DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, picture the Brazos River, Fort Bend County, right here at the site of Thompson's Ferry. Spring of 1836, and Texas is in the fight of its life.
A part of the Mexican Army — under the command of General Antonio López de Santa Anna himself — comes to this very crossing. April 14th, 1836. They need to get across the Brazos, and across they go.
You can almost hear the water, the creak of wood, the steady movement of soldiers making their way to the other side, pressing forward, confident, bound for what they believe will be a decisive reckoning with the Texans. And here's the thing the marker wants you to sit with for just a moment. That crossing happened one week before San Jacinto.
One week. These men crossing the Brazos right here, at Thompson's Ferry, were on their way to that engagement. Whatever they were thinking as the current moved beneath them, whatever Santa Anna had planned — San Jacinto was seven days out.
The river didn't know it. The soldiers didn't know it. But the Brazos just kept on rollin'.
And history kept on movin' too.
What the marker says
Where a part of the Mexican Army under command of General Antonio López de Santa Anna crossed the Brazos on April 14, 1836 en route to an engagement with the Texans * This occurred one week later at San Jacinto. Erected by the State of Texas 1936