24hourcampfire.com
24hourcampfire.com
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Hop To
Page 6 of 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Joined: Aug 2009
Posts: 3,977
W
Campfire Tracker
Offline
Campfire Tracker
W
Joined: Aug 2009
Posts: 3,977
Great reading about the old battles. I am trying to get a map and figure out where each place is? Thanks for posting the stories.

BP-B2

Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 31,559
K
Campfire 'Bwana
Offline
Campfire 'Bwana
K
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 31,559
Birdy,

Next time you come up to see Tommy in Austin, you two need to come out to my place! Got lots to show you! Heck you can just come up here without Tom too if you want! Figgered we could make a day of it! Tom like this stuff too!!!


Founder
Ancient Order of the 1895 Winchester

"Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,
Being native burghers of this desert city,
Should in their own confines with forked heads
Have their round haunches gored."

WS

Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 3,573
7
Campfire Tracker
Offline
Campfire Tracker
7
Joined: Jan 2009
Posts: 3,573
Still reading Birdie


I've always been different with one foot over the line.....
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 8,622
Campfire Outfitter
Offline
Campfire Outfitter
Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 8,622
This has been one of the best threads on here in some time. Ranks up there with "Thrushes, Woodpeckers, & Little Round Top" several years ago! Thanks for putting it together.
7mm


"Preserving the Constitution, fighting off the nibblers and chippers, even nibblers and chippers with good intentions, was once regarded by conservatives as the first duty of the citizen. It still is." � Wesley Pruden


Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 37,751
Campfire 'Bwana
OP Offline
Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 37,751
Originally Posted by stxhunter
damn mike you were just down the road and didn't call .


Sorry Rog, I was racing daylight the whole time, still had to get to Fort Lipantitlan, Agua Dulce, Refugio, Coleto Creek and Goliad before dark. As it was I only just got it done.
'
Fort Lipantitlan weren't easy to find, even though it has to be at most a long walk upstream from San Patricio. Turns out even the marker was hard to find, about a seven-mile loop around ranchland on the other side of the Nueces.

Once in a while you can get a glimpse of sorta what the area looked like in '36. This is about two miles southwest of the Nueces and the old fort site...

[Linked Image]

The marker off of the backroad is easy to miss, sorta set back in the mesquite...

[Linked Image]

No one I asked knew where the old fort had been, and no wonder, no reason to go there, seven acres at the end of a dead end road, donated from a ranch in 1937 but no public river access in back though it was only about 50 yards away...

[Linked Image]

All above-ground traces of the fort gone.

To somebody's credit, the place had been mowed, and in back was what looked like an original marker, perhaps installed by a State Historian. In 1927 there would likely be people still alive in the area who remembered the ruins of the old fort.

[Linked Image]

Birdwatcher




"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
IC B2

Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 37,751
Campfire 'Bwana
OP Offline
Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 37,751
In search of Agua Dulce Creek and a settlement or rancho called Casa Blanca ("white house") at the ford where Urrea ambushed Grant.

Four miles south of San Patricio, a historical marker in front of an old 1930's schoolhouse lends some light as to the kin of Vaquero leader Carlos de la Guerra, said kin persisting in the face of "continual attack by Indians", it mentions a Casa Blanca land grant and ranch.

[Linked Image]

Ten mile south, on Hwy 44, a road sign for Agua Dulce, note the topography and imagine it mostly treeless in 1836, the way it was back then. It ain't called the "Coastal Plain" fer nuthin.

[Linked Image]

I crossed Agua Dulce Creek coming in to the town....

[Linked Image]

..and the historical marker, the Agua Dulce battle site laying "3.25 miles Northwest" of that point...

[Linked Image]

Durned if I could find anything tho. Near as I can tell the actual site probably lies on private land and I doubt it looked like much even back then. Here's in the ballpark, what it looks like today....

[Linked Image]

This is not far north of the creek, a reasonable guess that James Grant, Reuben Brown and Placido Benavides passed through within sight of this place, hotly pursued by Mexican Lancers. Certainly one could have heard the gunfire from there.

