Chapter V

GOLIAD.
(1835-1836.)

1. MESSENGERS OF DISTRESS.

On the 20th of December, 1835, there was a spirited meeting of citizens and soldiers at the old town of La Bahia (Goliad) on the San Antonio River.

La Bahia—which means “the bay”—was already old when Austin laid off his town on the Brazos. Captain Alonzo de Leon, on his way to attack La Salle at Fort St. Louis in 1689, stopped there; and in 1718 Don Domingo Ramon with his troopers and friars built there the Mission of Espiritu Santo (The Holy Ghost) for the benefit of the fierce Carankawae Indians.

The town had seen stirring times during the century and a half of its existence. There had been many Indian fights in and around the mission church, when the garrison was weak and the priests could not control their red-skinned converts; it was in the same church in 1812 that Magee’s army was besieged, and from its doors his Republicans sallied forth to their victorious hand-to-hand conflict with the Spaniards. Here, too, in 1819, General Long surrendered to the Mexicans and was carried away to a treacherous death.

And here in October, 1835, the Mexican commandant Sandoval had been surprised in his sleep by the Texans, his soldiers made prisoners, and the fort and its stores handed over to his captors.

The General Consultation at San Felipe in November, 1835, had thought it more prudent to declare their adherence to the Mexican republican constitution than to issue a declaration of independence.

The citizens and soldiers of Goliad, on the 20th of December following, boldly set their names to a document resolving “that the former state and department of Texas is and ought to be _a free, sovereign, and independent state_.”

Among the signers were several boys fifteen and sixteen years of age.

This paper was sent to the governor and his council at San Felipe by whom it was disapproved and suppressed. They thought it premature. But it was a straw that showed which way the revolutionary wind was blowing.

Captain Philip Dimitt, who was at the head of this movement, was commandant at the fortress at Goliad with about eighty men under his command.

Over at San Antonio at this time, there was much dissatisfaction among the volunteers remaining there. They were more restless than ever, with their own flag waving above the Alamo and no enemy in sight. They had left their homes and firesides for a purpose. It was fighting they were eager for, not idling around a camp-fire.

They were, therefore, delighted when an expedition was set on foot for the capture of Matamoras on the Rio Grande River. General Houston, who had fixed his headquarters at Washington on the Brazos, wished to place Colonel James Bowie in command of this expedition; but in the confusion arising from the quarrels between Governor Smith and his council at San Felipe, an English physician, named Grant, assumed the leadership (January, 1836).

Dr. Grant had taken part in the storming of San Antonio; he was brave and gallant, and a favorite with his fellow-soldiers. Two hundred volunteers gathered under his standard; he helped himself without leave to arms and ammunition from the fortress stores, took clothing and provisions from the townspeople, and started for Matamoras.

He halted at Goliad. But only long enough to seize and press into service Captain Dimitt’s drove of army horses.

Here by order of the council, who had decided to sustain Grant, he was joined by Colonel Frank W. Johnson, and they marched away, leaving Captain Dimitt indignant and angry.

The citizens and soldiers at San Antonio were likewise indignant and angry; and with far better reason. Colonel Neill, left by Johnson in command of the Alamo with only sixty men, sent to General Houston a report describing the helpless and suffering condition of that place after the high-handed raid of Grant and his volunteers.

Houston was much disturbed by this report. He enclosed it to Governor Smith, requesting him to refer it to the council. The commander-in-chief denounced the action of Grant in strong terms and added:

“Within thirty hours I shall set out for the army, and repair there with all possible dispatch. I pray that a confidential dispatch may meet me at Goliad.... No language can express my anguish of soul. Oh! save my poor country! Send supplies to the sick and the hungry, for God’s sake!”

He left Washington on the Brazos River on the 8th of January and reached Goliad on the 16th. On his arrival he sent for Colonel Bowie.

James Bowie had come to Texas with Long’s expedition. He was a famous Indian fighter. In 1831, near the near the old San Saba Mission, with ten companions, including his brother, Rezin Bowie, he had fought one hundred and sixty Comanches and Caddoes, armed with bows and arrows, and guns. The savages surprised and surrounded the little party, discharging their arrows and firing their guns in true Indian fashion from behind rocks, trees, and bushes. The fire was returned, and at every crack of a rifle a redskin bit the dust. The crafty warriors, finding they could not dislodge the hunters, set fire to the dry prairie grass; then they renewed the attack, rending the air with shrill yells. “The sparks flew so thick,” said Rezin Bowie afterward, “that we could not open our powder-horns without danger of being blown up.” But they held their ground. The Indians drew off at nightfall, and all night long the hunters heard them wailing their dead. The next morning the red warriors had disappeared. Bowie lost but one man in this fight; the Indians had eighty-two killed and wounded.

Bowie was as noted for his coolness and prudence as for his unflinching courage. In person he was tall and fair, with soft blue eyes, and a somewhat careless address. He had married a Mexican lady—the daughter of Vice-Governor Veramendi of San Antonio—and was devoted to the interests of Texas. He was the inventor of the deadly knife which bears his name.

The result of the interview between Houston and Bowie was that Bowie left Goliad the next morning for San Antonio, with a company of thirty men. He bore orders from Houston to Colonel Neill to leave San Antonio, blow up the fort, and bring off the artillery.

Colonel Neill found it impossible to get teams to transport the artillery; he therefore did not carry out any of these instructions. Bowie remained at San Antonio.

Houston made an effort to concentrate at Goliad and Refugio the slender force which made up his army. But he was so hampered by the intrigues and wrangling of the government officials, that early in February he gave up the command and returned to Washington on the Brazos, leaving Colonel James W. Fannin in command of Goliad, with four hundred men. On the 25th of the same month a messenger came into Goliad. His face was worn with an anxiety which he did not try to conceal; his eyes were heavy with fatigue. He sought Fannin and had a brief but earnest talk with him. Then he turned, setting his face in the direction whence he had come, and went his way.

