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

Roger,

Was it an old cemetery that hwy ROW had encroached on?

Just wrote archaeologist son. The firm he works with does many hwy mitigation projects.

it was hwy 77 running through town, i think it might of been just as you were coming into town from the south and had crossed the river.

He said if it wasn't associated withthe mission he doesn't know. But it sounds native to me.

could of been.

Roger,

If you wanted, you could prolly stop by the TxDOT maintenance yard in Refugio, and they could prolly tell you all about it. Don't remember where the area engineers office for the county is. Prolly Victoria. But they would prolly let you read all About it in their files. If you were so inclined! .

Sure sounds like here, if not in the old mission campo santo (cemetery, in this case right in front of the church door) then somewhere esle on what already was or what would become the mission grounds.

You can see in the background the curve markers pointing left towards the bridge which is right there beyond the treeline....



The church was built on the foundation of the ruin of the old mission chapel. It was not easily apparent during my visit but back in the days the specific real estate the mission had been set on was by accounts a long-used camping area. So it could presumably have been a colonial-era or purely native burial or burials they came across.

Anyways, back to the main account, or at least a sideshow of the main account; a notorious Tejano named Jesus Cuellar otherwise AKA "El Comanche". Distrusted by both sides, but here doing his best to set up a battle somewhere on the prairie between Goliad and San Patricio.

First, from Andrew O'Boyle, of Fannin at Goliad....

http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/adp/archives/documents/survived.html

... a report brought in by a scout named "Comanche," of the advance of the Mexican army under General Urrea, toward San Patricio....

Our commander, by the advice of "Comanche," determined to march to San Patricio, leaving one company in garrison at Goliad. The character of the scout was notoriously bad, and Colonel Fannin was informed of the fact, but gave no heed of the warning, although two of us volunteered to go to San Patricio and ascertain the truth of the report. Three days ration were distributed, and everything was in readiness to commence the march the next morning...

Meanwhile, from the account of Col. Garay at San Patricio, of El Comanche and a carefully contrived ambush....

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

On the night of the 7th, Jesus Cuéllar, known as el Comanche, presented himself in San Patricio claiming that he had abandoned Fannin's force to throw himself upon the clemency of the Mexican government.He was very likely sent by Fannin to observe our force and position.... His brother, Salvador, who had accompanied our forces ever since we left Matamoros, pledged himself for his brother's loyalty.

[Cuellar] told General Urrea that Fannin had decided to attack him and that by this time he had probably effected a juncture with the force at the mission. Consequently he promised to take us to a spot where we could lay in ambush while he went and brought the enemy into our hands....

General Urrea, confiding in his sincerity, ordered 200 men, 1 cannon, and 150 cavalry to set out early in the morning of the 8th of March for Las Ratas, 8 leagues away, on the San Refugio road.

Anyways, back in Goliad fate intervened at one o'clock in the morning of the planned departure, and the fight El Comanche had sought to arrange never did take place...

everything was in readiness to commence the march the next morning, when an American named Ayres arrived from the Old Mission [Refugio], some fifteen miles distant in the direction of San Patricio, and brought some reliable news of the arrival of the Mexicans at that place.

...and the last Mexican mention of El Comanche....

When our destination was reached, Cuéllar left us and Gen. Urrea proceeded to arrange the small force to carry out his plan.

Coming across mention of this guy I thought, "Well hey, Blue Duck". But, as it turns out things were more complex than that.

Turns out El Comanche had served under Cos at the Battle of Bexar in December of '35 (wherein in the Texians had first won control of the Alamo), serving as his guide and actually being given a commission as a Lieutenant in the Mexican army. El Comanche had deserted then and gone over to the Texian side, providing information about Cos' deployment and actual strength useful to the Texians going into that fight.

In return the Texian interim government, such as it was, had given him a rank of Captain in the Texian Army.

The stated reason for El Comanche's original split with Mexico had allegedly been Santa Anna's mistreatment of a brother, tho I dunno where this reportedly occurred since Santa Anna was still 600 miles away down in Mexico at that point. Cuellar had some time previously been taken captive by Comanches and had lived with them for some years, hence the name. Such prolonged acquaintance and even intermarriage between Tejano and Indio was nothing unusual, the dividing lines being decidedly blurred after all, but in this case Mexican and Texian alike judged El Comanche to be el hombre muy malo.

