Memorial Day Programming: Texas Rising!

The History Channel is reaching deeper into history in its broadcast of Texas Rising. We are accustomed to the Memorial Day holiday reminding us of recent wars, but this 10-hour tale goes back to the 1830s and tells a story about the creation of these United States.  Here is the blurb from the History Channel:

In 1836, west of the Mississippi was considered the Wild West and the Texas frontier was viewed as hell on earth. Crushed from the outside by Mexican armadas and attacked from within by ferocious Comanche tribes—no one was safe. But this was a time of bravery, a time to die for what you believed in and a time to stand tall against the cruel rule of the Mexican General Santa Anna (Martinez). The heroic General Sam Houston (Paxton), the rag tag Rangers and the legendary “Yellow Rose of Texas” lead this story of the human will to win against insurmountable odds. At the end, the Texas flags stood tall and victorious, claiming a piece of history for all eternity.

The good thing is that this program was created by the same team responsible for the Hatfields & McCoys, and even stars Bill Paxton who did an excellent job portraying Randall McCoy.  I just hope this tries to examine the actual history of the period rather than simply being a high-level, misleading summary of events as we saw with Sons of Liberty.  Of course, anything to do with Texas is expected to be oversized and exaggerated, but let's hope the History Channel at least tries to provide some useful (and true) history.