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Attendees at a private event at the Witte Museum on Thursday got a sneak peek at portions of a new documentary from podcaster Brandon Seale that shares new evidence about the Battle of Medina, one of the bloodiest battles in Texas history.
“It tries to weave together in a much more succinct manner than my 11-hour podcast, the story of the battle, the story of the search, and really the latest findings, but also to answer the larger question of why do we care about the Battle of Medina and why should it still matter,” Seale told TPR.
The upcoming documentary is part one of three planned pieces titled “A New History of Old Texas.”
In the documentary, Seale reveals new evidence found at a site in Atascosa County. Until recently, little was known about the battle, including its exact location, which now has been found to have occurred at several different sites. Seale says the full documentary will be released to the public later this year.
The battle posed an army of around 1400 Tejanos, Anglo American and Native American volunteers against about 1900 Spanish army regulars. Almost all the Texans were killed.
Some of the new evidence has been added to an exhibit at the Witte about the Battle of Medina which opened two years ago.
“So the exhibit, which was opened about two years ago with some of the artifacts that were initially found by the American Veterans Archaeological Recovery Group, have now been supplemented by the mountain of finds that the Atascosa County Historical Commission has turned up, all related to the battle, all linked through XRF analysis, and so it's a really exciting addition to the knowledge of the battle,” Seale said.
Martin Gonzales is Chairman of the Atascosa County Historical Commission. He says with the cooperation of some landowners, the pieces of history are coming together.
“I'm excited to show that Atascosa County now has a dog in this fight because for a long time we didn't have artifacts out of the ground coming out of Atascosa County. Most everything was being found in Bexar County and more awareness now that hey, something happened here before the Alamo, 23 years before the Alamo happened,” Gonzales said.
A push to find out more about the battle site began in 2022, when Seale began working with volunteers with the American Veterans Archeological Recovery Project, or AVAR.
Historians initially thought the 1813 battle was fought at one location near the Medina River, but artifacts were discovered at several sites in both Bexar and Atascosa Counties and were tested by researchers to be of the period.