This messenger was the fearless and courtly South Carolinian, James B. Bonham. His message was from Colonel Travis, pent up in the fortress of the Alamo and besieged by the army of Santa Anna. He appealed for help from Fannin and the army at Goliad.

On the 28th Fannin started with reinforcements of men and artillery to the relief of Travis; but before he was fairly on the way his wagons broke down. While he was trying to get them repaired, and at the same time uncertain as to whether he should go on to San Antonio or not, Placido Benevidas (Bā-nā-vee′das), one of Grant’s men, came up with weighty news. The Mexican General Urrea (Ur-rā′a) was marching upon Goliad with an army of one thousand men. Fannin returned in haste to the town and began to strengthen his fortifications.

San Patricio, where Grant and Johnson were encamped, was surprised on the night of the 28th of February by Urrea’s soldiers. The volunteers, with the exception of Johnson himself and four of his companions who managed to escape, were all captured or killed. Grant, who was out with a squad of men collecting horses, was killed some days later and his body frightfully mutilated.

2. IN CHURCH AND FORTRESS.

A line of blood and flame seemed indeed to be closing upon Texas. General Urrea, after destroying Grant and his volunteers, was advancing toward Goliad with one thousand men. Santa Anna, with an army of seven thousand, had invested San Antonio.

The defeat of General Cos had filled the haughty dictator of Mexico with fury. It was past belief that a handful of the despised colonists, armed with hunting-rifles, should have put to rout his own well-equipped regulars. He determined to punish this insolence as it deserved. And not only to punish, but to set an iron heel upon the rebellious province.

All prisoners were to be shot; all who had taken part in the revolution were to be driven out of the country; the best lands were to be divided among the Mexican soldiers. The expenses of the rebellion were to be paid by the Texans. All foreigners giving aid to the rebels were to be treated as pirates.

By the 1st of February Santa Anna had sent General Urrea to Matamoras, a town near the mouth of the Rio Grande River, with orders to proceed from that place against Refugio and Goliad. He himself took command of the main army, with General Filisola (Fee-lee-so′la) as second in command. General Cos and his men, who had taken oath not to bear arms again during the war, joined the army at the crossing of the Rio Grande River. On the 23d of February the first division of this united force appeared on the heights of the Alazan, west of San Antonio.

The soldiers of the garrison were scattered about the town. No warning of a near approach of the enemy had come, and things looked tranquil enough that morning, with the soft winter sunshine flooding the yellow adobe walls and glinting the limpid river.

A cry from the sentinel posted on the roof of San Fernando Church startled the stillness; its echoes leaped from street to street; the alarum bells burst into a clanging peal. The Mexicans were already pouring down the slopes west of the San Pedro River.

The garrison hastily crossed the San Antonio River and entered the fortress of the Alamo. One of the officers, Lieutenant Dickinson, galloped in on horseback, with his baby on his arm and his wife behind him. Some beef-cattle grazing around the fort were driven in and the gates were closed.

Colonel William B. Travis had succeeded Neill in the command of the fort, which was garrisoned by one hundred and forty-five men. Travis was but twenty-eight years of age; confident, bold, determined, and full of patriotic ardor. Colonel James Bowie was second in command.

Among other defenders of the Alamo were Colonel James B. Bonham of South Carolina and David Crockett of Tennessee—“Davy” Crockett, the backwoodsman, bear-hunter, wit, and politician. Crockett had reached San Antonio just before the siege, with a small company of Tennesseeans, and offered his services to Travis. He was a picturesque figure in his fringed and belted buck-skin blouse and coon-skin cap. His long rifle, Betsy, had “spoken” in the war of 1812, and echoed since on many an Indian trail. Its last word was to be spoken at the defense of the Alamo.

The Mission of the Alamo, established in 1703 and several times removed, was finally built, in 1744, on the spot where it now stands. Like the other missions, it was both a church and a fortress. It is on the east side of the San Antonio River, facing the town to westward. The cross-shaped church, slit with narrow windows and partly roofless, stood on the southeast corner of a walled plaza several acres in extent. The other buildings—convent, hospital, barracks, and prison—were within the enclosure. There was also a small convent-yard adjoining the chapel. All of the buildings were of stone; the enclosing walls were built of adobe bricks. The sacristy of the church was used as a powder magazine. The place was defended by fourteen pieces of artillery.

Santa Anna arrived in person on the 23d. He took possession of San Antonio town and sent a summons to the rebels in the Alamo for unconditional surrender. Travis received and dismissed the messengers with courtesy; then answered by the mouth of a cannon, “No.” At the defiant boom which stirred the peaceful air of the valley, a blood-red flag was placed upon the tower of San Fernando, proclaiming “no quarter”; and a thunder of guns opened the attack.

The besiegers at first made little headway. If they ventured across the river they were within reach of those unerring rifles they had such cause to dread. It was the third day before they succeeded in planting a battery between the fort and the bridge.

The besieged within the fortress were calm and confident, though they were kept day and night at rifle and cannon. But they were fighting at fearful odds. Travis sent out an impassioned appeal to the council for aid. He also dispatched Colonel Bonham to Goliad, asking for Fannin’s assistance. At the same time he proudly wrote: “I shall never surrender or retreat.”

On the eighth day of the siege thirty-two volunteers from Gonzales succeeded in passing the Mexican lines and entered the fort. Two days later Colonel Bonham slipped in alone, but bringing news that Fannin would march at once with men and artillery. On the 1st of March Travis wrote to the council; it was his last letter. “I shall continue to hold this place,” he said, “until I get relief from my countrymen, or I shall perish in the attempt.”