Of that eight mile chase Benavides later said that Grant could probably have escaped, but that Grant persisted in ignoring his advice and spurred his horse too much, confusing the animal. Which I guess was the difference between a guy who had grown up on horseback and one who hadn't.

Birdwatcher


"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 14,903
P
Campfire Outfitter
Offline
Campfire Outfitter
P
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 14,903
Thanks.


--- CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE --- A Magic Time To Be An Illegal In America---
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 37,751
Campfire 'Bwana
OP Offline
Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 37,751
Quick shots of Copano Bay at the mouth of the Aransas River and of the Mission River a few miles away, looking downstream towards the bay, this maybe fifteen miles below Refugio.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

Fannin, King, Ward and the Georgia Battalion all landed in this area, as well as General Cos and his army. Same thing with the Irish immigrants at Refugio and San Patricio.

Get off pavement and this becomes hazardous and difficult country to navigate even today. Sailing those unwieldy merchant ships past all the shifting sandbars along that labyrinthine coast must have been no mean trick. Even after landing one still had to traverse miles of often waterlogged and overgrown wetlands and prairie, through clouds of saltmarsh mosquitoes.

Throw in the presence of the tall, naked and fish oil-smeared Karankawas, known to cut off and eat slices of their victims while they were yet alive.

To newcomers from more pleasant and familiar climes the whole area must have been a sort of Hell.

Imagine the effect on the Irish immigrants. It is said that part of the reason they settled at Refugio is that their women were scared so badly by the country in general and and by an encounter with a band of aggressively pilfering Lipan Apaches in particular that for weeks they refused to leave the sanctuary of the old mission.

Birdwatcher


"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 46,900
Campfire 'Bwana
Offline
Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 46,900
good gar fishing there.


God bless Texas-----------------------
Old 300
I will remain what i am until the day I die- A HUNTER......Sitting Bull
Its not how you pick the booger..
but where you put it !!
Roger V Hunter
Joined: Nov 2009
Posts: 6,842
R
Campfire Tracker
Offline
Campfire Tracker
R
Joined: Nov 2009
Posts: 6,842
Keep writing and taking pic's, Birdie, I'm lovin it. rio7

IC B3

Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 37,751
Campfire 'Bwana
OP Offline
Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 37,751
Got rained out of running around with the grandchild this past Sunday, so on the spur of the moment decided to hit the road instead.

Refugio, the site of the last mission built in Texas, it was aimed at the Karankawas. And just to get away from whole-cloth generalizations some of them apparently did get away from oil-smeared cannibalism, enough to fight in concert with Carlos de la Guerra's vaqueros at least.

Turns out Refugio, perhaps the first relatively mosquito-free reliably dry land adjacent to the coast, had long been a campsite of the Copanes, the local branch of the Karankawas, for whom Copano Bay is named.

The mission at Refugio, Nuestra Senora de Refugio, had been built in 1795, a full ten years or more after the five missions at San Antonio had all been secularized and the mission era had ended. Apparently it was a good-faith effort by idealists to evangelize a bunch of benighted savages, it had been in operation with but small success until 1830, and a small settlement had sprang up around it before Independence would make the area a lawless Borderland.

Again, this is an approximate image of how it looked when occupied by the newly-arrived Irish.

[Linked Image]

I cannot tell the orientation of that model, nor where the river lay. The mission river was clearly close by, running in a NW to SE direction at that point. If the top of that model is taken as north, the river would have lay to the left, and the present four-lane highway cross over the former cemetery space enclosed by the wall. This makes sense in that the long building to the left of the church proper would have been the structure behind which the Mexican soldados took shelter from the concentrated rifle fire of the Georgia Battalion.

Fortunately for those trying to reconstruct events, the mission church was rebuilt some twenty years after the fact. Like San Patricio, Refugio was mostly abandoned by the 1840's as being too unsafe for settlement, and again because of the lawlessness on both sides of the Border.

