TEXANA From Goliad to Glory

General Ignacio Zaragoza stands 10 feet tall in Goliad. His bronze countenance permanently cast, Zaragoza gazes southward from the Texas landscape of his birth, toward Mexico, the distant land of his military triumph and early demise. There, at the Battle of Puebla, he led Mexican soldados in an upset defeat of a larger, more accomplished French force on May 5, 1862. The historic event is widely celebrated in the United States today as the holiday Cinco de Mayo.

The Zaragoza Birthplace State Historic Site, located adjacent to Presidio La Bahía, recounts his life and times. Though he lived in Texas for only the first five years of his childhood, Zaragoza’s story reflects the turbulence of the Texas frontier—a revolutionary era marked by shifting borders and changing