If we had the likes of a John Glanton running loose somewhere down there, they had the likes of an El Comanche, a good reason for decent folks of all sorts to bear arms.

Only other thing I can find on the guy is that he would die at Goliad five years later during the years when that area had become a decidedly lawless place, whether El Comanche eventually met a violent end like John Glanton or was felled by a germ like Mustang Gray I cannot tell, the cause was not given.

Birdwatcher

yes it was in front of the church.

By Ayer's account, the fifteen men at Refugio not spared from execution endured a hellish night before being marched out again and shot. Urrea and presumably those officers who might have saved them had already left the scene, hastening north towards Goliad. There were no enlightened officers, no foreign nationals, nor compassionate mistresses of the officers left to save them.

Still present at Refugio were the more than 70 Mexican dead and grievously wounded. Worse, there had been no victory, the Americans in the mission church had slipped clean away during the night following the fight.

One thing apparent in the accounts from both sides too are the grievances of the local Tejano population against those Americans that had come to fight in the war, freshly arrived from wherever they had come from in the United States.

There had previously been a community of a couple of hundred Tejanos at Refugio, a thousand or more at Goliad. These people were dispossessed, plundered, burned out, in a some cases assaulted, ravished and even killed. The village at Refugio, such as it was, had been torched by Ward and King before the fight.

The few prior Anglo settlers and their families captured at Refugio, even Ayers who had been demonstrably bearing arms, were spared. As at San Patricio, these people had a prior amicable history with their Tejano neighbors, not so the American volunteers (One notable exception among the settlers was a man who's name has been written as Sajer, of German extraction, who was shot for the crime of having shot and killed a prominent Tejano. This man's remains might have been the sixteenth skeleton recovered from the mass grave at Refugio).

So, as would shortly true at Goliad, there was among the local population a perception that the executions were a form of justice. Whether this was true or not, not everyone who witnessed or participated in these killings felt that they were committing murder.

Birdwatcher

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.htm

I 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

Just a quick addition to move this thread along.

Here's a pic of the presidio at Goliad, La Bahia, fading light, last shots of a long day, photo enhanced to an artificial brightness....



The chapel would be where the Texian prisoners were packed in like sardines during the days between the battle and their execution. This walled compound was never a mission per se, but a military base located at the point where the road from Mexico proper via Matamoras and the road from Copano Bay both crossed the San Antonio River.

It was the loss of this post that would ultimately defeat General Cos 100 miles north of there in December of '35 at the Alamo, once Goliad fell to the Texians his lines of supply and communication were severed.

The mission proper lay across the river, a mostly unfortified church compound, said church still well-preserved today. Indeed San Antonio had been originally founded that way, with a separate fortification for the troops stationed there , but in San Antonio the fact that there came to be five missions scattered along twelve miles of river meant that the missions themselves also served as defensible strong points, and after secularization of the missions in the 1780's the adjacent walled compound of the San Antonio de Valero Mission became the place where the Alamo de Parras mounted cavalry outfit, sent north from Mexico, was stationed rather than the original presidio. No trace of the presidio remains, but over the sequent decades the old Valero mission compound came to be referred to simply as El Alamo after the unit stationed there.

Of Goliad in April of '36, When you look at the totality of events going into it, Fannin's defeat near Coleto Creek has an awful air of inevitability about it, the trap was already laid by the 17th. No way Fannin and his 250 men could slip out undetected. Some chance maybe if they had been issued 50 rounds per man and two days' rations and then forced-marched through the night, about like a Urrea might have done, but Fannin had no clue he was even in peril.

In fairness to Fannin, it seems no one man was really in charge at Goliad, which was the norm among the Texian forces at that time. At the Alamo Travis had been lucky in a sense that Bowie became incapacitated at the start by a severe illness and that immediately thereafter the arrival of Santa Anna had provided an overwhelming imminent threat to stifle opposition. Even so, as the line in the sand legend illustrates, Travis did not enjoy unquestioned obedience, but like Fannin could only rule by consensus.

One gets the impression that, at Goliad, why Fannin was able to occupy the position he did, such as it was, was because he was an actual employee of the New Orleans merchants and whoever their contacts were back in the 'States who were bankrolling the whole operation.

