It is a cold morning in early March.  The delegates are trying to stay warm and sleep in anything that offers shelter in this new town at the ferry crossing on the Brazos.  It is named Washington after the capital of their mother country.  All that is available for the Convention to meet in is an unfinished schoolhouse.  No glass for the windows, only fabric.  A letter arrives from Travis, who is defending the old abandoned mission known as the Alamo.  In the letter, he pleads for help, reinforcements to add to his 186 men, facing an army of over 5000.  Many of the delegates want to cut and run for San Antonio to aid Travis.  Houston stands tall and with reason tells the delegates they must first form a government, laws to live and fight by.  The Convention stays and finishes the Declaration of Independence, to be signed on March 2, 1836, all the delegates sign the document, including General Houston.  Houston and a small force begin the march to the Alamo, arriving at Gonzales (30 miles east of San Antonio) too late to help Travis, Bowie, and Crockett.  Houston meets the surviving women and children from the Alamo.  They have a message for him, the message is that he too will meet the same fate, death to the Texans.  Thus begins Houston's retreat to the east, "The Runaway Scrape".  Houston retreating from the huge Mexican army, keeping a river in between the armies.  On April 21, at a place known as San Jacinto, General Houston finds what he is looking for, a mistake made by Santa Anna.  General Santa Anna has split his forces and he is leading a smaller force. The armies meet and Texas is victorious.