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

Turns out England had produced more than 1.6 million Brown Bess muskets between 1804 and 1815 for the Napoleonic Wars, so it no wonder that they showed up all over the world in the following decades. I dunno that it was Santa Anna per se who purchased the weapons used on the Texas campaign or a prior regime.

Black powder of course seems a more fragile commodity than guns, I have no idea as to global powder production in those years. Black powder was ground in mills.

The Spanish word for "mill" is "molino", one of the bloodiest battles in the Mexican War would be fought over the Molino del Rey (King's Mill) armaments production complex outside of Mexico City. Part of this blew up in a massive explosion at the close of the fight.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Molino_del_Rey

Working in a powder mill at any time in the candle and lantern era had to be a risky proposition but even then-remote San Antonio may have been making at least some of its own powder. A tall powder mill famously stood on a hill (Powder House Hill) in an open area some distance east of town overlooking the Alamo and turns up in the background of a number of period paintings, I do not know much about it but it had to have been of Spanish/Mexican origin.

Long way of saying that I believe the Mexicans were using home grown powder but in the absence of production figures I dunno.

Birdwatcher

One of the confusing things about the Second Texas War of Independence is trying to keep track of the militia companies from the 'States.

Local guard and militia companies were popular social organizations back in the United States in that era and a number were raised, primarily in the South, to go fight in Texas. Although originally local in origin, membership in these militias was fluid and it was common for additional recruits from other states to be incorporated en-route. Likewise, once in Texas, individual members or whole platoons might switch to becoming part of another militia. Even so, for the most part these men expected to elect and serve under their own officers. The significance of all of this is that these organizations could hugely complicate the chain of command for guys like Fannin.

One thing the presence of these militias illustrates too is that the Second Texas War of Independence was largely a privately-funded venture, these militia companies initially being armed, dressed and equipped by wealthy individuals or consortiums of the same. The motive of these financial backers was to make a risky but potentially lucrative investment, the motives of the actual volunteers were a mixture of adventure, idealism, simple employment, and for the prospect of generous land grants if victorious.

Two of the militias; the Alabama Red Rovers and the Georgia Battalion of Permanent Volunteers, were also supplied by their home state arsenals. Uniforms varies from the US Army-like attire (complete with dress version) of the New Orleans Greys through the red but otherwise civilian-looking attire of the Alabama Red Rovers to outfits like the Kentucky Mustangs for whom no uniform is recorded at all (members of all four of these militias would be present at Goliad).

Once in Texas, supplies from their financial backers could become sporadic or non-existent and most of these militias were reduced to being "nearly naked and in rags" within a few months of arrival.

The best-remembered of these militia companies today is the New Orleans Greys, remembered because several died at the Alamo and because their now-famous banner taken from there was triumphantly siezed by Santa Anna and sent to Mexico City as proof that he was indeed fighting pirates ie. non-citizens looking to take over Texas.



The New Orleans Greys (to distinguish them from the Mobile Greys, the and the San Antonio Greys, likewise present at Goliad) were financed by a wealthy German Jewish immigrant to American and Texas, one Adolphus Stern. Two companies were formed amid pomp, ceremony and celebration in New Orleans in October of 1835.

One company (54 volunters issued with Springfield Muskets) traveled by steamboat upriver to Arkansas and entered Texas by an overland route, their famous banner being given to them by the ladies of a Texian community en-route. The other company, 68 volunteers issued with rifles and accompanied by a now-famous 18 pounder cannon, took ship for the Texas Coast. The eventual fates of just 51 of these 122 men are known.

Both companies converged on San Antonio in time to take part in the December battle wherein the Centralist force under General Cos was driven inside the Alamo, besieged, and finally allowed to return to Mexico proper.

In January the company split, most of both companies joining the Matamoras Expedition of Johnson and Grant. At least 23 remained behind at the Alamo with the iconic banner and would die there. Possibly all of those who traveled south to Goliad with Grant and Johnson quit the expedition at Houston's urging at Goliad, 21 of these men later died in the Goliad Massacre.

As many as 50 of the New Orleans Greys had left Goliad before that final battle and massacre to join the volunteers staging at Gonzales in order to relieve the Alamo defenders, but arrived too late and so escaped death at both locales. At least seven of these men, still in their signature uniforms, are known to have fought at San Jacinto.

