You don't suppose the several day siege at Alamo and subsiquent losses had anything to do with the delay?
That, and waiting for the supply trains to catch up, they were coming in from several hundred miles away. But the indications are too that Santa Anna was vastly overconfident. None of his generals seemed to have shared that attitude, but then as far as I know none of them had been in Texas for the way one-sided wins of 1813 with Arredondo like Santa Anna had been. Witnessing the defeat and slaugter of many hundreds of Americans with but light losses on his own side likely skewed his outlook on things. The bloody cost of taking the Alamo doesn't seem to have phased him any.
At this point I was gonna go into the various US militia units that ended up at Goliad under Fannin but that's gonna take a bit of prep. Turns out Copano Bay (adjacent to present-day Rockport) was a major port of entry at that time and most of these militia units arrived from New Orleans by ships. Goliad, sixty miles inland, was the nearest major fortified post, so its natural that many American volunteers ended up there in the path of Urrea's expedition.
Meanwhile, there's a legendary figure in Texas history; Francita Alavez, the Angel of Goliad, a young and attractive Mexican woman, nineteen or twenty at the time, and the mistress of a Mexican officer serving with Urrea. The best known story is of her intervening to save the lives of several men from the slaughter at Goliad.
Turns out she first appears in that light three weeks earlier after Agua Dulce, where Reuben Brown credited her with saving him from Execution.
http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/goliadframe.htm"Urrea * said that I would have to be executed according to Santa Anna's orders... was... taken out to be shot, but was spared through the intervention of a priest, and a Mexican lady named Alvarez.... I was then marched with other prisoners to Matamoros."On that horrible day at Goliad, after she had already intervened to save the lives of many....
"During the time of the massacre she stood in the street, her hair floating, speaking wildly, and abusing the Mexican officers, especially Portilla. She appeared almost frantic.".... Among those at Goliad who were saved by her intervention was Benjamin Franklin Hughes, Captain Horton's young orderly, then a lad of fifteen years. [He was born in Jefferson County, Kentucky, September 8, 1820] Hughes, in his old age, wrote an account of his experiences which is preserved among the Philip C. Tucker Papers in the Library of the University of Texas.Urrea by that time had moved further east to Victoria, pursuing his campaign. After the slaughter Francita's consort, one Captain Telesforo Alavéz, followed him there bringing Francita with him....
"She afterward showed much attention and kindness to the surviving prisoners [at Goliad], frequently sending messages and supplies of provisions to them from Victoria."One of those who successfully fled the Goliad Massacre was Issac Hamilton. Wounded grievously in both legs, he was reluctantly abandoned to his fate by three fellow escapees, but somehow recovered enough to make it to Victoria, only to be recaptured by Mexican troops and sentenced to be shot. Enter the Angel of Goliad again....
"From this place I was hauled on a cart some fifteen miles, when I was put upon a poor horse . . . until we arrived at Victoria. At this place I was courtmartialed and order to be shot, which fate I escaped by the intercession of two Mexican Ladies."And of Miller's captive Tennesseans at Copano Bay (more about them later.....)
When she arrived at Copano with her husband, who was one of Urrea's officers, Miller and his men had just been taken prisoners; they were tightly bound with cord so as to completely check the circulation of blood in their arms, and in this state (way) had been left several hours when she saw them.
Her heart was touched at the sight, and she immediately caused the cords to be removed, and refreshments to be given them. She treated them with great kindness, and when on the morning of the massacre, she learned that the prisoners were to be shot, she so effectually pleaded with Col. Garey (sic) (whose humane feelings revolted at the barbarous order) that, with great personal responsibility to himself and at great hazard at (in) thus going counter to the orders of the then all-powerful Santa Anna, he resolved to save all that he could; and a few of us in consequence, were left to tell of that bloody day. Most of those who escaped execution were eventually imprisoned in Matamoras, Sna. Alavez again....
After her return to Matamoros, she was unwearied in her attention to the unfortunate Americans confined there. She went on to the City of Mexico with her husband (who there abandoned her.) She returned to Matamoros without any funds for her support; but she found many warm friends among those who had heard of and witnessed her extraordinary exertion in relieving the Texas (Texan) prisoners. Who she really was and where she came from are mysteries, somewhere in the interior of Mexico apparently. But in contrast to the hot seventeen year-old Santa Anna was at that time bedding in San Antonio, whoever she was Francita Alavez also spoke English.
What happened after that is not known for sure, she disappears from mainstream history.
I prefer the King Ranch version although said ranch would not appear until 1853, seventeen years later. In this version Francita and her children became Kinenos; part of the that community of vaqueros living and working on the King Ranch where their descendants still live today. And I prefer to think that Richard King knew who she was, and treated her accordingly.
"she died on the King Ranch and is buried there in an unmarked grave .... Old Captain King and Mrs. King knew and respected her identity." All told, Francita may have saved the lives of as many as eighty men, and to be able to pull off what she did, she was likely pretty hot herself.
There's a modest monument to her memory, a statue put up in more recent times, outside the mission at Goliad.
http://porterbriggs.com/the-angel-of-goliad/Bidrwatcher