Birdwatcher

Birdy,

Worth a mention to above photo. The whitewashed house to extreme right is a facsimile of the birthplace Of Ignacio Zaragosa. The man who defeated the French at Puebla on 5 May 1862. His father was a Spanish officer garrisoned at La Bahia.

By the time Fannin dispatched at third of his force under Ward to Refugio on March 12th 1836, his 400 men had been occupying the walled compound at Goliad for more than a month. Many of these restless bands of adventurers, in search of land and glory, had seen no action at all since leaving home five months earlier beyond alienating and making refugees of the 1,000 Tejano residents of the Goliad community.

A supply ship sent from their sponsors in New Orleans had run aground and foundered. The men had run short of necessities, many being obliged to crudely fashion replacement clothing from tent canvas. Surviving letters and journals indicate there was no coffee or flour for most of that time, the garrison subsisting solely on boiled beef. This was considered a hardship, nobody on either side back then seems to have valued Texas longhorn cattle for their meat.

Morale was flagging, it was noted by with resentment by several that this garrison, a first line of defense against the expected route of invasion, consisted almost entirely of Americans recently arrived from the United States. Precious few of the 30,000 resident Americans previously living in Texas turned out in their own defense.

As was true of the Alamo, little understanding of the sort of war they were fighting was evident among the people present. Defending Goliad did make some sort of strategic sense in that it was at least located at a crossroads and a river crossing. As was also true of the Alamo however, a defender's reach extended only as far as their cannon could hit in the midst of this vast country, and after Santa Anna flanked them with an army of 5,000 at San Antonio de Bexar, trying to hold Goliad made no strategic sense at all.

Still, during that most of that month, even after news had arrived of the Fall of the Alamo, the prevailing mindset was to hold Goliad at all costs. Towards that end Fannin renamed the place Fort Defiance, holding it as a rallying point for the reinforcements and supplies expected to arrive from the coast and/or Victoria.

One gets the sense that affecting Fannin's thinking too was the considerable amount of weaponry he had been entrusted with by his employers.

In addition to some light field pieces he had brought with him to Goliad more than 600 muskets, or about 6,000 pounds of small arms, all drawn there by ox cart. Originally intended to arm the anticipated volunteers who would carry the war to Mexico, this was easily the largest store of arms in Texas, and indeed, beyond the few hundred nearly unserviceable surplus Brown Bess muskets left by Cos upon his negotiated withdrawal from the Alamo, it was the ONLY store of weapons of any consequence in Texas.

Hindsight is 20/20, we know now how things turned out, but at the time that store of weaponry would have been deemed by anyone to be absolutely critical to the Texian cause, but as it turned out trying to haul all this stuff away upon his withdrawal from Goliad would act as a ball and chain, effectively fixing Fannin's force in place out on the open prairie in front the likkes of a Urrea.

Adding to the problem was a general perception among the American volunteers from the top down that they could whip any number of Mexicans. Coming from where they did, with absolutely no prior experience with the sheer scale of Texas at its unfamiliar landscape, this attitude persisted to an amazing degree right up until the very end, even after Santa Anna had stormed the Alamo.

So during that month, the force was kept busy improving the fortifications. John Sowers-Brooks, the former Marine and Travis' indefatigable Senior Non-com, devised and built a volley fire apparatus wherein one man could fire several of those extra muskets at one time. Also a sort of armored causeway was constructed, at least 100 yards long between the fort and the San Antonio River, in recognition of the fact that had a siege actually occurred the fort could have been easily cut off from water. Unlike at the Alamo, there were no acequias or wells providing water to the high ground upon which the fort stood.

While all of this was occurring, having few mounted scouts and with the whole area swarming with mounted vaqueros allied to the other side, the command was left virtually blind with respect to developments on their front. The seeds of the upcoming catastrophe had thus been sown.

Birdwatcher

Fannin was in a real bind and folks then, as now, were quick to assign blame when things were tough.....

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

The signs of coming danger began to produce a feeling of anxiety, which was further increased by many vague and groundless rumors that circulated among the men.

The confinement in the garrison became irksome; our provisions, of which we had at first an abundance were becoming short; the restraints of discipline, now more necessary than ever in their enforcement, produced discontent and murmurs and a loss of confidence in their commander.