Birdwatcher

One of the most famous icons of the Alamo is the eighteen-pounder cannon, mounted at the south west corner of the compound facing towards what was then the town. This was the cannon used by Travis at the start of the siege to defy calls to negotiate or surrender.

John Wayne did a pretty good job of depicting it in his 1960 version...



...except that the wooden mock-up he used wasn't nearly big enough. The real one, as depicted by fiberglass-with-steel-barrel-liner replica in the 2004 Billy-Bob Thornton version, was awesome....





(Tho I cannot find a good image without people in it).

The Alamo cannon arrived at the coast at Veslaco (due South of present-day Houston) with that company of the New Orleans Greys but had been left there when it was discovered no ammunition had been sent. Leaving it there was probably an easy decision as it was enormously heavy.

For point of reference, a brass 12-pounder Napoleon, pretty much the standard Civil War field ordinance, weighed 1,200 pounds and that was just the tube. Cannon, carriage, limber (two-wheeled carriage that pulled the cannon) and ammunition in said limber collectively weighed about 4,000 lbs.

The Alamo cannon was made of iron. I cannot find the point of origin but most likely it had been a naval cannon, if so just the tube alone weighed in excess of 4,000 lbs.

Prob'ly much naivete at the time thinking such a massive piece of ordnance belonged in an isolated stone-and-adobe mission not physically defending anything in particular.

Twenty New Orleans Greys were detached to go back and get the cannon from Veslaco and haul it 200 miles to the Alamo, said crew growing to 75 participants en-route.

I can find nothing describing this epic task, nor anything about how many of those 75 men stayed on to defend the Alamo. I do think that it must have been a considerable relief to those 75 men when the Alamo came finally into sight from the higher ground to the east wherein the road from that direction entered the town.

What happened to this cannon is a mystery. When the Mexican army withdrew from San Antonio after San Jacinto they spiked and knocked the trunions (mounting points) off of those cannon among the 19 active Alamo cannon they left behind to render them useless. These were left on the ground or rolled into the ditches. No word on whether the 18 pounder met that fate although it seems a certainty.

For 47 years beginning in 1870 what was almost certainly this cannon was on display at San Pedro Springs Park about three miles from the Alamo, that park in that era being a prominent social and entertainment center. That cannon was removed in 1917, nobody knows where it went, possibly it was melted down as scrap.

Birdwatcher

Thanks for this

That cannon was removed in 1917, nobody knows where it went, possibly it was melted down as scrap.

What I'd always heard too! Remember that 1917 was the beginning of scrap metal drives for the War to end all wars here in the states!

Someone needed their ass kicked for that.

You are welcome Sir, and writing this helps me get this convoluted series of events somewhat in context. One thing becomes apparent; we all remember the Alamo, for good reason, but perhaps most of the attention back then leading up to that siege was focused upon the fortified mission at Goliad, where most of the Texian army, such as it was, was quartered.

If San Antonio was, geographically speaking, way out in left field, Goliad at least sat on the road between the important harbor of Copano Bay and the interior and the intersecting shortest overland route between Mexico and the East Texas settlements. Indeed, from survivors' accounts, it was those very strategic considerations which influenced the men at Goliad to fatally delay as long as they did.

Things moved fast in this Second Texas War of Independence, such that while at the end of 1835 the Federalists, those who wanted to remain part of Mexico, dominated the political discussion and ran the provisional government at San Felipe, by February of '36 that provisional government had collapsed and the war had become a war of independence.

Phillip Dimmit was a Texian military commander who played a major role in these months around Goliad, and is gonna be the topic of my next post. As an long-time resident of Texas who had married into the Tejano community, Dimmit began as a staunch Federalist, even being credited with designing the 1824 Mexican Flag that was the first official flag of the rebellion.

By December of 1835 however, he had become committed to independence to a degree that he was one of the principal movers if not THE prime mover behind the mostly forgotten Goliad Declaration of Independence, December 20th, 1835.

Reading it, one is impressed by how well-informed and erudite the authors were about the then-current events (almost like they read the same books we do today ), also the wording gives clear insight into their motives and mindset.