As an example on the Texian side I'll give Mabry ("Mustang") Gray. Mabry Gray seems the sort who might have become an outlaw biker had he been alive today. One of his noted stunts, repeated a number of times over the years, was to light a powder trail to a 25 pound keg of powder, run with it and then throw it into the air, where it would explode. I dunno how he contrived to survive that but it gives insight as to the character of the man.

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fgr24

Just 19 when he fought at San Jacinto, in his twenties Gray became a Ranger Captain operating out of Corpus Christi. When the bullets were flying, he sounds like exactly the kind of guy you'd want on your side. But when they weren't, murder and common thievery weren't off the table. His most infamous deed being the murder of several Tejano traders outside of San Patricio in 1842, these men having been tied together in a bundle before being shot.

Gray's party had approached the trader's camp in apparent friendship, "getting the drop" on them once in place. The motive for this nefarious act being to steal their goods.

The incident is especially notable because one of the victims IIRC was a son or nephew of Placido Benavides, and like Benavides had actively fought on the Texian side during the war.

Well, the rain falls on both the just and the unjust as they say, and so did cholera in those years. Perhaps an ignominious end for such a noted hell-raiser, but a microbe felled Gray in Mexico in '48 when he was thirty-one years old and just reaching his prime.

At Refugio, IIRC the original reconstruction attempt by the Catholics was a sizeable stone chapel using the original stones in 1868. This structure was later felled by a hurricane.

Today, the mission site at Refugio might likely look about like Lipantitlan except that in 1908 the local residents erected a fine church on the foundation of the old, which still stands today, marking the exact spot for posterity.

It has been a commonality for significant locations in Texian history to be mostly erased by development. Observe the busy four-lane highway running just feet away from the church's front door. The river lies in the background.

[Linked Image]

In this photo taken from the other side of the church the river lies maybe 70 - 100 yards away across the parking lot on the other side of those trees, the highway bridge crossing just south of that point. This would have been the space where the surprised Texians were attempting to bring in barrels of water when the gunfire commenced.

[Linked Image]

Birdwatcher


"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 37,751
Campfire 'Bwana
OP Offline
Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 37,751
When I left off the flow of events at Refugio, March 14th 1836 (eight days after the Fall of the Alamo), Urrea's 1,500 had been thrown back by the 100+ plus men forted up in the stone church after several assaults and an all-day exchange of fire. Casualty estimates ran between 70 (the Mexican version) to 200 (the Texian version) on the Mexican side for only 6 on the Texian side.

During the fighting, Amon King, who had left with 28 men early that morning to attack a Tejano loyalist camp a few miles downriver, had returned around noon and, not expecting a large Mexican force, had come running towards the sound of battle. They were engaged in the woods along the Mission River and successfully forted up, likewise repelling a number of assaults.

Clearly with respect to King and his small band in the woods there was a reluctance on Urrea's part to take further casualties, else surely they could have been overwhelmed by the far superior Mexican force. As it turned out, restraint on Urrea's part was the correct strategy as all of King's men were captured with scarcely a shot fired the very next day on the open prairie, what little powder they had left having been wetted fleeing across the river.

Ward's 120 men would likewise flee in the night, and a few make good their escape, but most of these weary and hungry men would be captured over the course of the next eight days on the coast at Dimmitt's Landing, or outside of Victoria, looking to rejoin with Texians but finding both places already occupied by Urrea's men.

Lewis Ayers, the San Patricio colonist who's request for help from Fannin had originally prompted the Texian ill-fated rescue mission to Refugio, was with King that day.

http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/goliadsanpat2.htm

I placed myself under the command of Capt. King who went in a different route from the remainder of the force, our party consisting of only 28 men after marching for several ranches which were deserted, and at about 12 o'clock came in sight of the Mission when to our utter surprise we discovered what proved to be the whole of Gen. Urrea's division of 1500 men in possession of the town.