The practicability [or utility] of maintaining such forts, as it was in the wilderness, were fully discussed. Fannin was not slow to perceive the feeling coming over the men, and it caused a corresponding depression of his mind.

Leading Texians was never easy at the best of times and this was shaping up to be the worst of times. "Commanding Texians" would be too strong a term. Urrea had the luxury of command, no Texian leader ever did.

Fannin at that point bore the burden of knowing that he was THE game in town, nominal commander-in-chief of the largest extant Texian force then in the field, and personally responsible not only for the lives of his men but also for a virtual arsenal of cannon, small arms and ammunition that his employers had entrusted to him.

Worse, he had deployed 150 of those men, fully one-third of his force, on what turned out to be a fool's errand to Refugio and now could get no word from them.

So it must have seemed an act of providence when his cavalry unit, some twenty-eight men of yet another militia, the Mobile Grays under one Albert C. Horton, had returned from Victoria a short time before with a small train of ox-carts bearing food and supplies. After rationing the men for the retreat all they could not carry would be burned in place, but the ox-carts meant he now could potentially haul off those hundreds of extra muskets, at least some field pieces and the ammunition.

At least four successive messengers had been sent after King and Ward at Refugio but none had returned. One we know of, one of the Refugio Irish, had been captured by Garay's men and permitted to deliver his message to the besieged Ward inside the chapel. The other three almost certainly perished, intercepted along the way.

Finally Fannin dispatched one of those ubiquitous Scots, one Hugh MacDonald Frazer, late of Nova Scotia, one of the original Refugio Irish (ya, I know the contradiction). Frazer was one of those guys we wish we knew more about. He had been a leader of the Refugio Militia at the start of the war, and this time volunteered to go to Refugio after those four previous messengers had failed to return.

Almost certainly, based on passing mention in other survivor's accounts, Frazer took the logical step of contacting the local Tejanos around Refugio, with whom he was presumably still on friendly terms. By the evening of the 17th Frazer brought to Fannin the bad news about the events at Refugio and the size of the Mexican force now arrayed against him.

Bad news to be sure, but actionable intelligence at last.

As an aside, the ultimate fate of Frazer is unknown. Presumably he was captured with the rest of Fannin's force near Coleto Creek. Family tradition had it that he was executed at Goliad in the massacre but nobody knows for sure. Prior settlers like Frazer, personally known to their Tejano neighbors to be good people, were saved on at least some occasions. A Hugh MacDonald Frazer would be present a month later at San Jacinto, it may have been the same guy.

Birdwatcher

We could not remember ever having seen Fannin, usually so gallant and at times almost rash, so undecided as he was during the last eight days..... it seemed that one plan after another passed through his head. The large number seemed to confuse him and to hinder him in his usually prompt manner of reaching a decision on a given matter and putting it into speedy execution. Herman Ehrenberg.

Col. Fanning and Capt. Westover came to me, Col. Fanning asked me what I thought about retreating and leaving the fort; I told him that my opinion was that is was too late; for I made no doubt from what we had seen that we were entirely surrounded by the enemy, and that we had something like six weeks provisions and men enough to keep the enemy from breaking in for some time, as we had then about 360 men. Col. Fanning seemed to have his mind unsettled about it. Capt. Westover agreed with me, and said if we had left some three or four days before, he thought we might have escaped; but he made no doubt that we were surrounded now. Abel Morgan.

The only cavalry available to Fannin at this time were the Mobile Grays, twenty five to thirty men (depending upon the account) raised and financed by one Albert C. Horton, a wealthy planter from Georgia by way of Alabama who was termed their Colonel. By far the most famous member of this company had been the gallant and heroic James Butler Bonham, second cousin to Travis, who had willfully died with Travis at the Alamo, returning there to almost certain death just three days before the Fall, feeling obliged by honor to carry the message that no help was imminent.

The exact nature of the weaponry carried by the Mobile Grays is uncertain. Fighting as cavalry does seem to have appealed to those of the well-heeled Southern planter class, probably in part because of the implied romantic associations with knighthood, the works of Sir Walter Scott being very popular at that time. So we have Travis, Bonham, Horton and the future President of the Texas Republic, Mirabeau Lamar, all opting to go this route.