But steady as was his spirit, he could not shut his eyes to the fact that the desperate game was well-nigh played out. On the 4th of March he called his men together and made them a short but ringing speech. There was, he told them, no longer any hope of reinforcements; death was staring them all in the face, and nothing remained but to sell their lives as dearly as possible. “Now,” he concluded, drawing a line on the ground with his sword, “whoever is willing to die like a hero, let him cross this line.” There was not a moment of hesitation. Gravely and silently, one by one, the men, with one exception,[22] stepped across the line and ranged themselves beside their leader. Bowie, who was sick, had himself lifted over in his cot.

Sunday morning, March 6, between midnight and dawn, the final assault was made by the besiegers. The Mexican bugles sounded the notes of _Duquelo_ (no quarter); the thunder of cannon followed. The devoted little band of Texans, weary and worn with constant watching and incessant fighting, sprang to arms as cheerfully and quickly as to a holiday parade.

The Mexicans, two thousand five hundred strong, closed about the walls. They were provided with scaling ladders, axes, and crowbars. A cordon of cavalry was placed around the fort to prevent escape.

The enemy advanced in the gray dawnlight, under a deadly fire from the fort. Twice they placed their ladders against the walls, and twice they recoiled before the terrible hail of shot and shell poured upon them from the fort. The third time, driven by their officers at the point of the sword, the soldiers climbed the walls and swarmed over into the enclosure. Then began a stubborn and bloody combat, which strewed the plaza with corpses. The Texans fought grimly, silently, furiously, with pistols, with knives, with the butts of their rifles, dropping one by one, but sending as they fell scores of Mexicans to a bloody death.

It was in the old church, dedicated to peace and prayer, that the last conflict took place. Here Crockett was killed, with Betsy, his long rifle, whose voice had resounded clearly above the uproar, in his hand. Bowie was slaughtered in his cot, after killing several of his assailants. Major T. C. Evans was shot in the act of putting fire to the powder magazine, as he had promised to do in case things came to the worst.

Mrs. Dickinson and her child, with two Mexican women, were in a small arched room to the right of the chapel door. They were saved by the kindness of the Mexican officer, Colonel Almonte.

The tall form of Travis had towered for an instant only above the battle-waves near a breach in the north wall; then he had gone down, his brave heart stilled forever. With his last breath he cried in a voice which rang above the deadly tumult: “_No rendirse muchachos!_” (Don’t surrender, boys!)

Bonham fell near him and almost at the same moment.

Before nine o’clock the butchery was complete. Two thousand five hundred Mexicans, cavalry, artillery, and infantry, fresh and unwearied, had conquered after eleven days’ siege a handful of poorly armed, outworn “rebels.”

Santa Anna directed the assault from a battery near the river. After the carnage was ended he came into the fort. He surveyed the bloody scene with a smile of satisfaction. His victory had cost him a thousand or more of dead and many wounded; but what did that matter? Not a Texan was left to tell the tale of the Alamo!

The next day the dead bodies of the Texans were collected in heaps and burned. The smoke of that fire ascended to high heaven like a prayer for vengeance. The answer when it came was terrible.

Mrs. Dickinson and her child, two Mexican women, and a negro servant belonging to Travis were the only survivors of this massacre. Mrs. Dickinson was placed on a horse with her child in her arms and sent by Santa Anna to the colonists with an insolent message announcing the fall of the Alamo.

3. FORT DEFIANCE.

On the 1st of March the General Convention met at Washington on the Brazos. On the 2d, while Travis’ signal guns were still sending their sturdy boom across the prairies, a declaration of independence was read and adopted.

Houston was made commander-in-chief of the armies of the Republic of Texas. David G. Burnet was elected President and Lorenzo D. Zavala Vice-President. Thomas J. Rusk was made Secretary of War.

Sunday, the 6th of March, the day the Alamo fell, Travis’ last appeal reached Washington—after the hand that wrote it was cold in death. His letter was read by the President to the members of the convention; it produced a powerful effect. In the first burst of feeling it was even proposed that the convention should adjourn, arm, and march to San Antonio.

Houston spoke earnestly against such a step, and as soon as quiet was restored, he himself with two or three companions left for Gonzales, where the new volunteers were ordered to gather.

The air as he rode westward was thick with rumors. He arrived at Gonzales on the 11th. The same day came the first tidings of the fall of the Alamo. It filled the town with a wail of desolation. Of the thirty-two men who had marched from Gonzales to the relief of Travis, and to their own death, twenty had left wives and children behind them.

The arrival of Mrs. Dickinson with her child, and her story of the siege with all its ghastly details, added to the gloom. The moans of the widow and the fatherless mingled with the dreary bustle of preparation for flight. For it was rumored that the bloodthirsty Mexicans were approaching.

General Houston had found three hundred recruits at Gonzales. But they were unprepared for an attack; they had neither provisions nor munitions of war; the place was without defenses of any kind. He therefore gave orders for retreat. At nightfall on the 13th the forlorn handful of women and children mounted horses, or clambered into wagons where a few household goods had been hastily piled; the troops formed around them, and at midnight the march began.

As they moved away across the prairie a light reddened the sky behind them. It came from the flames of their own burning houses. A cry burst from the women, and the eyes already swollen with weeping overflowed again at the sight of their desolated hearthstones.

When Colonel Fannin found himself unable to march to the relief of the Alamo, he reëntered Goliad. He now knew that Urrea was advancing rapidly, and he made haste to strengthen his position. He had at this time five hundred men under his command. They occupied the Mission of Espiritu Santo, called by Fannin Fort Defiance. Earthworks had been thrown up around the old church, ditches dug, and cannon mounted. But the defenses were weak, the men were poorly fed and scantily clad. They were often compelled to mount guard barefoot. Fannin was filled with gloomy forebodings, although the signal-guns of the Alamo, which were to be fired as long as the flag continued to wave over that fortress, were not yet silenced.

