This is about all I have on file about the battle.
By Adolfo Pesquera - Contributing Writer/Southside Reporter
The more Steve Ash wanders the damp sugar sands of his 4-acre homestead, the more historical artifacts he uncovers.
A retired history teacher, Ash has unearthed so many items predating modern times that he has convinced himself his land may well be part of the site of the bloodiest battle in Texas history.
A rusted axe, a Bowie knife, pieces of glass bottles that appear to date to the 19th century, and a miniature brass chalice are among the items Ash claims as evidence.
There are bones that Ash, 60, believes to be human. But the strongest proof, Ash says, is a metal button that appears to have the date 1813 stamped on it.
He found the button in November, and is hoping to attract the attention of experts primarily on the basis of that eroded disc and the odd phenomena concerning an ancient oak tree.
?I'd like to bring in experts to look at all this,? Ash said.
At issue is the Battle of Medina that occurred Aug. 18, 1813. On that day, 1,830 Spanish royalists handed a crushing defeat to 1,400 Tejanos, Anglos, Indians and former royalists in what was the first military attempt to sever Texas from what was then a Spanish colony. Less than 100 revolutionaries survived.
There are two official stone monuments- one in southern Bexar County down the old U.S. Highway 281 and the other in Atascosa County- both claiming to be the site of the battle. But historians admit both sites are only educated guesses.
Robert Thonhoff, a Karnes City-based historian who researched the battle extensively, was responsible for the marker near Leming in Atascosa.
?There was some evidence that it might have occurred there,? Thonhoff said of the Leming site, but even Thonhoff is not absolutely convinced he is correct. ?There ought to be artifacts in abundance and that is not the case.?
The battle site covered an area six miles long and a mile wide. Thonhoff has always thought the actual site should be littered with musket balls, grapeshot, bayonets, other weapons of the period, cannonballs and a wide assortment of other items such as canisters and flatware- the debris one might expect following the clash of two armies.
The lost battle site is one of the great mysteries of Texas history.
?More men died at the Battle of Medina that at the battles of the Alamo, Goliad and San Jacinto combined,? Thonhoff said.
?As we approach 2013- its 200th anniversary- there has been renewed interest in that battle. If the site could be confirmed, it would be worthy of national recognition.?
Ash moved to the Somerset area in 2007. He shared his findings with friends, and one brought in a metal detector. The metal detector found nothing in the ground, but it did note something cross-shaped about eight feet high into a live oak that Ash estimates is 300 years-old.
Nine years after the battle, the remains of about 800 skeletons scattered across the site were laid to rest around a nearby oak tree.
Ash wonders if the bones he found around his oak tree and the mysterious metallic signature within its upper trunk have a direct connection to that mass burial.
Then there is the tale of the cannonball. Ash contacted the daughter of the previous landowner, who related to him that a cannonball was once found on the property by her father.
He was so intrigued by the artifact that he had it buried with him in his coffin.
Unlike much of the land around it, which has been plowed for generations due to agricultural activity, Ash was told his property has been inhabited since the 1800s.
Other than a few surface dwellings, little was done to disturb the land.
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