Cavalry represented a considerable expense above merely volunteering as a foot soldier. First was the cost of a good horse, the gear, and the upkeep. The single largest expense was the generally preferred weapon; a double shotgun, by this era either flintlock or percussion (worth noting here that the first user group to widely disseminate the new percussion cap technology had been bird hunters). Mirabeau Lamar's fine piece is currently on display in Austin, a custom weapon for which he famously paid $650 plus shipping, an exorbitant sum at the time.

To see his shotgun.....

http://www.thestoryoftexas.com/discover/artifacts/mirabeau-b-lamars-shotgun

We know that Travis brought a double to the Alamo, and was killed while firing it over the battlements on that last morning. Presumably a wealthy guy like Horton carried one too.

A double shotgun and a brace of horse pistols; interestingly the exact same weaponry some accounts say were carried by the famous trapper Jedediah Smith at the time of his fatal ambush by Comanches five years previously in present-day Kansas. While it doesn't seem likely that all of Horton's unit carried doubles, one can infer that they were heavily armed by the standards of the time, at least relative to De la Garza's vaqueros.

Texas, with its wide open spaces and vast distances, was a demanding location of horses and horsemen. Certainly the incoming Anglos would rise to the challenge, South Texas being where the classic cowboy culture, based upon the vaquero and ranchero model, would originate in the coming decades.

But overall, Horton's cavalry do not seem to have shone in their brief day of combat. One imagines too heavy and too slow relative to their lightweight and mobile opponents. Then too the well-handled rifle would turn out to be the queen of Plains combat, especially against opponents like Plains Indians and Tejano Vaqueros, neither of whom would stand to accept close combat with heavily armed cavalry.

On the evening of the 17th, while Urrea was actively closing the net around Fannin, Horton's reconnaissance of the area did at least discover Colonel Juan Morales and his 500 men, down from Bexar, camped on Urrea's orders just three miles above Goliad, but did not find the other Mexican forces gathering about them.

On the 18th, when Fannin had intended to evacuate, the garrison was distracted by a show of force by a large group of De la Garza's vaqueros openly appearing before the fort, across the river by the mission church. In response the Mobile Grays launched a furious charge, only to have the vaqueros predictably flee before them.

What followed was a protracted series of charges and counter charges, mostly for sport on the part of the vaqueros, and at one point involving the cannon of the fort and an infantry charge by the Texians, wading the San Antonio River up to their necks.

Few if any lives were lost, as Thomas Lindley of "Texas Ilaid" fame pointed out, all that was really accomplished was to distract the Texians' attention and to wear out the Grays' horses.

Meanwhile Urrea continued his methodical preparations.

Birdwatcher

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

Its probably no wonder Dr. Jack Shackleford of Courtland, Alabama turned out to be such a particularly good witness. Almost all of the Red Rovers militia he had raised and equipped, including his own son, would be executed at Goliad while Shackelford himself, who's doctoring skills were needed by the Mexicans after the bloody engagement, would be spared.

There is no suggestion that Shackleford knew what would happen on that horrible execution day, if anything it would appear at the time that he was being detained while his men and son were being deported to New Orleans. Then too, everyone in his company, like himself, had come voluntarily, knowing they might die. Still, Shackleford must have had abundant cause over the remaining 19 years of his life to relive these events. Today we would call it survivors' guilt or perhaps PTSD.

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

The lower road had been well examined by Horton's videttes, who reported all clear..... 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.

As our teams had become somewhat weary, and very much in want of food, from having been kept in the fort for the last twenty-four hours, Col. Fannin determined to halt and graze them, and that we also might have time to take a little refreshment. I remonstrated warmly against this measure, and urged the necessity of first reaching the Coleta, then about five miles distant.

In this matter I was overruled, and from the ardent manner in which I urged the necessity of getting under the protection of timber, I found the smiles of many, indicated a belief that at least I thought it prudent to take care of number one.

Here let me state one thing, lest I may be misunderstood: Col. Fannin and many others could not be made to believe that the Mexicans would dare follow us. He had too much contempt for their prowess, and too much confidence in the ability of his own little force....

We halted near an hour, and then took up our march. Horton's Company was sent in advance to examine the pass on the Coleto.

