the longest-surviving combatant of the Battle of San Jacinto at the time of his death on July 8, 1911, is told in part through the land records and maps in the Archives of the Texas General Land Office.[2]
Alfonso Parcutt Steele was born in Hardin County, Kentucky on April 9, 1817, to Stephen Parcutt Steele and Susannah “Susan” McCarty. In September 1834, he left Kentucky to make his way to Louisiana, where he worked for a short time before joining Captain Ephraim M. Daggett’s company of volunteers. This journey took him to Washington-on-the-Brazos in early 1836. Because Texas had not yet declared its independence, Daggett’s company disbanded. Steele remained in Washington, and he found work at a hotel where he “ground corn on a steel mill to make bread for the men who signed the Declaration of Texas Independence.”[3]
Once independence was declared on March 2, Steele rejoined the military under Captain Joe Bennett. The volunteers marched toward San Antonio with the intention of providing aid to William B. Travis but received news that the Alamo had already fallen when they reached the Colorado River. This prompted a change in course to join General Sam Houston’s men and a reorganization of leadership that found Steele under the command of Captain James Gillespie, First Lieutenant Mat Finch, and Colonel Sidney Sherman.[4]
At Houston’s orders, Steele marched with the Texas Army to Harrisburg only to find that General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna had recently passed through and burned the town. A force of approximately 248 men, many of whom were ill or “ineffective,” remained at Harrisburg to protect the remaining citizens and property as the rest of the soldiers moved forward.[5] On April 20, a Mexican boat with provisions was captured, and Houston’s men “feasted” on the first bread they had come across in quite some time, then rested until the next day.[6]
At around 3:30 P.M. on April 21, 1836, General Houston ordered his largely outnumbered and poorly equipped troops to prepare for battle.[7] The decisive Battle of San Jacinto lasted a mere 18 minutes with the Texans emerging as unlikely victors. Houston’s official report reflected that 630 Mexican soldiers were killed and another 730 taken prisoner, while of the 910 Texans participating in the battle, only nine were killed or mortally wounded, and another 30 suffered non-fatal injuries.[8] Unfortunately, Steele was one of those wounded, having been shot in the first few minutes of combat. When some of his fellow soldiers were told to stay with him as the attack pressed on, he responded, “No, take them on.”[9]
He described his situation in detail:
“I was bleeding at the nose and mouth so I couldn’t speak…After laying there awhile I managed to get to a sitting posture and drink some water I had in a gourd. This stopped the blood from coming from my nose and mouth…after the water I got up to see if I could walk. I had lost so much blood when I had walked five or six steps I got blind and couldn’t see…I was so blind I could hardly see anything and I sat down on a dead Mexican. While I was sitting there some of our regulars who had stayed at the Mexican breastworks and were sticking their bayonets through the wounded Mexicans came along and one of them had his bayonet drawn to stick through me, when Gen. Tom Green, who belonged to the artillery corps, stopped him.”[10]
Steele was carried by horse across Buffalo Bayou to the home of Lorenzo de Zavala, which was turned into a hospital. He was honorably discharged from the army after a few months of care.[11]
In September 1838, Alfonso Steele married Mary Ann Powell with whom he had ten children. In 1844, the couple moved to present-day Limestone County where they lived together until Mary Ann’s death.[12] Steele was presented with a solid gold medal by the Thirty-first Texas Legislature in 1909 for his service at San Jacinto,[13] and a poem entitled “The Last Hero” was dedicated to him.”[14] In an ode to the brave soldier, author Jake H. Harrison commemorated the longest-living survivor of the battle that won the Texas Revolution:
Last of all the valiant heroes
Who at San Jacinto stood,
Like a grove of giant poplars
In some dark enchanted wood.
Stood for freedom, God and country,
Stood for liberty and right,
Fought with startling odds against the
Facing prospects black as night!
At the time of his death on July 8, 1911, Steele was 94 years old and was the last surviving veteran who fought at San Jacinto; William P. Zuber (1820–1913) was the last survivor of the San Jacinto campaign, but he did not fight as he was assigned to guard camp at Harrisburg.[15] In honor of his life and service, a life-sized portrait of Alfonso Steele hangs inside the Texas Capitol in Austin.[16]
Files at the GLO detail an important portion of Steele’s life — his military service and the land that he received as an early settler and defender of Texas. He received four grants totaling 6,668 acres for his service and for being wounded, and two additional grants covering 4,428 acres for settling in Texas, for a grand total of 11,096 acres. He also appears on two pages of the Republic of Texas Muster Roll, where he is listed as having been severely wounded during the Battle of San Jacinto. On his 1881 application for a Veteran Donation land certificate, he testified to his service under James Gillespie in Sidney Sherman’s regiment.
[1] Alfonso Steele, Biography of Private Alfonso Steele (Deceased) Last Survivor of the Battle of San Jacinto, Together with Mr. Steele’s Account of the Campaign and Fight, and the Official Report of General Sam Houston, With Complete Roster of the Commands Composing the Little Army, 1925; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth46832/m1/5/: accessed May 13, 2020), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.
[2] Alternate spellings of Alfonso Steele in GLO records include: Alphonse, Alphonso, Alphonzo, Alphonza, Alfonzo, Alponzo, and Steel.
[3] Alfonso Steele, Biography of Private Alfonso Steele.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Handbook of Texas Online, L. W. Kemp, “San Jacinto, Battle of,” accessed June 25, 2020, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qes04. Uploaded on June 15, 2010. Modified on February 28, 2017. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
[6] Alfonso Steele, Biography of Private Alfonso Steele.
[7] Ibid.
[8] L.W. Kemp, “San Jacinto, Battle of.”
[9] Alfonso Steele, Biography of Private Alfonso Steele.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Handbook of Texas Online, James R. Curry, “Steele, Alfonso,” accessed May 27, 2020, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fst26.
[13] Alfonso Steele, Biography of Private Alfonso Steele.
[14] James R. Curry, “Steele, Alfonso.
[15] Stephen L. Moore, Eighteen Minutes: the Battle of San Jacinto and the Texas Independence Campaign, Lanham, MD: Republic of Texas Press, 2004, 423.
[16] Alfonso Steele, Biography of Private Alfonso Steele.
