After the Battle of San Jacinto, on April 22, 1836, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, President and Dictator of the Republic of Mexico, was brought captive beneath an oak tree on this site before General Sam Houston, Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Texas, who had been painfully wounded the previous day. Known to have been among Santa Anna's captors were James Austin Sylvester, Joel Walter Robison, Joseph D. Vermillion, Alfred H. Miles, and David Cole.