The Old Bastrop Highway in this part of Hays Count is the modern successor that follows the path of El Camino Real, the famous Spanish Royal Road. This sign tells what happened after the battle of Medina and the destruction and massacre of the settlers at Trinidad (in Madison County), who were murdered by Elizondo and his troops as a warning to other republican sympathizers who might be creeping around Texas dreaming of revolution and freedm from Spanish rule.
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The sign reads as follows:
"COL. IGNACIO ELIZONDO’S 1813 CAMPAIGN
In 1813 royalist Lieutenant Colonel Ignacio Elizondo led 500 cavalrymen in pursuit of retreating Mexican and Anglo-American insurrectionists along this road.
A hacienda owner in Coahuila, Elizondo initially joined Father Miguel Hidalgo’s rebellion against Spanish authority, but soon switched to the royalists. In 1811 he helped lead Hidalgo and other Republicans into an ambush near Monclova.
In June 1813 Elizondo brought 300 additional royalist soldiers into Texas to oppose the republicans of the Gutierrez-Magee Expedition. Hoisting their green flag of rebellion, a combined force of Mexican patriots and US adventurers had routed royalist units and declared Texas an independent republic.
On June 20, 1813 Elizondo prepared to attack the insurgents on the western edge of San Antonio de Bexar. They surprised him instead of the battle of Azalan, and drove him back to the Rio Grande. Returning later that summer as one of royalist General Joaquin de Arredondo’s line officers, Elizondo fought at the battle of Medina where, on August 18, 1813, royalists won the largest battle in North America prior to the Civil War.
Occupying Bexar, Arredondo dispatched Elizondo to chase the survivors to the Louisiana border. He captured more than 100 and executed 71. During the return march, and insane royalist officer fatally wounded Elizondo as he relaxed in his tent. He lingered for days, but died near the San Marcos River crossing of El Camino Real. He was buried somewhere nearby."
The El Camino Real de los Tejas has been designated a National Historic Trail through the states of Texas and New Mexico. (
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"From the Rio Grande to the Red River Valley
Come on a journey that will carry you through 300 years of Louisiana and Texas frontier settlement and development on a Spanish colonial "royal road" that originally extended to Mexico City, Mexico.
You are about to travel 2,500 miles, from Mission San Juan Bautista Guerrero, Mexico to Fort St. Jean Baptiste Nachitoches Parish, Louisiana."