Brandon Seale has spent years rediscovering the Battle of Medina, a mysterious part of Texas history that has been lost for more than 100 years.
Seale, a San Antonio-based energy entrepreneur and historian, has always had an interest in Texas history.
“You can’t grow up in San Antonio and not be a little bit surrounded by Texas history,” Seale said on the latest episode of the bigcitysmalltown podcast.
While working in northern Mexico between 2015 and 2018, Seale encountered historical connections between Mexico and South Texas, and “something opened up” about the story of where he was from.
This interest in the history of Texas led to his own podcast “A New History of Old Texas”, where he detailed his search for the lost site of the Battle of Medina. It’s a battle not as widely known as other conflicts like the Battle of the Alamo or the Battle of Goliad.
Seale joined Robert Rivard on the bigcitysmalltown podcast, where he shared recent developments in his search for the battle site and discussed theories as to why the crucial event is not largely remembered.
“When we started this search, there were four historical markers that had been placed out in southern Bexar and Atascosa County,” Seale said, with another five or six sites being possible locations.
Originally, Seale pinpointed the battle site to somewhere near Poteet, a small town south of San Antonio — a theory he admitted he got wrong in the first season of his podcast.
By searching “dozens of sites and hundreds of acres” and collecting artifacts like musketballs, buckles and buttons, four conflict sites have now been confirmed.
The American Veterans Archeological Recovery Project and the Atascosa County Historical Commission have been essential to the research and never letting “the battle die.”
A new 44-minute documentary produced by Seale will air on KLRN on Sept 29 at 9 p.m. The film is a culmination of years of research, walking the audience through the logic of how Seale and his team connected these sites.
“I think what we seem to be finding in these little clusters suggests that there were a bunch of fights. There were a bunch of fights, and half the men were mounted in the battle,” Seale said. “It can be disappointing if we were guided in this by thinking that we were going to be able to ever put, you know, one spot on a map and say like, ‘This was it, this was the Battle of Medina.’ But I think what it’s forcing us to do is just engage more deeply with the sources and realize what kind of battle it really was.”
Metal detecting was key in identifying certain artifacts and confirming battle sites in Atascosa and Bexar Counties. Many of the artifacts found are on display at the Witte Museum.