Our friends to the number of 120 men were in the Church, my family and others were also in it. The moment we saw the enemy, we were discovered by them, and a party of Horsemen amounting to upwards of 100 men galloped to cut off our retreat to a piece of woods to which we hasted about 600 yards when we reached there we found our -number reduced to 22 men by the desertion of 6. We had time before attacked to choose a good fighting position, and for each man to have his station assigned to him, which was maintained by all throughout an engagement of about one half hour, when the enemy retreated with about 20 killed and a large number wounded.

After an interval of about one hour we were again attacked by about 200 of the enemy in two parties opening a cross fire upon us, we still maintained our ground and after an hour of hard fighting we compelled them to retreat. One of our party was killed within 3 feet of me, and four were wounded, the number of the enemy killed and wounded was very large, but I have not been able to learn the number.

Towards night we were attacked a third time from the opposite side of the river, Capt. King then directed us to lie close, protecting ourselves as much as possible by the woods, and not to fire again, holding ourselves in readiness for an expected attack on our side of the river, which however did not take place, the enemy after wasting as I suppose all their powder and ball and without doing us any personal injury, retired. I was saved from death in the second engagement by a ball glancing from one of a pair of pistols which I wore in front, they were given me by Capt. King.

When night came on it was very dark, not a star to be seen, we crossed the river at the battle ground, where it was not considered fordable, the water reached my chin, there was a ford just above and one just below us but we expected the enemy would guard them, the banks were so steep that we had to assist each other in the ascent, the wounded accompanied us with much pain. We wandered about all night endeavoring to reach Goliad, but when day dawned on the 14th we found ourselves only about 3 miles from the Mission, having lost our way. We hurried on about two miles further, when we were attacked by a party of Mexicans, and were compelled to surrender, our guns being most of them wet, and having no chance to retreat.


Birdwatcher


"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 31,559
K
Campfire 'Bwana
Offline
Campfire 'Bwana
K
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 31,559
Birdy,

I think I hear a fire and drum playing "Will you come to the Bower" this morning!!!!


Founder
Ancient Order of the 1895 Winchester

"Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,
Being native burghers of this desert city,
Should in their own confines with forked heads
Have their round haunches gored."

WS

Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 31,559
K
Campfire 'Bwana
Offline
Campfire 'Bwana
K
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 31,559
April 21, 1836

The story goes it was the only song that both the fifers knew. Naturally Dick the drummer boy just adlibbed best he could! wink


Founder
Ancient Order of the 1895 Winchester

"Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,
Being native burghers of this desert city,
Should in their own confines with forked heads
Have their round haunches gored."

WS

Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 37,751
Campfire 'Bwana
OP Offline
Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 37,751
Originally Posted by kaywoodie
Birdy,

I think I hear a fire and drum playing "Will you come to the Bower" this morning!!!!


Indeed.

As far as I can tell, the San Jacinto (Houston) reenactment is still on for this weekend shocked

Leastways I ain't received any emails telling me different.

In the past even dew has come close to flooding it out.

Birdwatcher



"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 37,751
Campfire 'Bwana
OP Offline
Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 37,751
Little seems to be known about the background of William Ward, even his age at the time of the battle is open to conjecture. Whoever he was he had been a prominent enough citizen of Macon, Georgia in 1835 that he was able to recruit and lead 120 men from that place to form the Georgia Battalion of Permanent Volunteers.

Certainly he acquitted himself well at Refugio, reportedly notably good with a rifle, patently asking nothing of his men that he did not also do himself, and competently leading the defense of the church building.

Perhaps 150 people trapped inside that one mission church all day on March 14th; 120 American and some Irish volunteers, a few families from the local area. No food, no water. Under Ward's leadership that day they repelled three Mexican attacks, and after dark Ward succeeded in extricating almost his whole command intact.

A week later, against Ward's advice and urging, the weary company would vote to surrender to Urrea's force outside Victoria, Ward, outvoted, going along with the decision. Most, including Ward, would shortly thereafter be executed in cold blood at Goliad.