Meanwhile, Urrea had not been idle....

April 19. ...I was making ready to place our artillery on a high slope on the left bank of the river, within a rifleshot of the fort, and was about to cross with the cavalry for the purpose of inspecting the points by which the enemy could be approached, when I received notice that they had abandoned their position and were on the way to Guadalupe Victoria.

I immediately ordered 360 infantry and 80 cavalry to be ready to march, and at eleven o'clock, having confirmed my information, I set out to overtake them, leaving the rest of our force and the artillery and baggage under the care of Col. Francisco Garay, with instructions to explore the fort and take possession of it if it was really abandoned. I did not think it proper to take personal charge of this operation, fearing that the enemy might escape....

After marching two leagues, I was informed by my spies [De la Garza's vaqueros], whose activity is truly marvelous, that we were near the enemy, and that it seemed that they were not taking all the force that had garrisoned Goliad. I ordered 100 infantry to return, therefore, to protect the artillery and ammunitions which were being brought up, and redoubled the vigilance of the rest of my forces.


So Urrea succeeded in halting and bringing to bay out on the open plain Fannin's heavily armed force of 250 men while using just 260 soldados and 80 lancers of his own.

What a flying column of 80 Mexican lancers looked like we get from Ehrenberg.....

Our route led us through one of those charming landscapes where little prairies alternate with thin forests of oak without any undergrowth. Frequently we saw herds of cattle grazing on the luxuriant grass; and immense herds of deer looked with amazement at the little army wending its way through the stillness of the west. And the noble Andalusian horses, that had their beginning here with the horrible conquest of Mexico by Cortez, stamped away in close formation over the undulating prairie, and long after they had disappeared one could still hear the rumble of their fleeing hoofs.

Eight miles from Goliad begins a considerable treeless prairie, known as the nine-mile prairie. It was in this prairie that the army had warily advanced from four to five miles by three o'clock in the afternoon.

I and a few of my friends who were bringing up the rear-guard, were about two miles behind with the instructions to keep a watchful eye on the forest, which was several miles away to the left of us. Since not the least trace of an enemy had shown itself so far we rode carelessly along until we accidentally turned around noticed at a distance of about four miles a figure in the part of the forest through which we had just come that looked like a rider on horse back. Since, however, it did not move, we came to the conclusion that it was a tree or some other lifeless object. Without taking further notice of it we rode on.

A quarter of an hour might have passed; and as our army at a distance of one to one and one-half miles was moving at snail's pace ahead of us and as we did not wish to catch up with it, we decided to halt a little while to graze and rest our horses.

Now, first as we, let our gaze wander over the immense prairie to enjoy the beauty of the scene, we saw behind us near the edge of the forest a long black streak on the plain. It was impossible for us to tell what it was. A few though possibly that they were large herds of cattle that the settlers were driving eastward out of reach of the Mexicans. But this seemed improbable as all of those that stood on the side of the Texans had cleared the region west of the Guadalupe, since they would rather lose everything than to further bear the yoke of Santa Anna. As we looked more intently and observed the disturbing object more closely, we noticed a moving and twisting in the dark mass that grew larger and larger and in proportion to the distance ever plainer. We could no longer doubt that it was the Mexican cavalry that was following us in full gallop.

Hastily we mounted our horses and dashed off at full speed to our comrades to prepare them for the reception of the enemy. The news was received with a hurrah. Everything was at once prepared for battle. A hollow square was formed, and in this way, of course very slowly we continued our march.

Fannin, our commander, was a gallant and spirited warrior, but for the commanding officer, where he should act with independence, understanding, and decision, he was totally unfit. Instead of trying to reach the forest one mile away for the sake of our safety, where the Americans and the Texans are invincible, he decided to offer battle on an unfavorable, open terrain.

Urrea again....

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.

Birdwatcher

Thanks for keeping this up,and running Mike !

LOVE this thread,....and will advise that until one has dismantled and serviced an original Moore lock, he's missed one of gun lore and legend's REAL pleasures.

Mirabeau's Moore and Harris is quite a piece, ain't it ?

GTC

Yes it is, and it ain't commonly acknowledged where I am that such finished designs appeared as early as the 1830's. Common consensus for example has it that Travis' double at the Alamo was a flintlock, tho I have not heard any specific justification for that.