About the 12th of March Captain King was sent by Fannin with a small detachment of men to bring away the women and children from Refugio, a small town about twenty miles distant. King was attacked by the advance guard of Urrea’s army, and had barely time to throw himself into the mission church at Refugio. From there he sent to Fannin for more troops. Colonel Ward, with one hundred and twenty-five men, immediately joined him in the church where he was entrenched.

The next morning (14th) Captain King with his men left the fort on a scouting expedition. About three miles from the mission they were surprised by a large body of Mexicans, to whom they surrendered. A few hours later they were stripped of their clothing by their captors and shot. Their unburied bodies were left to decay on the open prairie.

The same morning, about ten o’clock, fifteen of Ward’s men were sent from the mission to the river about a hundred yards away to get water. They had filled two barrels and placed them on a cart drawn by a couple of oxen, and were about returning to the fort when some bullets sang over their heads. A glance showed them the Mexican army on the other side of the river, not half a mile distant. They hurried on as fast as they could, and reached the mission in safety with a good part of the water. One barrel was emptied of about half of its contents through a hole made by a shot from the advancing enemy.

Urrea attacked the barricaded church. The battle lasted nearly all day, but late in the afternoon he drew off his beaten and discouraged force; he had two hundred killed and wounded. Ward’s loss was three wounded.

But the ammunition of the besieged was nearly exhausted, and that night, after supplying the three wounded men with water, Colonel Ward and his men stole quietly out of the church and slipped unseen past the Mexican sentinels.

On the 21st, after weary marches through swamp and thicket and constant skirmishes with the enemy, they surrendered on honorable terms to Urrea, and were taken back to Goliad.

4. PALM SUNDAY.

Fannin turned away from General Houston’s messenger on the morning of the 13th (March) with an anxious and gloomy face. The messenger, Captain Desauque, had just come in from Gonzales, leaving woe and despair behind him. He brought the black tidings of the fall of the Alamo, and he bore orders from the commander-in-chief for Fannin to blow up the fort, bury or throw into the river such of the cannon as he could not bring away, and retreat to Victoria on the Guadalupe River.

There was scant time in which to mourn the fall of the Alamo, but the dark looks on the men’s faces, as they buried the guns and demolished the fortifications, told of what they were thinking.

Fannin sent a courier to Ward and King, ordering them to return at once from Refugio; this courier, as well as others sent later, was captured by Mexican scouts.

Fannin waited five days in great suspense, loth to abandon these officers and the women and children whom they had been sent to protect.

At length came the news of Ward’s retreat from Refugio. The remaining works of Fort Defiance were destroyed, the buildings were set on fire, artillery and ammunition were loaded on wagons; the drums called the men from their ruined quarters. Mrs. Cash, the only woman left in Goliad, was placed in their midst, and, with a last glance at Fort Defiance, Fannin began his fatal retreat.

This was on the 19th of March.

The wagons, enveloped in fog, creaked their way across the San Antonio River and over the prairie beyond. The troops marched steadily. An ominous silence reigned everywhere; not even a Mexican scout was to be seen.

Several miles from Goliad Fannin halted an hour in the open prairie to allow his jaded and hungry ox-teams to graze. At the moment the march was taken up, a line of Mexican cavalry came out of the wood skirting the Colita (Co-lee′ta) Creek two miles away. Their arms glistened in the sunlight, for the fog had lifted. A compact mass of infantry followed. Urrea’s entire army was upon them.

Fannin immediately formed his men in a hollow square with the wagons and teams in the center. His position had the double disadvantage of being unprotected and in a miry hollow some feet below the surface of the prairie around. But his men received the Mexican advance with a volley from the artillery and a galling fire from their rifles.[23]

The cannon, for want of water to sponge them, soon became useless. With small arms alone, charge after charge of the enemy was repulsed; the prairie was soon covered with dead and dying men and horses.

Early in the action Fannin received a severe wound in his thigh, but in spite of this he continued to direct his men with great courage and coolness.

Many a poor fellow loaded and fired his gun with his own life-blood wetting the sod about him. One lad, named Hal Ripley, fifteen years of age, after his thigh was broken by a ball, climbed, with Mrs. Cash’s help, into her cart. There, with his back propped and a rest for his rifle, he fired away calmly until another bullet shattered his right arm. He had, in the meantime, killed four Mexicans. “Now, Mother Cash,” he said cheerfully, “you may take me down.”[24]

At dark the Mexicans ceased firing and made their camp in the timber. Their bugles sounded shrilly the livelong night. That night was one of agony in the bloody little camp on the prairie. There were but seven Texans killed, but more than sixty were badly wounded. These groaned in the darkness, begging for water which could not be had, imploring aid which mortal hand was powerless to give. Those who were not wounded lay breathless and exhausted on the trampled ground, staring up at the sky and wondering what the morrow would bring forth.

The morrow brought no help to them. To the already large force of Urrea it brought reinforcements to the number of three or four hundred men with artillery, ammunition, and supplies.

Fannin watched the enemy ranging his men under the morning sky and dragging his cannon into place; then his haggard eyes sought his own brave little band. They were without food, drink, or ammunition; their teams were killed or disabled; their cannon were useless; the cries of their wounded rose mournfully on the heavy air. He called his officers together and submitted the question: “Shall we surrender or not?” The private soldiers were then asked to decide for themselves.

