Col. Henry Wax Karnes Memorial - San Antonio, TX, USA - Specific Veteran Memorials on Waymarking.com

Henry Wax Karnes was born in Tennessee in 1812 but moved with his family to Arkansas where he grew up (1). In 1835 he moved by himself to Texas at the beginning of the Texas revolution against Mexico to gain independence as a republic. Karnes was 23 when he enlisted as a private in Capt. John York's company. Karnes fought bravely in the battle of Concepcion and the Siege of Bexar. Karnes was one of three soldiers sent from Gonzales on a mission to discover the status of those at the Alamo. They discovered the Alamo defeated and found the few survivors, including Susanna Dickinson (1,2). Karnes carried word of the Alamo's fall back to Gen. Sam Houston's army. Sam Houston continued to use Karnes as a scout and spy to reconnoiter the Mexican troop movements. Before the Battle of San Jacinto, Karnes had been promoted (elected) as captain of an infantry company and was executive officer (second in command) of Lamar's calvary corps. After the route at San Jacinto, it was Karne's calvary who pursued the fugitive Mexican army soldiers. Due to his heroics leading up to and during the San Jacinto battle, Karnes was promoted to colonel of the calvary. Henry Karnes was assigned to go to Matamoros to exchange some prisoners, but was arrested himself. After escaping, he was authorized to form several Texas Ranger units as a frountier defense (their form of Homeland Security!). During a fight with Comanche indians near Arroyo Seco in 1839, Karnes was wounded by an arrow. His wound never healed quite right. Unrelated to the arrow wound, Karnes died in San Antonio when he contracted Yellow Fever. He had recently accepted command of the Texan Santa Fe expedition but died before it could form up and move out. There is also a Texas county named Karnes and Karnes City is the county seat(1,2). Originally, Col. Henry Wax Karnes "was buried outside of Old Campos Cemetery as he was Protestant and only Catholics were allowed to be buried there. The cemetery was later moved and Santa Rosa Hospital was built in its place across from Milam Park. A monument to Karnes was erected in 1932 in Milam Park as this was the closest to his grave that the city knew of(2)" Karnes was just shy of being 28 years old when he died in San Antonio. This monolithic memorial to Karnes is located in the northwest corner of Milam Park, near the intersection of W. Houston Street and N. San Saba Street. It is a metal plaque mounted on a rectangular red granite stone about 3 feet high. Source references: (1) (visit link) , (2) (visit link)

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Date Logged Log User Rating   10/22/2010 WayBetterFinder visited it