Thanks for the kind words, and I will say I have been learning as I posted. Prior to this, like most everyone else, I had consigned the whole Matamoras Expedition/Goliad Massacre to virtual irrelevance. We toss it aside prob'ly because of the dismal outcome.

Anyways, from that same phenomenal TAMU site, a more credible account of the confusion arising that morning when Fannin decided to pull out.

Charles B. Spain, of whom at first look I can find little, other than that he passed in 1853. Here writing of his arrival in Texas (with the New Orleans Greys???)and of Nacodoches back in December of '35.

There weren't no background checks for getting into a militia...

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

On the 10th, in the evening, we left Nacogdoches, and had gone about two miles, when Capt. Tarlton told the Orderly Sergeant to detach six men and go back for a man by the name of Smith who had two guns that belonged to the company. The Orderly, with Messrs. Perkins, Brown, Bull, Wright, Victor, and myself, went back and found Smith, who refused to go with us or to give up the guns unless Perkins would give him a receipt for them.

Perkins agreed to do so and was writing it when I saw Smith suddenly shove Brown back and draw his knife. He made a pass at Brown, and I caught the blow on my own knife. Smith then ran out of the door, and I pursued him, but not overtaking him, I saw no more of him until I got to Labahia, or Goliad, when he appeared to be every friendly to us all.


...and on the abundance of Texas in its pristine state, here the general East Central region, College Station - Bastrop....

From Tinoxticlan to Brasstrop, 80 miles, we did not see a house, but it certainly is the finest country in the world. It has more deer and turkey than any other region I have ever seen. I am confident that I saw not less than 300 deer in one drove. On the 24th I killed three buffalo; and two others were killed by some of the rest of the company. We must have seen 500-600 that day. At night we camped out on the St. Mark's River [San Marcos], where we could stand in camp and kill an abundance of turkies. The next night we encamped on the Guadalupe or Warlupe river.

Medical care, or the lack thereof....

On the second, or third day after we left San Antonio, one of our men, Mr. Pike, accidentally shot Mr. Childers. Captain Lawrence, myself and several others were left behind to have his leg dressed. We did so, and put him in an open wagon, but it jolted him so much, that before we could get him to Goliad, he was too far gone for medical assistance. He died six or seven days after we reached Goliad..

The events on the morning of the 19th, pre-dawn. After the skirmishing of the day before, scouts were sent out besides Horton's men to check for Mexicans and Tejanos. Of course they found them, these pre-dawn events didn't make it into other survivor's accounts is all.

"At least 200 horsemen", possibly De la Garza's vaqueros getting out of the way. Followed by one of those fog of war episodes, where they very nearly shot their own scouts.

That night we intended starting after dark, but some of our horsemen came up from the river, and said that there was a picket guard of the Mexicans at each ford. Col. Fannin then ordered Col. Horton to take his horse company and cross over the river with one of our company behind each of them, and to watch until we could have the artillery and baggage carried over. We thought it a very singular order, but we obeyed.

The horsemen went forward, and, in a short time, one of them came galloping back, and told us that there were at least 200 horsemen in the act of crossing. In a few minutes we heard horses coming and were ordered to form and receive a charge. They came within fifty yards of us before we could see them on account of the darkness. Captain Duval hailed them, when we found them to be our own men that we had sent to see if there was any chance of crossing that night.

We were very near shooting at them. One of our guns snapped; and if it had gone off, we should certainly have killed nearly every man, for we all had our triggers sprung and our rifles cocked. It was so dark that the Mexicans did not pursue us. We then returned to the fort, and the next morning, at 11 o'clock we were across the river.

Birdwatcher

Turns out it was a whole month ago already (another month from now, me and my son expect to be in England, post TT races already )...

I left Refugio towards evening and to make it to the Fannin surrender site had to jet 30 miles northeast towards Victoria on 77, turn left to go north on 59, and then left again ten miles east to a wide spot on the highway called Fannin, TX.

Fortunately traffic was running at the usual Texas 80 - 90 mph (woulda been 80 to 100+ on an innerstate). East of Refugio I snapped this photo, this is the sort of terrain Ward and his 120 guys were facing trying to sneak from Refugio to Victoria....



