At half past one in the afternoon, I overtook the enemy and succeeded in cutting off their retreat with our cavalry, just as they were going to enter a heavy woods from where it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to dislodge them. Gen. Jose de Urrea
The Battle of Coleto Creek oughtta be better remembered than it is today.
We were abundantly supplied with provisions, and arms and ammunition, and almost every man had his rifle and brace of pistols, and besides there were a number of good English muskets captured from the Mexicans, and we had five or six pieces of artillery. The men, for the most part, were altogether superior to the ordinary material of an army in intelligence and education. They were far from being a class of mercenaries, but were men of character and standing, and some of them of wealth, who had left their homes from sympathy for a people who had taken up arms for their liberty. Dr. Joseph Barnard.
We don't have many fights on our soil where a Mexican Army was deployed with dash and elan, but more than anything else I am not aware of a fight anywhere where a compact square of 250 men, standing three deep, was equipped with two and three muskets per man plus no less than nine field pieces.
Doesn't hurt either that those men were a sort of self-selected elite in that they were all young, fit and aggressive enough to voluntarily engage in this distant Texas war and because most all of them came from a culture where proficiency with firearms was a given.
The volume of fire they could project from that square, just twenty yards on a side, must have been horrendous. Collectively about the closest one could hope to get to the firepower of modern weaponry there at the very end of the flintlock era.
A volume of fire that wrought carnage upon their attackers and in that black powder era would soon obscure the battlefield in a dense fog of powder smoke.
...a large force of cavalry were seen emerging from the timber, about two miles distant, and to the West of us. About one half of this force (350 men) were detached and thrown in front of our right flank, with the intention of cutting us off from a skirt of timber, about one mile and a half in front.
Our artillery was ordered to open upon them and cover our rear. Several cannon were fired at them, but without effect. About this time, we discovered a large force of infantry emerging from the same skirt of woodland, at which their cavalry had first been seen.
Our guns were then ordered to be limbered; and we had purposed to reach the timber in front, but the enemy approached so rapidly, that Col. Fannin determined to make an immediate disposition for battle. Dr. Jack Shackelford
...about seven miles from Goliad we entered a prairie perhaps from three to five miles across and by the time that we got about one mile into the prairie the whole Western border of the prairie was lined with Mexicans, and by the time that we got half a mile further they broke in a cloud as it were ahead of us to the East. Abel Morgan
Seeing themselves forced to fight, they decided to make the best of it and awaited our advance with firmness, arranging their force in battle formation with the artillery in the center. Gen. Jose de Urrea
The bloodletting was about to begin.
Birdwatcher