A few excerpts

http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/consultations5.htm

Solemnly impressed with a sense of the danger of the crisis to which recent and remote events have conducted the public affairs of their country, the undersigned prefer this method of laying before their fellow-citizens, a brief retrospect of the light in which they regard both the present and the past, and of frankly declaring for themselves, the policy and the uncompromising course which they have resolved to pursue for the future.....

They have seen their camp thronged, but too frequently, with those who were more anxious to be served by, than to serve their country--with men more desirous of being honored with command that capable of commanding.

They have seen the busy aspirants for office running from the field to the council ball, and from this back to the camp, seeking emolument and not service, and swarming like hungry flies around the body politic.....

The North and East of Mexico will now become the stronghold of centralism. Thence it can sally in whatever direction its arch deviser may prefer to employ its weapons. The counter-revolution in the interior once smothered, the whole fury of the contest will be poured on Texas. She is principally populated with North-Americans. To expel these from its territory, and parcel it out among the instruments of its wrath, will combine the motive and the means for consummating the scheme of the President Dictator.

Already, we are denounced, proscribed, outlawed, and exiled from the country. Our lands, peaceably and lawfully acquired, are solemnly pronounced the proper subject of indiscriminate forfeiture, and our estates of confiscation. The laws and guarantees under which we entered the country as colonists, tempted the unbroken silence, sought the dangers of the wilderness, braved the prowling Indian, erected our numerous improvements, and opened and subdued the earth to cultivation, are either abrogated or repealed, and now trampled under the hoofs of the usurper's cavalry.

And with regard to the Tejanos...

We have indulged sympathy, too, for the condition of many whom, we vainly flattered ourselves, were opposed, in common with their adopted brethren, to the extension of military domination over the domain of Texas. But the siege of Bexar has dissolved the illusion. Nearly all their physical force was in the line of the enemy and armed with rifles. Seventy days occupation of the fortress of Goliad has also abundantly demonstrated the general diffusion among the Creole population of a like attachment to the institutions of their ancient tyrants.

Intellectually enthralled, and strangers to the blessings of regulated liberty, the only philanthropic service which we can ever force on their acceptance, is that of example. In doing this, we need not expect or even hope for their co-operation.

It belongs to the North-Americans of Texas to set this bright, this cheering, this all-subduing example.

Although I will observe this overlooks how completely catastrophic the First Texas Revolution, likewise American-dominated, had proven for the Tejanos in 1813, in which fight most had come out for independence. Also apparent by 1835 was the fact that, from a Tejano perspective, Americans were swamping Texas. Already by 1835 Anglos (settled mostly in east Texas) outnumbered Tejanos nearly five to one. A great many Tejanos and even General Urrea were by sympathy Federalist, but could read the writing on the wall.


On a different note, it is interesting to see reference made to Tejanos armed with rifles.

And, further along, it turns out politics ain't changed much....

The foregoing, we are fully aware, is a blunt, and in some respects, a humiliating, but a faithful picture. However much we may wish, or however much we may be interested, or feel disposed to deceive our enemy, let us carefully guard against deceiving ourselves.

We are in more danger from this---from his insinuating, secret, silent, and unseen influence in our councils, both in the field and in the cabinet, and from the use of his silver and gold, than from his numbers, his organization, or the concentration of his power in a single arm.

The gold of Philip purchased what his arms could not subdue---the liberties of Greece. Our enemy, too, holds this weapon. Look well to this, people of Texas, in the exercise of suffrage. Look to it, Counselors, your appointments to office. Integrity is a precious jewel.

Dimmit was essentially maneuvered out of command for his trouble, and why this first declaration was set aside for a second two months later probably had at least a little to do with those busy aspirants for office running from the field to the council ball, and from this back to the camp, seeking emolument and not service, and swarming like hungry flies around the body politic.

Birdwatcher

Think about it? A symbolism thing. Sacrifice and using something with a past history. Like this piece was used to fight Santa Anna! Now we are going to do our part and it will help
Defeat the Kaiser!!!