Eastbound on 59, the infamous Coleto Creek, maybe six miles from the battle site, had Fannin pushed on for another hour, he would have reached cover and water and as Urrea himself acknowledged, been difficult or impossible to dislodge. Dunno how it woulda turned out, Urrea would still have been Urrea, but suffice to say it coulda been a whole different ballgame....



The battle site park was about two miles south of the highway, down a quiet backroad, small place, maybe ten acres. First thing you see across the fence by the gate it this, a strange piece of antique steel in the middle of a landscaped star....



Turns out there was one William Lockhart Hunter, late of Kentucky, 26 years old at the time of this battle and the subsequent Goliad massacre, who not only lived to tell the tale but prospered later in life as a resident of Goliad....

http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/goliaddiverse3.htm

Hunter made an extraordinary escape from the "Fannin massacre." He was a member of the " New Orleans Grays"; he was shot down at the first fire, and remained for a considerable time unconscious. Upon reviving he could not move his body, as a dead comrade had fallen upon him. Being very weak from the loss of blood, he extricated himself with difficulty, and discovered that he had been stripped of his clothing, retaining only undershirt and drawers.

He summoned all his strength for one supreme effort to reach the river, and nearly failed in doing so. He submerged himelf in the water, and remained in that position all day. At night he crossed the river and struck out in an easterly direction. He came to a small stream the next morning, upon the banks of which he remained nearly all day, suffering excruciating pains from his wounds, and being rendered weak from the loss of blood and hunger.

He finally made another start, and soon came to another stream, and in following the course of this he came across his own tracks where he had crossed before. He then took down the creek, and came to a house, near the Coletto, where he found some Mexicans who could speak a few words of English, and received of them some clothing and food.

These people treated him with the utmost kindness and did all that they could to alleviate his pains. The owner of the jacal, Juan Reyna, had previously lived at the Goliad crossing, but had removed to avoid the unwelcome visits of the soldiers, who were continually passing between Goliad and Victoria.

With the aid of these Good Samaritans Hunter speedily recovered sufficient strength to resume his journey, when Señor Reyna himself accompanied him to the house of Mrs. Margaret Wright, wife of David R. Wright, five miles above Victoria, on the Guadalupe River....

She nursed Hunter with a mother's care, and sheltered him from the Mexicans until after the battle of San Jacinto. This statement I have from the lips of Judge Hunter himself, who now resides in Goliad, near the spot or that most terrible episode in his life.

Hunter had returned in subsequent decades and marked the site of the battle with a pile of rocks. In 1894, eight years after Hunter's death, a local landowner name of Sol Parks, concerned the exact spot would be forgotten, marked the spot with the cotton gin screw still there today.

The accuracy of Hunter's recollection was much more recently supported by a thorough archaeological exploration, the story told by 415 musket balls; .69 cal (Charleville and/or Springfield) for the Americans and .75 (Brown Bess)for the Mexicans (the following photos from the small but very good museum at the site)...



I was at first surprised that a single marker like that could mark a whole battle, but then I saw how small Fannin's formation really was; 250 men in a square, three deep (no doubt straight out of the Duke of Wellington's playbook at Waterloo). Subtracting the artillerymen at the four corners that gives a front line of no more than 20 men on each face of the square.

If figured 25 yards on a side, at it turned out that enclosed more area than that recalled in another survivor's account (same link)....

We drew our wagons into a cluster, formed ourselves into an oblong circle around them, and posted our artillery in positions to defend it: the circle was about 49 feet of shortest central diameter, and about 60 feet of longest diameter.

It was now 1 o'clock, P. M., at which time we were attacked on all sides by the enemy, with a brisk fire of musketry: we were ordered not to fire, until the word of command was given, in order to draw the enemy within rifle-shot. We reserved our fire for about ten minutes, and several were wounded in our ranks previous to our firing.

Two photos I took in the museum....





250 men corralled into that small space in the early afternoon; nowhere to run, no cover, no water, fully one in four of them dead or seriously wounded by the end of the day. Cold drizzle that night, enough to chill but not enough to drink, no fires possible because of rifle fire from the surrounding force. More than 100 enemy dead and wounded out in the darkness surrounding them.

Birdwatcher

Thanks Birdy! I always enjoy reading your historical posts.