Two days before the Battle of San Jacinto, Sam Houston wrote that meeting Santa Anna at once was the only chance of saving Texas, though he had found no reinforcements and expected only about seven hundred men besides the camp guard. He declared that the troops were in fine spirits, that they would use their best efforts despite great odds, and that the rights for which they fought would be secured and Texas free. On the field at San Jacinto, B.R. Brigham was mortally wounded on April 21, 1836. The day after the battle, T. J. Rusk portrayed the conflict as a triumph of liberty and independence in Texas, recalling the cries of “Remember the Alamo” and “Remember La Bahia” and praising the energy and aim of the Texas army. At Brigham’s grave also rest Lemuel Stockton Blakey, John C. Hale, George A. Lamb, Dr. Wm. Junius Mottley, Mathias Cooper, Thomas Patton Fowle, and Ashley R. Stephens, who were killed or mortally wounded at San Jacinto, and Olwyn J. Trask died on Galveston Island about May 20 from wounds received on the battlefield in the skirmish of April 20, 1836. In 1881, citizens of Texas erected a shaft there by voluntary contributions to mark where these men sleep and preserve the knowledge of their names and prowess.