San Jacinto Symposium

The Battle of San Jacinto Symposium meets Saturday, April 18, 2009, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.  Hilton Hotel and Conference Center, University of Houston under the title of "New Light on Old Stories.  The Battle of San Jacinto Symposium is sponsored by the Friends of the San Jacinto Battleground as a forum for promoting public awareness of the events of the Texas Revolution era.  Read more at http://www.friendsofsanjacinto.com/site/   The five panelists are: Roger Moore, founder ofMoore Archeological Consulting, a group which studies sites and deposits in the complex context of modern cities. In work ongoing since 2003, he has led the first systematic, methodologically appropriate investigation of the Battle of San Jacinto; Gregg Dimmick, author of Sea ofMud: the Retreat of theMexican Army after San Jacinto and editor of General Vicente Filisola's Analysis of Jose Urrea'sMilitary Diary, translated by John R.Wheat.  Dimmick, a pediatrician, works closely with the HoustonArcheological Society in tracing theMexicanArmy's retreat in the 1836 campaign; Douglas D. Scott, a professor in anthropology at the University of Nebraska, has a special interest in 19th century military sites and forensic archeology. The innovative research he started at the Little Big Horn Battlefield NationalMonument won the U.S. Department of Interior's Distinguished ServiceAward in 2002; Douglas Mangum co-manages the San Jacinto Battleground field work and developed and manages the GIS database of maps for the project. Mangum worked on sites in Scotland, England,Mississippi, NewMexico and Texas before joining MooreArcheological Consulting; Manuel Hinojosa is an architect, artist, avocational historian and acknowledged authority on theMexicanArmy of the nineteenth century. His research of the "Mexican Soldado" at the PaloAlto Battlefield won the battleground's 2006 MeritAward. Speakers on specific topics are: H.W. Brands will emphasize the importance of interpreting battlefields and set their meanings in modern context.  Brands is the DicksonAllenAnderson Centennial Professor of History at the University of Texas atAustin and author of more than 20 books, including the awardwinning Lone Star Nation: The Epic Story for Texas Independence. Sam W. Haynes will compare Texas with other post-colonial societies in their struggles to define themselves after winning independence. Aprofessor of history at UTArlington, Haynes' focus of study is the western expansion of the U.S. in the 19th century. He is the author of James K. Polk and the Expansionist Impulse. James P. Bevill will discuss his new book, The Paper Republic: The Struggle for Money, Credit and Independence in the Republic of Texas, and the San Jacinto soldiers who helped structure these finances. Bevill is past president of the Texas NumismaticAssociation. James E. Crisp, North Carolina State University, will moderate the symposium for the seventh year. His book, Sleuthing the Alamo: Davy Crockett's Last Stand and otherMysteries of the Texas Revolution, won theT.R.FehrenbachBookAward in 2006