During this consultation Mrs. Cash went to the Mexican camp to beg for water for the wounded men. She was accompanied by her son, a boy of fourteen years, who, like Hal Ripley, had fought the day before with the best and the bravest. They passed over the prairie strewn with the dead and dying, and entered the presence of the Mexican general. “I have come, sir,” she said, fearlessly, “to ask you before the fighting begins again, to give me water for our wounded.” Urrea looked at her without replying, and then his eyes fell upon the shot-pouch and powder-horn of the boy. “Woman,” he demanded sternly, “are you not ashamed to bring a child like that into such scenes?” The boy himself answered with his blue eyes kindling: “Young as I am, sir,” he said, “I know my rights, as everybody in Texas does, and I mean to have them or die.”

What the general might have said in answer to this insolent speech cannot be known, for at that moment a white flag was raised in the Texan camp.

The majority of Fannin’s men were in favor of surrender, though many thought in their hearts it would be better to die with arms in their hands like the defenders of the Alamo. Fannin himself was opposed to surrender. “We beat them off yesterday,” he declared, “and we can do it again to-day.”

Favorable terms were secured from General Urrea by Fannin, and the prisoners of war were marched back to Goliad and placed in the mission church—Fannin’s Fort Defiance. The wounded were brought in the next day and housed in the barracks; and several days later Ward and his men were thrust into the overcrowded church.

The prisoners were ill fed and badly treated. But when the first shock of their defeat had passed, they began to look forward eagerly to their release. They were told that they were to be placed at once on ships and sent to New Orleans, where they would be paroled and set at liberty.

On the Saturday evening after their capture, the sounds of gay laughter echoed from the time-stained walls of the chapel. The men sang “Home, Sweet Home,” to the music of a flute played by one of their number. Fannin talked of his wife and children far into the night.

The next day was Palm Sunday.

In the old days of the mission, the Indian converts were accustomed on Palm Sunday to walk up the aisles of the church bearing green branches in their hands, in memory of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem; and hymns of joy and praise mingled with the incense which arose from the altar.

At just the sunrise hour, when in those old times the converts came carrying their dewy sweet-smelling boughs from the forest, the prisoners were awakened by their guards and marched out of the church. They were formed into four divisions and hurried away under various pretences. Some were even told that they were starting home.

Three-quarters of a mile from the fort they were halted, drawn up in sections, and ordered to kneel. Everything had been so orderly, so natural, so swift, that only at the last moment did the men realize what was about to happen. “My God, boys,” cried a voice that echoed like a shot on the clear air, “they are going to kill us.”

The guns of the guards were already turned upon the prisoners. A deliberate discharge followed this despairing cry; another, and another, and a heap of writhing, bleeding bodies was all that remained of Fannin’s gallant band. A few escaped, struggling to their feet and fleeing to the swamp pursued by shots and curses. The surgeons and one or two others were saved by the kindness of Colonel Garay, a Mexican officer.[25] One of these, Dr. Shackelford, captain of the Red Rovers, heard the firing as he entered the tent of his preserver. He did not know that anything had gone wrong; but he trembled and turned pale, and well he might! For three of his young nephews and his own son were among the killed.

Señora Alvarez, a Mexican woman, concealed several prisoners until after the massacre, and afterward helped them to escape. It was her tears and entreaties which moved Colonel Garay to risk keeping the surgeons in his tent. While the butchery was going on, she stood in the plaza, with her black hair streaming over her shoulders; and with flashing eyes she denounced Santa Anna and called down the vengeance of heaven upon his head. When she learned that Dr. Shackelford’s son had been shot, she burst into tears and cried out, “Oh, if I had only known, I would have saved him.”

Her husband was one of Urrea’s officers, and her kindness to the Texan prisoners throughout the war ought never to be forgotten. “Her name,” writes one of the survivors of the massacre, “should be written in letters of gold.”

The two brave boys, Harry Ripley and young Cash, were also among the slain.

The wounded men were then dragged out of their beds and shot. Fannin, who was the last to die, met his fate inside the fort, it is even said inside the consecrated church. His high courage sustained him to the end. After receiving the promise of the officer in charge that he should not be shot in the head, that his body should be decently buried, and that his watch should be sent to his wife, he fastened the bandage about his eyes with his own hands, and welcomed death like a soldier. Not one of the promises made to him was kept.

The dead Texans to the number of three hundred and fifty were stripped of their clothing and piled, naked, in heaps on the ground. A little brushwood was thrown over them and set on fire. It burned, crackling a few moments, and then the flames died out. The half-consumed flesh was torn from the bones by vultures.

This cold-blooded murder was done by order of Santa Anna. For it, as for the massacre at the Alamo, a deadly vengeance was at hand.

5. REMEMBER THE ALAMO! REMEMBER GOLIAD!

On the morning of the 21st of April, 1836, Houston, with his army of seven hundred Texans, and Santa Anna, with his army of more than twice that number of Mexicans, were encamped within a mile of each other near the banks of Buffalo Bayou.

The country was in a wild panic. Men, women, and children were fleeing before the very rumor of Santa Anna’s approach, as in the pioneer days they had not fled before the tomahawks of the Comanches.

Houston’s slow retreat[26] (begun on March 13), from Gonzales to the Colorado, from the Colorado to various points on the Brazos, with the enemy close upon his rear, had filled the stoutest hearts with doubt and alarm. After more than two months of suspense charged with the terrible episodes of San Patricio, Refugio, the Alamo, and Goliad, and the burning of San Felipe, Gonzales, and Harrisburg, the people began to ask of each other what would be the end.

Here at last, on an open field and in a fair fight, the question was about to be answered.

