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Small
Town Artillery I
The Most
Famous Piece of Ordnance in TexasGonzales'
Come and Take It Cannon
Gonzales,
Texas by
Norman Conquest |
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Read
four history books about the Texas Revolution and you'll have four versions
of what occurred on October 2, 1835. They've pretty much settled on the
number 18 for the Gonzalans present, but the numbers of Mexicans varies as does
the cannon's composition. Sometimes the cannon is brass, sometimes it's iron.
Sometimes it makes it to the Alamo
where it was melted with the other cannons after the fall, and sometimes it's
buried en route. One thing is for sure, Dr. Pat Wagner, who came into ownership
of the cannon, spent many many months working with Doug Kubacek of Hallettsville
to verify the pedigree of the gun, which now sits in the museum
in Gonzales. The cannon had
been lost, but very close to the Texas Centennial (almost to the day) a flood
of the Guadalupe revealed the cannon you can see today. |
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Dr. Wagner and Come
and Take It Cannon.
Courtesy of Gonzales County Archives | |
X-rayed and magnified, to the point of using the huge
x-ray machine at an airbase in San
Antonio, both Dr. Wagner and Doug Kubacek confirmed that this was a
cannon made by a blacksmith in Gonzales,
since they had access to a detailed diary the blacksmith kept on the repairs done
to the touch hole. |  | Although
it is portrayed in many different forms, a flared barrel, a different carriage
and sizes from small to 2XX, it still is a tidy bit of work. |
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| Even if it
doesn't measure up to legend, that doesn't take away from the fact that this was
the defiant act that sparked the revolution and this cannon was the instrument.
Dr. Wagner passed
away early this year, but he generously allowed the cannon to be shown around
the state where it could be seen by a greater audience. It now resides at the
Gonzales
Memorial Museum. | |
Drawing
of the "Come And Take It" Cannon
Photo courtesy Sarah
Reveley, 2007 |
Related Stories:
Dr.
Pat Wagner and the "Come & Take It" Cannon by Murray Montgomery
Those of us who love Texas history can thank Dr. Wagner for the little
cannon that is presently on exhibit at the Gonzales Memorial Museum. The
Women of 1836 by Linda Kirkpatrick
... In the midst of preparing to march
to San Antonio, the people of Gonzales decided that they needed a flag. An appointed
committee designed what they considered a flag of support for the cause... The
flag would have a white field without a border and in the center a picture of
the treasured cannon. Over the cannon a single five-pointed lone star was sewn
and under the cannon the words, “Come and Take It!” ....more
Gonzales
Memorial Museum
Gonzales,
Texas
Forum:
Subject: The Gonzales cannon
It has a 1½" bore, & at some
point it was turned, the vent plugged, & a new vent bored on the other side. According
to Noah Smithwick in Evolution Of A State, he did the work. The plugged original
vent is what positively identified it as the actual Gonzales cannon when it was
found in the 1930s. - C.F.
Eckhardt, April 04, 2008 |
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Jack "The
Knife" Murphy demonstrating the ease with which the cannon could be concealed.
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