Hard to imagine now but the Alamo was almost removed entirely around the turn of the century, at the behest of local business interests who wanted to develop the real estate. That it was not we can mostly thank Adina de Zavala, granddaughter of the original interim Vice President. Then a wealthy society matron, Clara Driscoll, also stepped in. For better or worse their Daughters of the Republic organization would run the Alamo shrine for more than a century.

Hard to imagine now, but it took a while for the Alamo to catch on to the iconic status it has today (the Disney series Davy Crockett helped immeasurably in that regard).

At present, its still a huge tourist draw, but in 1917 not so much, ergo not WORTH as much to the bean counters.

No telling what that 4,000 pound hunk of iron sitting out in that park looked like after 47 years exposed to the weather, the bore possibly full of accumulated trash. Plus there's still six (??) original cannon, still broken and much pitted and eroded despite our modern restoration abilities, on the Alamo grounds. They don't look like much and most visitors walk right on by.



San Pedro Park at the times, with its picturesque springs and cypress-shaded clear pool, was probably a bigger draw, and was remodeled/redeveloped several times to modernize it over the years. I'm guessing there was a faction in city council at the time only too happy to see that cannon sacrificed for a worthy cause.

Birdwatcher

Up until a few years ago there was a Bronze 12 pounder Napoleon in (I believe) Milam park. It had been restored pretty nicely best I remember. But I don't know its whereabouts either.

While we're on the subject of cannons, I ran across some interesting things regarding the artillery tubes in Gettysburg.
It's pretty well known that the only gun now on the field that fought in the battle is a 3" Rifle, No. 233, near the Buford Monument. This gun, part of Hall's Battery, is credited as the first Federal cannon fired in the battle.
Turns out, most of the guns brought in to mark the field by the park service, were placed in the 1890s. Back then, records were kept of which gun was a veteran of the war, and at that time, over 100 of them cold be accurately placed in the position they fought. The NPS had over 4000 documents on the guns at the turn of the century.
Unfortunately, the records were lost, and as other Battlefields were being preserved, the guns were moved around to God knows where! Many were moved to other parks or other spots on the battlefield. Many others were melted and re-cast as monuments or tablets marking the field.
George Newton's book "Silent Sentinals", is a very interesting read if you're interested in the guns used in the battle.
7mm

Thanks you for all your work writing this up. It's been an interesting read and am looking forward to future contributions.

Birdy,

There is some research on the Mexican Powder stuff. It's just been over 35 years since I read it. Only thing I remember was it was domestic and very low quality. I had a reenacting acquaintance who was also the NMLRA rep in texas back in the70's. Deceased now. But he had several kegs of powder that the Republic of Texas purchased in the early 1840's. They came out of Galveston. And were of US mfg.

You Sir too are welcome, truth is I'm learning as I go along.

Anyways....

One class of Texians I find especially interesting are those who came early (relatively speaking), ahead of the main swell of settlement, and made their living among the Tejanos, becoming fluent in Spanish and often taking Tejano wives.

These guys either arrived with or soon accumulated property and often married into (or attempted to marry into in the case of William Kerr) prominent Tejano families rather than marrying more ordinary anonymous Tejano women.

Phillip Dimmitt, Joseph Linn and William Kerr, all merchants/entepreneurs in the Victoria/Refugio/Goliad area, fall into this category. So too one could place James Bowie, although Bowie's aspirations never seem to have fallen into the merely mercantile. Deaf Smith was in a category all by himself; he married the widowed daughter of his vaquero business partner, raised her two daughters and she bore him four more children of his own. And as for marrying more ordinary Tejanos, we know that at least two defenders of the Alamo had married local girls, their father getting them out on the eve of the final assault.

But... here of Phillip Dimmitt.....

Dimmitt arrived in San Antonio de Bexar in 1823, twelve years ahead of the war. We do not know where he had learned Spanish, or from whence his capital to set up shop came, but shortly thereafter, still in his early twenties, he contracted to supply the needs of those soldiers stationed at the Alamo, said supplies presumably contracted from the United States (which flood of goods into Bexar oughtta interest somebody academic). He married a well-bred local Tejana and commenced to start a family.

