Downstream from the Mexican army, Sam Houston, outnumbered by a mere 400 to 500 men instead of thousands, drew up a plan voted on by his officers. During the Mexican army’s daily siesta on the afternoon of April 21, he ran his Texas army over a small rise in double column formation, at right angles to the Mexican camp. As ordered, the Texans held their fire until they were filed along the camp, flank to flank.

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Frustrated by the long retreat, outraged by the massacres at Goliad and the Alamo, anguished by seeing their families torn from their homes, the Texans fired, then charged, yelling, ‘Remember the Alamo!’ ‘Remember Goliad!’ Eighteen minutes later, the Mexicans, caught napping and with no sentries posted, surrendered. The battlefield at San Jacinto was littered with bodies; only two wre Texans. The next day, Santa Anna was captured while trying to escape in a common soldier’s uniform.

Yellow Stone, with Captian Ross and crew, was ordered to Galveston to pick up President Burnet and his cabinet and take them to view the site of the San Jacinto victory. Now a floating capital, she steamed back to Velasco on May 3, with the Republic of Texas’ president and cabinet and their printing press on board. Also aboard were General Houston, injured in battle; General Santa Anna, also injured; and some 80 Mexican prisoners. The river steamer hosted the peace treaty signing of the Republic of Texas and the government of Mexico.

‘Captian Ross and his crew enabled me to save Texas,’ Houston said. The stemer’s master reportedly presented Houston woth the ship’s bell.

Santa Anna remained a prisoner on the Orozimbo Plantation, before being returned to the United States, and then to Mexico. Sam Houston stood for election as president of Texas and defeated the ‘Father of Texas,’ Stephen F. Austin, first colonizer from the United States in the former Mexican province. On December 27, 1836, a dispirited Austin died of pneumonia at Bell’s Landing, now West Columbia. After he lay in state for two days, Ross and Yellow Stone carried his body and mourners back to his beloved Peach Creek Plantation below San Felipe. This was the last official duty that Yellow Stone, Ross and crew performed for the fledgling republic and its heroes.

In the months that followed, the town of Houston won the vote to replace burned out Harrisburg as the nation’s capital, and Yellow Stone changed captians. James V. West, who had been the ships clerk, owner’s representative and agent under Ross, piloted Yellow Stone into the lucrative Buffalo Bayou trade. The bayou coursed up through Galveston Bay from the Gulf. Even with its small turning basin, the new capital became the favored shipping port for the Republic of Texas.

Captain Ross returned to his old ship, Cayuga, renamed Branch T. Archer in 1837. He was associated with its ownwers, the John Huffman Company of Houston, until he died in Harris county in 1848. A tattered partial receipt for goods delivered to Galveston in May 1837 is the last evidence of Yellow Stone. It is not certain what brought about Yellow Stone’s end. Possibly she was’snagged and sunk’ by submerged trees on the Bayou, a frequent epithet, or her hull had crunched on the oyster shells of Red Fish Bar, or she was destroyed by the hurricane of October 10, 1837. All that remains is her bell, presented to Houston by Captain Ross. It can be seen today in the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Museum at the Alamo in San Antonio.

Long after Texas joined the United States, Sam Houston continued to argue with only limited success for payments he had promised people while leading the army of Texas. Among his petitions were those for Captain Ross’ widow, Charlotte Stockbridge Ross.

In an odd twist of events, a woman whom Houston had helped out during the Texas Revolution fared better than Mrs. Ross. He met the woman on the banks of her flooded Brazos one afternoon. Her husband had been killed at the Alamo, the flood waters had carried off all her livestock and goods, and nothing remained for herself and her children. Houston, carrying $200 of his own money for emergency supplies for his troops, gave her $50. In later years, she wrote thanking him. She had stayed, not run, and used the money to purchase more livestock and seeds; she and her children prospered.

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