An account of Ward's fight at Refugio from a Texian perspective. This published five years after the fact. Excellent narrative...

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

Col. Ward, with about one hundred men of the Georgia battalion, arrived at the Mission on the evening of the 13th of March. A single salute from their rifles served to drive off the enemy, who had invested King in his position, which. was the ruins of a stone church. Having marched during the day twenty-five miles, and most of the way in wet prairie, with the water often ankle deep, they were too greatly fatigued to think of returning the same night. Orders were given to commence their return march at daybreak, the next morning; and after posting sentinels the men were permitted to sleep on their arms.

The following part differs in minor detail from other accounts, now generally accepted as the most accurate. The consensus seems to be that King refused to accept Ward's seniority and independently left the mission with 28 men the morning of the 14th to launch an attack on the Tejano camp downriver, Ward remaining at the mission awaiting their return. Ward did send out a party for reconnaissance that morning, but it weren't King.

On mustering in the morning, a report of one of the sentinels excited suspicions that the enemy had returned into the neighbourhood, accompanied with a much larger force, and it was thought most prudent to send out a reconnoitering party, preceding the march of the main body....

Ward and his men immediately pressed forward to the relief of the advance, but at a distance of only a few hundred yards they were met in front by a body of Mexicans of six or eight hundred men. At the same instant, they discovered a body of cavalry moving at some distance in flank in order to fall upon their rear, and cut off their retreat to the Mission. A moment's deliberation determined them to retreat again to the walls of the Mission house, and by reserving their fire they kept the cavalry at a distance, and reached the walls without loss.

Preparations were immediately set about to defend themselves against an assault, as the large force of the enemy rendered it very certain that this would soon be attempted. On three sides of the church there was nothing to cover the approach of an enemy, but in advancing to make an assault, he must be exposed to the deadly aim of the garrison, the moment he came within rifle shot.

On the fourth side was the church-yard, of some fifty yards in length, walled in. From the end of this the ground sloped for some distance. This would cover the advance of an enemy until it became necessary to scale the wall, and then there were some tombs within that would still partially cover them in a nearer approach to the walls of the church.

This point must therefore be defended by a force posted in the yard. Bullock's company, consisting of about thirty-five men, then without a commissioned officer present, but acting as a band of brothers, volunteered for this dangerous service.


"Band of brothers", now there's an evocative phrase.

Ward himself, although looking well to his duty as commandant of the battalion, was never long absent from this outpost; he scarcely affected to assume the command, but ranked with the band, and none could be more expert in using the rifle....

The rest of this excellent narrative of the events that day can be found on the link.

Plainly the death of Ward and his men at Goliad was a sad loss.

Birdwatcher


"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 31,559
K
Campfire 'Bwana
Offline
Campfire 'Bwana
K
Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 31,559
Band of brothers", now there's an evocativephrase.


Straight out of Henry V! smile

And tomorrow being the 500th Anniversary of the Bard's death

But that's another story. laugh


Founder
Ancient Order of the 1895 Winchester

"Come, shall we go and kill us venison?
And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,
Being native burghers of this desert city,
Should in their own confines with forked heads
Have their round haunches gored."

WS

Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 37,751
Campfire 'Bwana
OP Offline
Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 37,751
The night of March 14th must have been a Hellish one for the Kentucky (King) and Georgia (Ward) Volunteers. A February cold front complete with driving rain provided their cover. The maybe 20 men left in King's party, hiding in the woods from Urrea's 1,500, had first to cross the Mission River neck-deep in water, stumbling on the deep mud and submerged snags, and then clawing their way up the steep earthen banks. Included among their number were four wounded, who were helped along with "much pain".

As for Ward's 120 in the church, we have these interesting details from Col.Francisco Garay, serving under Urrea....

