"Come and take it": The Canon of the Battle of Gonzales

Otherwise called: Rich Lowry must still be brain-fogged from thinking Sarah Palin is winking at him.

In.a Politico column about Trump vs the field in the 2024 GOP presidential run, Lowry penned a doozy:

I could have put a "(sic)" in the header, but, that might have spoiled things.

There’s been a lot of buzz about DeSantis, understandably, who’s done all the right things to establish a national brand, win credibility with populists, and cultivate big donors. But there should be no mistake regarding Trump’s leadership of the party, he can set up like the Texans defending their canon at the Battle of Gonzales and defy his adversaries to “come and take it.”

As I said on Twitter:

Rich Lowry not knowing or misspelling the difference between "Canon" and "Cannon" is funny! Were Texians at Gonzales defending the Protestant Old Testament against Catholics with Apocrypha, daring them to "come and take it"? .@RichLowry .@cltomlinson https://t.co/lAoowsQ1Xi

— TheRealSocraticGadfly (@real_gadfly) March 2, 2023

Or, this might have been the case:

Possibility B., under Rich's spelling, is that the Battle of Gonzales was fought over cameras. Texians were determined to resist Nikon-wielding Mexican troops trying to take their Canon 5Ds.

— TheRealSocraticGadfly (@real_gadfly) March 2, 2023

Oy, in either case.

We could go other angles, like the canon of "dead white males," per Allan Bloom and "The Closing of the American Mind." We don't need no steenking Hispanic books! 

Or we could go Pachebel! Can't you play SOMETHING for late night classical music besides the Canon in D? "You'll pry this canon out of my cold, dead earbuds"? That's not to mention Pachebal having a bad rap in the canon of dead white composers.

Or Bach, with the Endlessly Rising Canon being how you "walk in" yardage on a canon's range?

And, of course, there are lesser, but more serious, errors beyond that goof.

First, it's TexIans, not Texans, as I noted in the first Tweet, showing Lowry knows little about the actualities of Texas history, which is why I tagged Chris Tomlinson. 

Start with Wikipedia on the Battle of Gonzales. Then, re legend vs facts?

Related to that? The Twin Sisters? Especially if they were only 4-pounder, not 6-pounder, they were pop guns. And, just about everything about them is disputed, so that Texas legend photo is probably not right.

A 4-pounder bronze would have been about 75mm in caliber. But, its range? With solid shot? A Civil War 6-pounder shot a little under a mile. A 4-pounder, if the Twin Sisters were this, even with the best of black power, would have been no more than 1,500 yards. With crappy powder, likely the real situation? 1,200 yards max, if that.

The reason they helped win San Jacinto was that some artillery was better than nothing, especially after Mexican artillery had been neutralized. (Mexican conscripts probably wouldn't have fired well, anyway.) But, in an open field, with trained troops, especially if they marched in double time between rounds? Even with canister or grape, just two of them would have been of minimal effectiveness.