Santa Anna, after the fall of the Alamo, was filled with vain glory. He called himself the Napoleon of the West, and looked upon the Texan “rebels” as already conquered and suppliant at his feet. From his headquarters at San Antonio he directed his army to possess the country and to shoot every man taken with a gun in his hand. One division, under General Gaona, was ordered to Nacogdoches; General Urrea, after the battle of Colita, was ordered to sweep the coast from Victoria to Anahuac with his division; the central division, under Generals Sesma and Filisola, followed Houston almost step by step in his retreat. Santa Anna himself accompanied this division.

On the 15th of April, believing that Houston was at last in his power, the Mexican commander-in-chief left his main army on the Brazos and marched, with about one thousand men, to Harrisburg, where he hoped to capture President Burnet and the members of his cabinet. He found Harrisburg deserted; whereupon he set fire to the town, and hurried to New Washington. From there, after burning the straggling village, he intended to move on to Lynch’s Ferry (now Lynchburg) at the junction of Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River. His plan was to pursue the government officials to Galveston, whither they had retreated, make them prisoners, and so end the war. While his troops were in line for the ferry (April 20) he was startled by the arrival of a scout who reported the approach of Houston with his entire command. Santa Anna, thus cut off from his army, was taken completely by surprise.

This was the moment Houston had so long awaited.

“We need not talk,” he said to Rusk, the Secretary of War, who was with the army. “You think we ought to fight, and I think so, too.”

The rising sun of April 21 looked down bright and glowing upon the two hostile camps. The Texans were in a grove of moss-hung live oaks; in front of them a rolling prairie, gay with spring flowers, stretched away to the marshy bottom lands of the San Jacinto River; behind them Buffalo Bayou rolled its dark waters to Galveston Bay. The “Twin Sisters,” two small cannon presented to the Republic by the citizens of Cincinnati, were planted on the rising ground before the camp. They were flanked on either side by the infantry. The cavalry, under the command of Mirabeau B. Lamar, was placed in the rear.

Santa Anna’s camp also faced the prairie, but it had directly in the rear the oozy, grass-grown San Jacinto marsh.

The day before (20th) when the ground was first occupied by the two armies, there had been some skirmishing. But this morning passed in a quiet, which was broken only by the arrival of General Cos at the enemy’s camp with a reinforcement of five hundred men.

Toward noon a profound silence fell upon the Mexican camp. The men, officers and soldiers, from Santa Anna to the humblest private, were taking their _siesta_ (afternoon nap).

Meantime, General Houston, after a short consultation with his officers, sent for Deaf Smith.

Deaf Smith was a bold, cool-headed, shrewd guide and spy, who had come from New York to Texas in 1821. He was hard of hearing (hence his nickname), silent and secretive in his manner, with the instinct and the unerring sight of a savage. It was Deaf Smith who had guided Fannin and Bowie from La Espada to Mission Concepcion, and led Johnson and Milam through the dark streets at the storming of San Antonio. It was he who had been sent to meet Mrs. Dickinson on her dreary journey from the Alamo; and when General Houston retreated from Gonzales, Deaf Smith, with one or two companions, was left to spy upon the movements of the enemy.

Houston dispatched Smith with secret orders to cut down and burn Vince’s bridge, about eight miles distant.

This bridge, which both armies had crossed on their march to their present position, spanned Vince’s Bayou, a narrow but deep stream running into Buffalo Bayou. To destroy it was to destroy the only means of retreat for either army.

General Houston, after making these arrangements, paraded his army. The men were in high spirits. Their eyes were dancing, their fingers itched to pull the triggers of their guns. The day was waning; it was nearly three o’clock in the afternoon. At this moment Deaf Smith galloped in, his horse white with foam, with the news that Vince’s bridge had been burned.

The order to advance was given. A single fife struck up the curiously inappropriate tune, “Will you come to the bower I have shaded for you.” The cannon were rushed forward within two hundred yards of the Mexican camp, and fire belched from the mouth of the “twins.” The left wing of infantry under Colonel Sidney Sherman began the attack. There was a cry which split the air: “Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!” and the whole force hurled itself forward like an avalanche.

The effect was appalling. The Mexicans half awake, dazed and bewildered by the sudden charge, hardly tried after their first feeble volley, to return the fire of their assailants. Within a few moments the Texans, still uttering their hoarse watchword of vengeance, had leaped the barricade, and were in the very heart of Santa Anna’s camp.

Too excited or too thirsty for revenge to load, they beat down the foe with the butts of their rifles, clubbed them with pistols, slashed them with keen-edged bowie knives. The Mexicans fled like frightened sheep, some into the muddy morass where they were caught as in a trap, others toward the bayou and the ruined bridge, others again to the cover of the timber where they made haste to surrender. “Me no Alamo! Me no Alamo!” cried many of the panic-stricken soldiers, falling on their knees before their captors.

By twilight the fleeing Mexicans were nearly all captured or killed, and the victors had time to breathe and to count their own dead. They had seven dead and twenty-seven wounded. Among the latter was General Houston, who received a wound in the ankle, which caused him to limp during the remainder of his life.

The Mexicans lost six hundred and thirty-two killed and two hundred and eight wounded. Seven hundred and thirty-two prisoners were taken.

Among the prisoners were the oath-breaker, General Cos;[27] Almonte, Santa Anna’s private secretary; and Colonel Portillia, the officer who had been in command at Goliad when Fannin and his men were shot. General Santa Anna, riding a handsome black horse, had escaped. He was pursued as he fled from the field by Henry Karnes, who knew from the flying horseman’s glittering uniform that he must be an officer of rank; he did not dream, however, that he was following Santa Anna. He felt sure of capturing the officer at Vince’s Bayou, for he rode straight for the destroyed bridge. But after a single second of hesitation on the bank, the horse and rider seemed to rise in the air and then plunge downward. When Captain Karnes reached the stream, the gallant animal was floundering in the mud on the opposite side, unable to clamber up the steep bank. The rider had disappeared.