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

A little past midnight one of our advance guards brought in a prisoner who was at first believed to belong to the band that had been chased from the woods. He was only a messenger from La Bahia [Goliad] who was trying to get into the church, information which be volunteered without being questioned. He presented a note addressed by Colonel Fannin to the so-called Colonel Ward in which he ordered him to evacuate his position upon receipt of the message, no matter what sacrifices he might have to make or what obstacles he would have to overcome. He was to go without delay to Fort Defiance (that was the name of La Bahia) where he (Fannin) would be waiting without fail the next day. Since Colonel Garay thought that it would be well for Ward to receive this information, he permitted the prisoner to deliver it without appearing that he understood its contents.

It must truly have been a miserable night because Garay by his own account acted on his own in this matter, not trying to communicate with Urrea who could not have been far away. Plainly letting the message through was an attempt by Garay to induce the Georgians to quit their impregnable position in the church and attempt a breakout.

From complimentary accounts on the Georgian side we know that the captured messenger was a local Irish settler and that Fannin had also included the information that he would be evacuating Goliad and falling back east towards Victoria.

Ward did slip out, shortly after receipt of the letter sometime after midnight, probably four or five hours after King's band had forded the river.

Both groups then floundered their way through the brush and tall grass in total darkness and pouring rain while seeking a trodden path or road, all the while expecting that Urrea's 1,500 would be hot on their trail at first light. King had been trying to circle east around the mission and the Mexican encampments so as to head north towards Goliad. From survivors' accounts we get that Ward had intended to strike out east for Victoria, so Ward's men heading east must have crossed the tracks of King's men circling around to the north and we know that neither group made it very far that night, but in the miserable conditions the two parties were unaware of each other.

Not likely would they have any source of working light with them to read a compass (whatever DiCaprio's experiences were in "The Revenant", flint and steel are actually hard to work in the rain). Not likely a compass was needed anyhow, the cold North wind would provide bearings enough.

Morning light found King's men just three miles north of Refugio, out on open ground along the expected path of flight, guns and all of their remaining powder still soaking wet and useless. They were speedily located and taken into Mexican custody.

In the dark Ward's men had finally located the wagon road heading south to Copano Bay and had taken it. Not the direction they had ostensibly intended but surely at that point the overriding need was to put some serious distance between themselves and Urrea.

The sense we are given is that Ward got away, 120 exhausted men on foot, following one of the few main thoroughfares out of town in an area thick with long-time resident Loyalist vaqueros. Perhaps just as likely any scouts on the Mexican side were not keen to close with what had been proven to be 100+ deadly accurate riflemen.

Doubtless too Urrea could have taken the time to systematically locate and hunt these men down had he so chosen, but competent strategist that he was, his considerable energies were now focused upon Fannin and the main Texian force at Goliad.

If letting Ward get away had been a gamble on Urrea's part it paid off, as it turned out most of these men would be captured the following week anyway. By Urrea's own account however, the presence of these what he believed to be 200 men under Ward, hovering somewhere off his flank and rear contributed in no small measure to his subsequent decision to execute King and his men for reasons of military expediency.

Birdwatcher


"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 37,751
Campfire 'Bwana
OP Offline
Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 37,751
Lewis Ayers, captured with King's group of Kentucky riflemen, gave a good account of what happened next...

We wandered about all night endeavoring to reach Goliad, but when day dawned on the 14th [15th] we found ourselves only about 3 miles from the Mission, having lost our way. We hurried on about two miles further, when we were attacked by a party of Mexicans, and were compelled to surrender, our guns being most of them wet, and having no chance to retreat.

We were then marched back to the Mission, tied together two by two, the rope at the same time connecting up altogether, after which we were marched about one mile, where we found a body of the enemy drawn up to receive us, we also found a few friends, who had been picked up one by one, making in the whole 33 men.

The Soldiers loaded their guns to shoot us but in consequence of there being two Germans among the prisoners the execution was postponed at the request of a Col. in the enemy's service who was a German by birth.

