Two events in Texas history shine so brightly that they can be almost blinding: the stand at the Alamo and the redemption at San Jacinto, where General Sam Houston’s volunteers won the decisive battle of the Texas Revolution. But these milestones came amid a less obviously heroic episode now studiously forgotten-the refugee crisis known as the Runaway Scrape.

Propulsive, lyrical, and richly illustrated, Texian Exodus transports us to the frigid, sodden spring of 1836, when thousands of Texians-Anglo-American settlers-fled eastward for the United States in fear of Antonio LÓpez de Santa Anna’s advancing Mexican army. Leading Texas historian Stephen L. Hardin draws on the accounts of the Runaways themselves to relate a tale of high stakes and great sorrow. While Houston tried to build a force that could defeat Santa Anna, the evacuees suffered incalculable pain and suffering. Yet dignity and community were not among the losses. If many of the stories are indeed tragic, the experience as a whole was no tragedy; survivors regarded the Runaway Scrape as their finest hour, an ordeal met with cooperation and courage. For Hardin, such qualities still define the Texas character. That it was forged in retreat as well as in battle makes the Runaway Scrape essential Texas history.