It is not an easy transformation to convert oneself from a general pediatrician in the small Texas town of Wharton to a published
historical avocational archeologist. How it came about may be no less a product of the fates than the defeat of the Mexican
army in Texas in 1836.
In 1996 I was very adept at circumcisions, spinal taps, and treating asthma but I must say that I knew next to nothing about
Texas history.
Over the years I had dabbled in the archeological excavation of some prehistoric Indian sites with members of the Houston
Archeological Society. I found that they gladly accepted help from anyone who showed the slightest interest—especially in
the very important job (so they told me) of screening all the dirt that comes out of the pit.
One day in 1996 I was examining a patient—the daughter of one of our local ranchers, Jim Williams. His wife, Luann, mentioned
that there was a man who was finding Civil War artifacts on their property. I headed out to their place and spent an entire
Saturday following the gentleman around like a shadow. He found a few Minié balls, an old pocketknife, and a brass button.
I was hooked.
I decided I had to know more about the Civil War in our area to see if there were other sites to be located and documented.
Please let me stress the "documented" part of the equation. Artifacts with no provenance or historical record are interesting
but are of no real historical or archeological value. Having found very little information on the Civil War in our area (not
too surprising considering how little action actually took place in our neighborhood) I decided to expand my horizons. Out
of the blue, I decided to try to find evidence of the Mexican army. With absolutely no knowledge of where exactly they had
been in our area, or any awareness of any previous artifacts found, I got this crazy idea that we might be able to find some
remnant of the Mexican army from 1836.
I dusted off my father’s twenty-five-year-old metal detector, which I did not know how to operate, and struck out to find
the Mexican army. Needless to say, my digging buddy, Ed Person, and I found just about everything but the Mexican army. We
discovered a lifetime’s supply of barbed wire, spent shotgun shells, and the dreaded aluminum can pull tabs, but nothing that
seemed the least bit old. There was absolutely nothing that indicated the presence of Santa Anna and his soldados .
It took very little time, digging up trash in abundance, to convince us to go back to the drawing board. It occurred to us
that we knew next to nothing about the Mexican army and where they had traveled in Texas. All else having failed, we decided
it was necessary to educate ourselves. A quick perusal of the Texas history section at the Wharton County Junior College Library
produced two books. The first was José Enrique de la Peña’s With Santa Anna in Texas and the second was Vicente Filisola’s Memoirs for the History of the War in Texas. The two books revealed that both sources repeatedly referred to the Bernardo rivers. Somehow the Mexican army had become
stuck in the mud between what had to have been the San Bernard River and the West Bernard Creek.
Not knowing where to proceed from this point, I called up our region’s archeological steward, Joe Hudgins. When I informed
him that I thought we could find the remnants of the Mexican army somewhere between the Bernards, Joe responded in his typical
man-of-few-words manner: “That’s a lot of territory.” I am convinced to this day that the only reason we were able to locate
the path of the Mexican army is that we were actually crazy enough to believe that we could.
One would think that at this point a tremendous task faced us, and in reality it did. However, as it turns out, due to pure
dumb luck, we had no real problem finding the Mexican trail. One of the residents of East Bernard, whose children happened
to be my patients, had discovered a cannonball near her home nearly thirty years ago. We went to her home to examine and photograph
the cannonball. Had we known what we now know, we likely would have thanked her and left. As it turns out the cannonball was
much too large to have been left by the Mexican army. Luckily we were not aware of that fact and we excitedly began a survey
of her property. Even though we were unable to unearth any artifacts at that time we were now equipped with a good metal detector
with which we were slowly gaining proficiency. Our streak of good luck took another giant step forward when she informed us
of a recent find. About two weeks prior, her neighbors, from half a mile down the road, had discovered a cannonball while
they were digging a small pond on their property. She wondered if we might be interested in meeting them.
The property owners were more than happy to show off their new treasure, a heavily rusted iron ball that to my untrained
eye seemed to be a cannonball. We weighed, measured, and photographed the prize and arranged to return to do a site survey
on their property. Ed and I had not been at our work for more than half an hour when we found a twin cannonball. Soon other
items began to appear, a rusted iron lock for a trunk, several large musket balls and a brass side plate for an India Pattern
Brown Bess Musket. We actually knew what the musket piece was as Joe and the Houston Archeological Society had previously
excavated a Republic of Texas army post, Post West Bernard. This site had been a gun repair center and contained many pieces
of captured Mexican muskets.
Upon obtaining proof that this was indeed a Mexican army site we shut it down and contacted the Houston Archeological Society
to help us properly excavate this site. A mere two weeks after deciding that we might be able to find artifacts that the Mexican
army dropped in the mud 160 years earlier, we had done just that. Now if that does not qualify as dumb luck, what does?
One of my best early moves was to contact historians who knew far more about the subject than I. We needed experts to officially
identify the artifacts that we were discovering. As it turns out, we really did not know the full significance of the relics
we had unearthed.
Luckily I found a copy of Texian Iliad: A Military History of the Texas Revolution by Stephen L. Hardin. I noticed that Dr. Hardin was from Victoria, Texas, and since that is very near Wharton, I thought
I would call him up. He still laughs when he reminds me that I called him up and informed him that I thought that we had found
remnants of the Mexican army. I’m sure he thought I was a little crazy, but luckily he at least decided to give me a chance.
He brought "the" Mexican army expert, Kevin Young, to Wharton to identify our artifacts. I think we impressed him by having
table after table of Mexican army relics laid out in the St. Paul Lutheran Church educational building for his perusal. I
believe Kevin commented that we already had more Alamo period Mexican army artifacts than anyone he was aware of—including
the Alamo and San Jacinto! It was at that point that I knew we were on to something significant.
Kevin Young did me another huge favor when he told me that I needed to call a professor at North Carolina State University,
Doctor (not an MD but a real Doctor) James E. Crisp. I must admit that I was curious as to why I should call North Carolina
to learn about Mexican army history. It became immediately apparent when I first talked to Jim. He sent me places that I never
would have ventured. He warned me that I could not always trust the English translation of the original Spanish. I could not
have imagined it at the time but I now speak passable Spanish and consider myself a fair translator. He is the person who
most impressed upon me that to truly understand and explain the archeology I had to learn the history as well. Jim convinced
me that Joe, Terry, Ed, and I had stumbled upon one of those special, yet nearly forgotten, episodes in history.
—Gregg J. Dimmick
From the preface to Sea of Mud
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