6. TWO GENERALS.

The next morning (22nd) General Houston was lying under an oak somewhat apart from the camp. The pain of his wound had kept him awake during the night, and he was sleeping lightly. Suddenly an excited murmur ran through the camp, a clamor of Mexican voices arose: “El Presidente! El Presidente!” and some soldiers approached, having in their midst a man dressed in soiled linen trousers, a blue jacket, a soldier’s cap, and red worsted slippers. His linen, however, was of the finest, and he wore jeweled studs in his shirt front.

Houston, awakened by the noise, looked up. His visitor bowed. “I am,” he said in Spanish, “General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, and a prisoner of war, at your service.” He had just been captured, hiding, miserable and forlorn, in the long grass on the further side of the bayou. Houston waved his hand to a tool-chest near by, and Santa Anna sat down.

A greater physical contrast can hardly be imagined than that between these two men now gazing steadily and silently at each other.

The Dictator of Mexico was small and thin and not above five feet five inches in height. His swarthy face was ill-favored almost to repulsiveness; his small black eyes were cold and cruel. Houston was tall and finely proportioned, with fair complexion, open forehead, and fine blue eyes. Perhaps the one point of resemblance between the two generals lay in a certain foppishness in dress. But on this occasion this appeared in neither. Santa Anna had exchanged his gaudy uniform for the disguise he wore, and Houston was ill-kempt and shabby in his old campaign uniform.

Almonte, who had been sent for to act as interpreter, now came up and the interview began. Santa Anna was at first very humble; he even wept copiously. But after swallowing some opium he recovered his arrogance, and demanded to be treated as a prisoner of war. He wished to arrange for his immediate release.

When Houston dryly asked what consideration he could expect after the bloody scenes at the Alamo and Goliad, he pleaded the usage of war for the carnage at the Alamo. As for Goliad, he declared that Urrea had deceived him with regard to Fannin’s surrender, and pretended to denounce his subordinate officer in bitter terms. “Urrea told me Fannin was vanquished,” he said, “and I was ordered by my government to shoot every man found with a weapon in his hand.”

“You are yourself the government,” Houston replied curtly. “A Dictator has no superior.”

“I have the order of Congress,” Santa Anna insisted, “and that compels me to treat as pirates all who are found under arms. Urrea had no authority to make an agreement with Fannin. He has deceived me, and when I am free he shall suffer for it.”

Houston listened to this bluster, but declined to make terms with his prisoner, that power belonging alone to the Texan Congress.

He treated the unfortunate general with generous courtesy, returning to him his tents and personal effects, and permitting him to be waited upon by his own servants.

An order signed by Santa Anna was carried by Deaf Smith and Henry Karnes to General Filisola, the second in command, who was encamped near San Felipe, to conduct the Mexican troops to the Rio Grande.

The Texan soldiers could not understand the mercy shown to the Mexican prisoners, particularly to Santa Anna, the cruel and heartless foe who had tortured and put to death so many of their brave countrymen. With dark and angry looks and open threats they swarmed about the place of the interview. Some of the officers were in favor of a drumhead court-martial and an immediate execution. But better counsels prevailed, and Santa Anna was allowed to retire to his camp-bed and rest in peace.

The night which followed the victory was one of wild and grotesque rejoicing in the Texan camp. Huge bonfires were lighted, and by the red glow of their flames, the soldiers danced and sang and told over and over again the story of the great day and its triumphs. The Mexican camp was overhauled; the victors decked themselves with the arms of their foes, buckling about their waists two, three, or four brace of pistols, with powder-horns, shot-pouches, sabers, and bowie knives. They rigged out the captured mules with the gold epaulets of the Mexican officers, and the green and red cap-cords of the grenadiers. Then, lighting hundreds of wax candles found among the spoils, they paraded gayly about, waking the echoes of the night with their shouts of laughter. All this was not in very good taste, and it naturally made the prisoners very angry. But they might well have reflected that at least it was a better way of rejoicing over a victory than shooting prisoners in cold blood and setting fire to their naked corpses.

The military stores taken in the battle, the cannon, small arms, ammunition, and mules, were kept by the government. The camp baggage was sold at auction, and the proceeds, with the contents of the military money-chest, were divided among the soldiers. This money, which amounted to about seven dollars and a half to each man, was all that they received for their service during the whole war.

General Santa Anna’s handsome silver-mounted saddle was purchased and presented to General Houston. The jeweled dagger handed to his captors by the Mexican General was also given to Houston.

7. HOW THE GOOD NEWS WAS BROUGHT.

On the approach of Santa Anna’s army, President Burnet and his cabinet retired from Harrisburg to Galveston Island. They were closely pressed by the advance of the Mexican cavalry under Almonte. As the President stepped upon the flatboat which was to take him to the schooner _Flash_, at the mouth of the San Jacinto, he was for several moments a target for Mexican guns. But he reached the _Flash_ in safety, and the boat sailed across the bay to the almost deserted island. There, while the government officials waited in great anxiety and suspense for news from the army, they were joined by a large number of fugitives who had fled from their homes in the general panic. The steamboat _Yellowstone_—which had conveyed Houston’s army across the Brazos at Groce’s Ferry—came down loaded with refugees from the Brazos and Colorado. At Fort Bend it had passed the Mexican army under a hot fire. The smokestacks were riddled with bullet holes. The Mexican cavalrymen had tried at several points to lasso the boat from the bank as it steamed by, but fortunately their ropes were too short.

