Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire After the Fall of the Alamo

One thing Fannin's command did was just flat puzzling.

When they were expecting to stay and defend they put in an enormous amount of labor, including that 100 yard armored causeway to water, and as it turns out slaughtering and jerking the meat of EIGHT HUNDRED cattle (which shows how abundant cattle really were).

When the decision was made to leave, it is understandable that all the food and supplies they couldn't carry went up in smoke, including all that beef, and that they torched the town before leaving.

Puzzling thing is they had simply buried the cannon they could take with 'em, and then dug 'em up and mounted them again when De la Garza's vaqueros showed up in force on the 18th....

http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/goliadframe.htm

On the morning after Ward left Goliad for the Mission, to relieve King, Col. Fannin received Gen. Houston's order to evacuate Goliad and fall back on Victoria. He took immediate steps in making preparation to obey this order, by dismounting several guns and burying them, sending out one or two parties of men, accompanied by officers, to procure teams and carts, and making other arrangements for in immediate retreat.....

....On the 16th of March, Colonel Albert C. Horton, of Matagorda, with twenty-seven men under his command, arrived at Goliad, bringing with them some oxen, to enable us to take off our stores and munitions. A fourth messenger was despatched to Col. Ward, urging his immediate return, while we were busied in making preparation for a retreat. On the 17th, Horton was ordered to examine the country towards San Antonio, and keep scouts in every direction. On his return, Horton reported a large, force, a few miles from the fort, moving on slowly and in good order. We immediately dug up our cannon, which had been buried, and re-mounted them, expecting an attack that night, or early the next morning. Jack Shackelford.

How they expected merely burying the cannon would render them unavailable to the Mexicans I dunno, maybe they thought they could hide the excavations.

But, on the morning of the 19th the men were issued three days of rations, everything was torched, the cannon left behind were properly spiked this time, and priority was given to hauling out the ammunition, those 600 muskets, and whatever cannon they could bring.

All the artillery with the exception of two long four-pounders, a regular mortar and a small mortar were spiked and left behind as we left the ruins a eight o'clock.

Nowhere was there a trace of the enemy whose spies for several days had revealed themselves westward toward San Antonio. The number and size of the provisions and ammunition wagons that we took with us were too large and the power to move them was too small so that before we had gone half the way was strewn with objects of all kinds and here and there a wagon that was left standing or knocked to pieces. The rest of the baggage remained standing a mile from Goliad on the romantic banks of the San Antonio, or was dropped in haste into the clear water to the river. Chests filled with musket provisions or the belongings of the soldiers disappeared in the waves.

All the horses and oxen were used to transport the above named artillery, two wagons and the powder magazine. In this way we went slowly forward without even getting to see an enemy. Herman Ehrenberg.

Ehrenberg in his lucid account thus gives us a train of four artillery pieces (another account claims nine) and just three carts or wagons (one loaded with gunpowder) surviving the initial crossing of the adjacent San Antonio River.

But, even that small train was having problems. The oxen were by nature intractable, and had been mishandled and left unfed in the confusion of the days prior. One of them critical details along the lines of how amateurs talk strategy whereas professionals talk logistics.

At an early hour the next day we were under marching orders. Our cannon, baggage and sick, were drawn by Mexican oxen, in Mexican carts. Not being well broke, nor understanding the language and manners of English drivers, many of them as they issued from the fort, ran furiously into the prairie, and were unmanageable. Others would go no way but backwards...

The need to rest and feed these same oxen would be the specific cause of Fannin's fatal pause a couple of hours later.

As to what a cart and oxen may have looked like, here a couple of probably larger and better fed examples on the San Jacinto battle reenactment a few years back...





..the cart is likely smaller than was usual, here's an illustration from maybe fifteen years later by a German living in San Antonio German....



Gentilz was a good and accurate artist, he always portrays his Tejanos in taller and narrower-brimmed straw hats than we would expect today.

Meanwhile, at Goliad, it must be said that Horton's cavalry in this case were sadly deficient, maybe a case of people totally new to the area vs. mounted locals on the other side who were skilled at eluding detection. We know that at the very least there was a force of 500 Mexican army camped just three miles to the north, and maybe a couple of hundred vaqueros swarming around, likewise Urrea states that very morning he had been setting artillery in place to fire upon the fort, yet by accounts Horton consistently reported the way was clear.

On the morning of the 19th, we commenced the retreat very early, the Red Rovers leading the van, and Duval's company covering the road. The lower road had been well examined by Horton's videttes, who reported all clear. At the lower ford of the San Antonio, much time was consumed in consequence of the inability of the team to draw our cannon up the bank. I waded into the river myself, with several of my company, assisting the artillerists by putting our shoulders to the wheels, and forcing the guns forward. We then moved on briskly and in good order, Horton's scouts examining the country in front and rear. We had advanced about six miles, when our scouts came in with a report that the route was still clear. Jack Shackleford

Birdwatcher