As far as we know it was a case of hard work and honest dealings coming out ahead; the industrious Dimmitt rapidly expanded his business, by the outbreak of war he operated stores at Guadalupe Victoria (AKA Victoria), Goliad and also what was then an important point of entry; Dimmitt's Landing on the shore of Lavaca Bay (twenty miles due south of Victoria). Dimmitt was well thought of by those recently arrived colonists whom he served as well as with the original Tejano community. His prestige among and ability to work with the Tejanos served him well when it came to staying informed of developments on the Mexican side of the upcoming war.

Like most of the established Texians, Dimmitt started out a Federalist. He first appears in the war advocating the interception of arriving Centralist General Martin Perfecto de Cos and an anticipated $50,000 in Mexican funds either upon arrival at Copano Bay or during his passage inland to take command in San Antonio. That opportunity was missed but Dimmitt, taking up arms, joined an October expedition of 125 men that overwhelmed the Mexican garrison at La Bahia Mission in Goliad, thereby cutting Cos's lines of communication with the coast. Dimmitt assumed command of the fortification, $10,000 worth of captured supplies and a number of cannon were sent north to support the Texian siege of Cos at San Antonio.

At this point, the internal divisions among the Texians become apparent.

Against Austin's order, Dimmitt took the common-sense step of sending a small force to take Fort Lipantitlan at San Patricio on the Nueces River, essentially the entry point to what was then Texas and the closest fortification to Mexico proper. This was done, but then the commander of that small force dispatched by Dimmitt, one Ira Westover, communicated directly with Austin, going over Dimmitt's head.

By December, Dimmitt had become committed to Texas independence and was officially removed from command by the still-Federalist Austin for his trouble, his force at Goliad protested this order and remained loyal to Dimmitt. Dimmitt and a band of companions fought in in the Battle of Bexar at San Antonio that same month and then returned to Goliad where the pro-independence Dimmitt resumed de-facto command.

In January of '36 the pro-Federalist Matamoras Expedition under Grant and Johnson arrived at Goliad, along with the still-Federalist Sam Houston. It is most likely at this point that Dimmitt dispatched those twenty New Orleans Greys to recover the cannon left on the coast at Velasco.

Under pressure from Grant and Johnson and the then pro-Federalist-interim government, Dimmitt relinquished command, whereupon James Fannin took charge at Goliad. Dimmitt and thirty companions then returned to San Antonio to join the Alamo garrison.

By chance, Dimmit had been dispatched by Travis on a scouting mission towards the south when Santa Anna arrived from the west. After several days waiting from outside the town, when it became obvious the occupation was long-term and that a major invasion was underway, Dimmitt returned to Victoria with his family both to settle his affairs and to recruit more volunteers.

At that point the war moved so quickly Dimmitt was a step behind.

He narrowly missed joining Houston at Gonzales with a force of twenty volunteers, Houston having evacuated ahead of the advancing Mexican army. Then Dimmitt returned to Victoria and used his available resources to evacuate his neighbors just ahead of Urrea's advance. Again using his considerable resources and talents, Dimmitt arrived at San Jacinto with reinforcements and critical supplies just one day after that battle.

Dimmitt's eventual demise was unfortunate. By 1840 he was engaged in operating a trading post on the Nueces. A rival, one Henry Kinney, operated a competing post fifteen miles downriver at what is now Corpus Christi. At that time the Nueces was the de-facto Border adjacent to the notorious Nueces Strip, and the usual smuggling with the collusion of both sides prevailed. Dimmitt was captured in a punitive raid by Mexican forces that left Kinney's post suspiciously intact.

In Mexico, Dimmitt was a wanted man on account of his prior activities in the war and was removed to the interior. Expecting execution and otherwise despairing of ever gaining his freedom, he is said to have purposely taken an overdose of opium.

He was survived by his wife and two sons, Antonio Alamo Dimmitt and Texas Philip Dimmitt.

Birdwatcher

Holy Kshizzle! How did THOSE get by unfired? Between Indian raids, the Mexican War and the War Between the States one would think powder woulda been in demand.

Birdwatcher

Probably the same way they occasionally find 80 year old ordnance stored away in some half forgotten bunker on this or that post or former post. It got put there and was forgotten about. Some supply sergeant squirreled it away in case it was ever needed and it never was.

