This cemetery is traced by numerous nineteenth-century journals and other written historical accounts to the burial of casualties of the Battle of Medina. Fought on August 18, 1813, the battle resulted from a failed attempt by the Republican Army of the North, made up of about 1200 to 1500 Mexicans, Anglo Americans, and Indians, to free Mexico from Royalist Spanish rule. The Royalist Army won, and hundreds of men who died on the battlefield were later interred at this site between 1813 and 1817. The Church of Nuestra Señora del Carmen traces its origin to a chapel built over the soldiers' burial crypt. The burial site became a community cemetery as pioneer settlers established homes in the area. Those interred here include the families of Domingo Losoya and Dionicio Martinez, who received Mexican land grants surrounding the cemetery property, as well as Enrique Esparza, who survived the Battle of the Alamo as a child, and French immigrant Gustave Toudouze, a prominent local naturalist and businessman. A cemetery association formed in 1927 maintains the historic site, which continues in use as a cemetery for the local community.