It is not often when reading military history that one finds a commander who did everything right so often as did Urrea. It becomes a pleasure to read, you find yourself admiring the guy's proficiency. Someone earlier mentioned Patton, I would also throw in the likes of NB Forrest, and perhaps a couple of the German panzer commanders in WWII.
Urrea had just scattered what he believed were 200 of the enemy but he knew a larger force, the main Texian army, occupied Goliad. From at least two captured messengers he had proof positive of Fannin's intention to fall back 25 miles east to Victoria, the largest town in the area. Victoria represented a naturally defensible point on the other side of the Guadalupe River, easily supplied and accessed from Lavaca Bay to the south. From Urrea's standpoint it was imperative to a) engage and defeat Fannin's force before they could reach Victoria and b) take Victoria itself before the town could be used as an assembly point from which to attack him.
In typical Urrea fashion, despite the inclemency of the weather he didn't sit and wait to marshal his army while awaiting reports, nor did he lie up in comfort with a pretty teenager like Santa Anna had. Instead, taking the most mobile elements of his army, just 200 men, he moved out and began closing the net on Fannin.
http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/goliadurrea.htmI was obliged to move with rapidity in order to save my division and destroy the forces that threatened us.....
[March] 17. Very early on this day I found myself on the right bank of the San Antonio [River]. I halted at San José Ranch from where I could keep a watch on Goliad. I sent scouts to... Victoria, situated nine leagues distant. I passed near Goliad and reconnoitered it from as close a point as possible.
After having again carefully reconnoitered this place and its vicinity, I returned to my camp with my force. I took all the precautions prescribed by the art of war and demanded by circumstances. I had plenty of warnings that made me fear the flight of the enemy, so I reinforced the advanced cavalry pickets which I had placed along the river to keep watch. Our troops were obliged to bivouac all night, exposed to a continuous rain and a strong north wind which made the cold unbearable. No rest was possible during the entire night....and finally, reinforcements arrived from San Antonio...
During the night Capt. Pedro Pablo Ferino and two scouts came to me. Under orders of Don Juan Antonio de los Santos, they had been on the road to Béxar watching for the force that was to join me from that point. Ferino told me that Col. Juan Morales was approaching with 3 cannon and 500 men from the battalions of Jiménez and San Luis.
I repeated the order previously given to this officer to take a position a league from Goliad, on the Manahuilla Creek, north of the fort. I broke up camp early in order to march to join the division that was coming from Béxar, which I did at the appointed place.While all this was happening, and while so many men hustled through the night braving the cold and rain, Fannin and his men resting under cover at Goliad had no clue of the doom being skillfully laid all around them.
Santa Anna would afterwards send Urrea to the bench while seeking to co-opt the glory for himself, and the decisive Battle of San Jacinto would have a fluke outcome that no one going into this campaign would have predicted. But if the war was lost, it wasn't because of Urrea.
Birdwatcher