Louisiana is still dealing with disposing of 6 million pounds of artillery propellant store out in the open at Camp Minden.

Turns out there was a number of Kerrs in Texas, the William Kerr I mentioned above was actually the business partner of the Kerr I had intended to refer to, Peter Kerr, and neither should be confused with one James Kerr, allegedly "the ugliest man in Texas"...

http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/dewitt&kerr2.htm

...tho surely we got 'Fire members could give him a run for his money.

Sadly too, one eighteen year-old Joseph Kerr died defending the Alamo. No degree of blood relationship attends to these four Kerrs. The ugly one is to whom Kerrville TX refers.

Peter Kerr is one of them guys you wish you could sit down and talk with. Originally from Pennsylvania, Peter Kerr arrived in Texas aged twenty-nine years of age and established a mercantile business in Victoria amid the Martin De Leon grant, the only predominantly Mexican colony in Texas.

At one point he was contracted to marry a pretty senorita from a good family but lost everything to an Indian Raid, the father of the bride subsequently refusing permission to marry. The next time Kerr returned to Texas he brung a still, but accounts say somehow it sailed from New Orleans without him.

Martin De Leon is worthy of mention, Criollo aristocracy from Mexico, tall, gentlemanly and dynamic. Sadly "Capitan Muchas Vacas" perished of cholera in 1833, his six sons however all supported at least the Federalist Revolution, sheltering Texian refugees during the war, including the family of John Linn.

In 1835, as war clouds were gathering, Peter Kerr, Fernando De Leon and Jose Maria Jesus Carbajal drove a large herd of horses 500 miles to New Orleans. This "beef trail" between Texas and New Orleans is mostly forgotten today but actually had been long established by 1835. As early as the 1780's San Antonio-area Vaqueros were driving cattle down it to provision the Spanish garrisons at New Orleans. This tradition would continue through the Republic of Texas era with increasing Anglo participation, switching easily to the well-known drives north to Kansas after the Civil War.

The $35,000 in proceeds (!) from this drive were used to purchase supplies and munitions for the Texian war effort.

Unfortunately it weren't always that easy to be a Tejano, or to closely associate with the same around the droves of Americans arriving to fight in Texas (not all these volunteers were nice folks, Susannah Dickinson herself had been brought by her husband Almeron to the Alamo for safety after she had been roughed up and her house plundered in Gonzales by some of those people).

Peter Kerr was the guy who first brought the news of the Massacre at Goliad to Houston at Gonzales, but was arrested on suspicion of associating with the enemy by Houston for his trouble, tho' later after his release he became Houston's interpreter after San Jacinto.

Nothwithstanding their good works, the De Leons were later driven out. Ironically it turns out Fernando De Leon and Martin Benavides evacuated their families to Louisiana not only for fear of Urrea, but for fear of the arriving Americans.

Peter Kerr went on to be Justice of the Peace in Travis County (Austin) and a major rancher/land owner/speculator in the Texas Hill Country, founding the town of Burnett. Apparently he never married and left his fortune upon his death in '61 to a nephew with the stipulation that land be set aside for a Peter Kerr University.

Didn't happen, the ingrate challenged the will, the town of Burnett ended up with just two acres for a schoolhouse.

Birdwatcher

I believe this is the case. It made the rounds befor Gary ended up with it. What I find hard is it made it thru the Isaacs' Storm of 1900!!!

"Slave owner, slave dealer, slave hunter", or so one recent author dismisses James Walker Fannin Jr., the ill-starred commander at Goliad. But that is a description that would apply to many men in that time and place, including Jim Bowie, whom history recalls in an entirely different light.

The thing that impresses about all these prominent Texas guys is the degree to which they made something from nothing, early in life.

Phillip Dimmitt arrives in Texas in his early twenties, yet by the next decade his landing and warehouse is a major port of entry into Texas and he's a major figure in Texas. John Linn did him one better. About of the same age, Linn founded an entire town on the coast, Linnville. While Dimmitt was able to supply the Texians after San Jacinto with supplies and men, Linn actually beat him to it, sending his own personal merchant ship likewise loaded with volunteers and supplies.

