Manuel Fernández Castrillón is believed to have been born in Havana, Cuba although his date of birth and the exact details of his ancestry, marital status, descendants (if any) are currently unknown. He served the Mexican Army under Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna for many years, at least since around 1820. He is remembered as having been a loyal soldier and combatant on behalf of the Mexican Army during the Texas Revolution. Castrillón is also mentioned as having recommended clemency on behalf of prisoners of the Mexican Army, specifically after the battles of the Alamo and Goliad. In both cases, Castrillón was overruled by Santa Anna and the prisoners were executed.
At the Alamo: Before the final siege began, Santa Anna directed Castrillón to gather timber and construct a makeshift bridge from the houses across the river to the side of the river on which the Alamo sat. However, the Mexican troops were within rifle range of the Texans. A newspaper account on March 12, 1889 in the Galveston Daily News reported that some thirty of the Mexicans were slain within a few minutes of their setting up. Castrillón requested that he be allowed to withdraw and his request was approved by Santa Anna. The Mexican forces already numbered in the thousands before even more reinforcements arrived, greatly outnumbering the Alamo defenders.
Santa Anna began the battle ordered Castrillón to have his men begin scaling the walls of the Alamo by climbing ladders leaned against the fortress. Castrillón complied and many Mexican soldiers were killed in this initial assault. A Mexican sergeant named Bacera (sometimes spelled Bacerra) referenced Castrillón as he described the early hours of the battle. Bacera said that despite the loss of life in this effort, the troops under Castrillón succeeded in making a “lodgment” or position in the upper part of the fortress to the northeast, giving them a foothold at the Alamo. Bacera added that had it not been for this early achievement, entry to the Alamo would have been more difficult, since the doors and windows were backed on the inside with sandbags stacked as tall as a man.
The combatants fought hand to hand and Mexican forces were finally able to breach the doors of the Alamo. From that point, the Mexican Army had the upper hand, going from room to room. The Texans would fight until they could no longer defend a room and would withdraw to the next location until it too was lost. Bacera described capturing an artillery piece, loading it and firing it into a long room which turned out to be a hospital. After firing the cannon, they entered to find fifteen defenders dead and counted forty Mexican soldiers’ bodies outside. The battle went on until after dark. Santa Anna ordered his soldiers to gather wood which was to be used for a fire to burn the corpses of the defenders. Mexican Army dead littered the area around the Alamo grounds. Bacera lamented that it was what he described as a melancholy sight. Bacera’s quotes concluded, “The victory of the Alamo was dearly bought. Indeed, the price in the end was well nigh the ruin of Mexico.”
At San Jacinto: This day was to quickly unfold in favor of the Texans. The two contingents had camped within a mile of each other after limited skirmishes in the days before. On the afternoon of April 21, 1836 the Texas assault began and within eighteen minutes, it was over. Around 630 Mexican soldiers killed and about 730 taken prisoner against about nine Texas fatalities and thirty wounded. Santa Anna was not captured until the following day.
Among the dead was Castrillón. By the time the Battle of San Jacinto arrived, certain members of the Texas Army were aware of who he was, his humane behavior and his reputation as a soldier. To others, none of that mattered. He was just another enemy combatant. On that fateful day, the San Jacinto battle quickly played out in favor of the Texas Army. Seeing the early success of the Texans, Castrillón is said to have made his way to a Mexican field piece after the artillerymen had been killed or wounded. There he tried to rally the Mexican troops before he was killed. In the short biography of Castrillón on the website of the San Jacinto Museum, some of his last words are quoted by Walter Paye Lane as having spoken in Spanish, “I have been in forty battles and never showed my back; I am too old to do it now.” There are also accounts that Secretary of War under Sam Houston, T. J. Rusk, had unsuccessfully attempted to spare Castrillón’s life, but that Castrillón was mortally wounded in the battle. Despite his efforts, some sources say that Santa Anna placed blame on Castrillón for the Mexican defeat. Out of respect for Castrillón, Lorenzo de Zavala is said to have found his body and directed the removal of Castrillón’s remains to a burial ground on his estate two or three miles away.
Castrillón’s original burial ground was on de Zavala Point, across the Ship Channel from the battleground. However, this location was found to be subject to erosion and a desire to widen the Ship Channel. A ceremony was set up in 1925 to exhume some of the remains including those of Lorenzo de Zavala (who died later in the year 1836) and those of Manuel Castrillón and relocate them across the channel to the San Jacinto battleground. The 1925 ceremony was halted after a descendant of de Zavala, Mrs. Caleb Joshua Higginbotham, called into question the identification of some of the remains (Galveston Daily News, April 22, 1925). The question was later resolved and the remains were relocated. The current location of the de Zavala Cemetery is on the south side of the Ship Channel, a few hundred feet from the San Jacinto Monument.
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