Artifacts from the recently discovered 1813 Battle of Medina battlefield are now on display at the Witte Museum, joining objects from the Witte collection that lend context to what combat was like in early 19th-century Texas and northern Mexico.
The Medina artifacts, among them a uniform buckle, lead musket balls and sprue — a byproduct of making lead shot — were found in 2022 by a team led by history podcaster Brandon Seale and archaeologist Stephen Humphreys of American Veterans Archaeological Recovery (AVAR) during fieldwork conducted in February and October 2022.
Seale announced the findings on April 6 to coincide with the 210th anniversary of the signing of the first Texas Declaration of Independence, which spurred the Republican Army of the North to revolt against Spanish Royalist armies.
Though Seale and Humphreys were circumspect as to whether their findings are 100% conclusive — uncertainty over the exact location of the battlefield has produced arguments and at least two different historical markers in other locations — Seale said at the time that the AVAR team “found a conflict site consistent with the textual evidence for the battlefield of Medina.”
More than two centuries have passed since the Battle of Medina raged across acres of what are now Atascosa and Bexar counties. For decades, researchers have been trying to pinpoint the location of the battlefield to honor the sacrifices of more than 1,300 soldiers who died during the battle, which the Texas State Historical Association has called the “bloodiest battle ever fought on Texas soil.”
In an announcement highlighting the display, outgoing Witte Museum President and CEO Marise McDermott said, “The 1813 Battle of Medina devastated generations — the sons, daughters and wives of the men who died in battle, and yet we know so little about where it happened. These artifacts are tangible reminders that the battle happened here, with descendants still among us, anxious for new information.”
The Witte announcement credited Bruce Moses, a research scientist at the UTSA Center for Archaeological Research and author of a 2017 book on the subject, with laying the groundwork for the findings achieved by Seale and AVAR. Moses died in 2011 from cancer, and his Roads to the Battle of Medina: A Search for the Lost Battlefield of Texas paperback was posthumously published.
The Battle of Medina artifacts will be on display on the second floor of the South Texas Heritage Center at the Witte Museum through 2023, accessible with regular museum admission.