And to put 'em in context, it wasn't everybody in Texas succeeded like that, there were 30,000 Americans in Texas by then, regular folks, the salt of the earth, almost all of whom lived and died in modest anonymity.

But, whatever his failings, Fannin became one of the famous few, likewise at an early age. Furthermore, Fannin's fortune was derived largely from the illegal smuggling of slaves into Texas and the United States, mostly from Cuba.

Whatever else it may have been, one imagines that the illegal slave trade was hardly for the indecisive or faint of heart. A harsh business all around, and like most illegal businesses prone to attract the participation of dangerous people.

For a while Jim Bowie made his living smuggling slaves, and no one is surprised that a famously deadly brawler like himself would make a living that way. Yet Bowie's fortune, when he died, was proven to be largely illusory, he wasn't nearly as wealthy as he had claimed to be. One has to wonder how history would remember Bowie, if at all, if he had not died at the Alamo (despite his best efforts to extricate that garrison after the siege began).

It does seem a certainty that Fannin would be celebrated as a hero had he chosen to die defending the La Bahia Mission instead of likewise attempting to extricate his force, tho one wonders if a general as capable as Urrea would bother to actually assault the place rather than starving it out and/or making it redundant by maneuver.

Whatever his qualities, unlike Bowie, Fannin DID accumulate wealth, or at least capital, establishing a plantation on the coast at Veslaco in '34 and continuing to broker slaves, both legally and illegally. By the time the war broke out Fannin was just thirty-one years old, and already a man of means.

In his younger days he had famously dropped out after two years at West Point, tho it is difficult to determine if that was to any degree a failure on his part. It is significant that this exposure to the military and the military chain of command would be regarded as rendering him as especially qualified to command in Texas.

After dropping out of West Point in '21 he returned home to Georgia, over the next eight years he married, had two daughters, led the local Temperance Society, established a mercantile business and....
....began to build his fortune in the business of smuggling in slaves.

Just a year after his arrival in Texas, Fannin was a vocal and active supporter of Texian rights and interests. He was present when the shooting started over the cannon at Gonzales in October of '35, and was assigned with Bowie by Houston to assess the conditions and fort at San Antonio. He was present with Bowie at the opening fight at Mission Concepcion later that same month wherein first blood was drawn on the Mexican force there under General Cos. He would later perform a reconnaissance/interdiction mission alongside Travis.

Fannin himself at that point in time clamored for command, wishing to be a general at "a point of danger". He does seem to have had an ingratiating quality, successfully advancing his command status amid so many men vying for the same. Houston thought well of him, so did the members of the Consultation of 1835. If Travis or Bowie, who had served with him, thought ill of him that does not emerge in any correspondence.

Fannin originally had arrived in Goliad in February of '36 in appointed head of the newly-arrived Georgia Battalion of volunteers. At the time his orders had been to join the Matamoras Expedition. On arrival, seeing the situation, he chose instead to remain with the Texian forces at Goliad.

During this interval the body that had appointed him, the Consultation of 1835, was falling apart in dissent. Somehow, amid the warring egos of Dimmitt, Houston, Grant and Johnson, Fannin emerges as the nominal commander at Goliad, heading the largest Texian Army then in existence, and regarded by some in authority back in East Texas as the Commander-in-Chief of all Texian forces.

Likely, had not catastrophe intervened, by the common consent of both Fannin and those disgruntled volunteers serving under him, his tenure as commander would have been brief. Just weeks after taking command, Fannin, the same guy who had aspired to be a general, was begging to be relieved on the grounds that he was singularly unsuited to the task. Likewise surviving correspondence from his men indicate they felt Fannin was poorly qualified for the post he held.

The one guy on the scene who did write well of Travis was that dynamic ex-Marine quoted earlier, John Sowers-Brooks, who worked tirelessly and selflessly as Fannin's de-facto Senior Non-com at Goliad preparing the defenses and forming a fighting unit out of the disparate militiamen present, but Sowers-Brooks comes across as such a generous-hearted and can-do kind of guy he might have been hard-pressed before he publicly criticized anybody, much less his commanding officer.

Birdwatcher

You mentioned Linnville. Here's one that happened right around the corner from the place here!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Plum_Creek