Our treatment during the next 24 hours was most brutal and barbarous. I had not asked for neither did I expect any mercy at the hands of the enemy. My wife however with four children presented herself to Gen. Urrea and excited his sympathy by their tears, she was aided by some Mexican officers who were opposed to the barbarous course persued of murdering prisoners, and the General agreed to save my life, which was done, and I was given in some degree my liberty, after receiving a severe lecture on account of my hostility to Mexico and charging me to behave myself better in the future and let politics alone-I merely bowed and said nothing.


...and again, as a measure of those perilous times, the Ayers would shortly lose all four of their children in the space of a week to scarlet fever, folks from all walks of life often having to cope back then with personal tragedies that would boggle the mind today.


So, the prisoners were led out to be shot twice, the first time the German-speaking officer declined to go through with it. That German officer was one Juan Jose Holzinger, an Engineer who had originally relocated to Mexico ten years earlier in the employ of a British concern. Holzinger first came to Santa Anna's attention when he was contracted to build a house on one of Santa's Anna's vast estates.

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fhoaa

During the Texas campaign he was Urrea's Chief of Artillery. At Refugio, in addition to the two Germans Ayers mentioned, Holzinger reportedly spared an additional eight men who had been local settlers, and perhaps a few others were impressed as laborers. It is believed that only 15 of the original 33 prisoners were actually marched out and shot the next day, "about a mile" from the mission.

Later that year the scattered remains of these unfortunate men were collected and interred on a hillside not far from the mission, this burial site serving as a nucleus for the establishment of a Catholic cemetery.

The exact location of the gravesite was lost for 98 years, until a construction project by chance unearthed 16 skeletons interred in a mass grave.

[Linked Image]

...and kudos to whoever in 1934 designed this appropriately 19th Century-styled monument.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]


Holzinger would go on to save another 25 of Ward's men held at Victoria and would attempt to save more at Goliad.

Along with Urrea and the rest of Urrea's command, he would pointedly be sent to a reserve area later in the campaign, so removing them in Santa Anna's mind from any chance of further acclaim or glory.

Thus, at the time of San Jacinto, Holzinger had been assigned to build a fort at Matagorda on the coast. It was his great good fortune to be captured upon his withdrawal from that place by a Texian force that included some of the very men he had earlier saved. Notwithstanding the fact that he was an officer in Santa Anna's army, Holzinger was shortly thereafter set at liberty with a letter of grateful commendation from Mirabeau Lamar.

He returned to Mexico, where he presumably lived out the remaining twenty-eight years of his life mostly at peace.

Birdwatcher


"...if the gentlemen of Virginia shall send us a dozen of their sons, we would take great care in their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them." Canasatego 1744
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 46,900
Campfire 'Bwana
Offline
Campfire 'Bwana
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 46,900
Mike do know anything about the remains that were found in Refugio, i guess about 10 yrs or more back when they were doing highway construction? i know they shut down the project for a while till the remains were properly removed.


God bless Texas-----------------------
Old 300
I will remain what i am until the day I die- A HUNTER......Sitting Bull
Its not how you pick the booger..
but where you put it !!
Roger V Hunter
Page 6 of 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Moderated by  RickBin 

Link Copied to Clipboard
YB23

Who's Online Now
89 members (35, 308ld, 338reddog, 257_X_50, 10gaugemag, 257robertsimp, 8 invisible), 1,572 guests, and 773 robots.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Forum Statistics
Forums81
Topics1,187,728
Posts18,400,764
Members73,822
Most Online11,491
Jul 7th, 2023


 







Fish & Game Departments | Solunar Tables | Mission Statement | Privacy Policy | Contact Us | DMCA
Hunting | Fishing | Camping | Backpacking | Reloading | Campfire Forums | Gear Shop
Copyright © 2000-2024 24hourcampfire.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5
(Release build 20201027)
Responsive Width:

PHP: 7.3.33 Page Time: 0.114s Queries: 15 (0.004s) Memory: 0.9466 MB (Peak: 1.1705 MB) Data Comp: Zlib Server Time: 2024-03-29 08:42:55 UTC
Valid HTML 5 and Valid CSS