The _Yellowstone_ brought news that Houston’s army was on the road to Harrisburg. Burnet knew, therefore, that the long-delayed fight would take place soon or never. Very few people had any faith left in Houston’s ability to defeat the Mexican army. Santa Anna was looked for in Galveston at any moment. Nearly all the women and children had already been placed on board the _Flash_, and the captain of the boat had orders to sail for New Orleans, where they would be safe.

General Houston’s first duty, after settling affairs in his somewhat disordered camp, was to send an express to the President with news of the victory, and to request him to come and treat in person with Santa Anna.

At the battle of Concepcion Captain Robert Calder, then a private posted in the mission tower, had given notice of the enemy’s approach. This young officer, who had also fought most gallantly in the battle of San Jacinto, volunteered to bear the General’s dispatches to President Burnet. It is not to the young captain’s discredit that the presence on the island of the beautiful girl whom he afterward married had something to do with his eagerness to perform this service.

He started on the morning of the 23d accompanied by B. C. Franklin and two soldiers detailed for the expedition. No boat was to be had except an open and weather-stained skiff with two pairs of oars. No provisions could be procured; the country around had been swept clean by the Mexicans. But the little party paddled away cheerily down the bayou. Late at night they found some food in a deserted cabin on the bank. The next day they entered the bay. The waves were rough; it was hard rowing and the boat leaked badly. Captain Calder had most of the work to do, the others having given out completely. Much of the way they coasted close to the shore, Calder wading and shoving or pulling the skiff along. They saw but one living human being on their trip. This was a wild African negro who had perhaps escaped from some slave-ship on the coast. On the fifth day they crossed from Virginia Point to the war-schooner _Invincible_, which was lying in the bay off Galveston. As they approached, Captain Brown hailed them through his speaking trumpet: “What news?”

The unexpected reply, “Houston has defeated Santa Anna and captured his whole army,” caused an instant outburst of wild excitement. The wet, weary, and hungry messengers were dragged on board and questioned by everybody at once. Captain Brown cried to his gunners: “Turn loose old Tom.” Old Tom, the cannon, was fired three times before Captain Brown remembered that it was the business of the Commodore to order a salute. “Hold on there, boys,” he said, “or old Hawkins will have me in irons.”

He sent Captain Calder and his men over to the flag-ship _Independence_, where Commodore Hawkins received them with enthusiasm and ordered a salute of thirteen guns.

The news spread among the ships and through the fleet of small boats that swarmed up to hear the story. It passed on to the land, where people were running about in a wild state of alarm at the sound of the commodore’s guns. Alarm was changed to joy. The refugees hugged each other, weeping tears of gladness, and fairly beside themselves with delight. President Burnet received Captain Calder in his tent and heard the story of the battle with deep emotion.

The young captain, “having changed his clothes,” as he relates, went in search of the bright-eyed girl whom he had not seen since the war began. As he passed, unknown, through the groups of men, he heard one man exclaim: “What! the whole Mexican army defeated and Santa Anna taken prisoner? No, gentlemen; these fellows are scoundrels and deserters. It is too big a story, and they ought to be taken into custody at once!”

President Burnet and his suite boarded the _Yellowstone_ the same day (April 27) and steamed up to the new camp near Harrisburg, whither Houston had removed his army. There he met Santa Anna and arranged the basis of a treaty which the Mexican general signed on the part of his country.

By the terms of the treaty the Mexican army was to withdraw from Texas soil; hostilities were to cease; American prisoners were to be released; and all property seized during the invasion was to be returned to the owners. Santa Anna was to be liberated at the discretion of the Congress.

On the 3d day of May the Mexican prisoners were placed on board the _Yellowstone_ and carried to Galveston island, where they were kept under close guard.

President Burnet accompanied Santa Anna to the coast, whence it was intended to embark the Mexican general at once for Vera Cruz.

Soon after the battle of San Jacinto, General Houston, leaving Rusk, who had recently been appointed brigadier-general, in command of the army, went to New Orleans to have his shattered ankle treated by his own physician.

Filisola had heard of the defeat and capture of his commander-in-chief and was already in full retreat when Santa Anna’s order reached him. He arrived at Goliad about the 20th of May.

Here, on the 26th, Commissioners Benjamin Fort Smith and Henry Teal found him. They had been sent by President Burnet with a copy of the treaty between Santa Anna and the Texan congress for Filisola’s signature. He signed it, and continued his march westward to the Rio Grande.

On June 4 General Rusk—who had followed with the Texan army to see that the Mexicans retreated in good faith—stopped at Goliad to fulfill a sacred duty. This was to collect and bury the remains of the victims of the Palm Sunday massacre.

The charred and sun-dried skeletons scattered about the ground were gathered together and reverently laid in a pit dug for the purpose. The army was paraded inside the fort, and from thence, slowly and with reversed arms, to the beat of muffled drums, the soldiers marched to the chosen spot. With the procession walked several of Fannin’s men who had escaped death on that fatal Sunday.

Red River
Trinity R.
Brazos R.
Colorado R.
Nacogdoches
San Augustine
Old San Antonio Road
Guadaloupe R.
San Antonio
Nueces R.
Rio Grande del Norte
Presidio of San Juan Bautista
Sabine R.
Neches R.
Washington
San Felipe de Gonzales
Austin
Anahuac
Harrisburg
Columbia
Brazoria
La Vaca R.
Golita Cr.
Victoria
Goliad
Refugio
San Patricio
Matamoros
Galveston I.
Velasco
GULF OF MEXICO
Matamoros

General Rusk began an address, the troops standing around him. “But in truth he did not finish what he intended to say, for he was overpowered by his feelings, and the tears rolled down his cheeks, and he had to stop speaking. There were but few dry eyes on that occasion.”[28]

So powerful was the impression produced on the men who assisted in this mournful ceremony that General Andrade (An-dra′dā), who was bringing up the rear of the Mexican army, was advised by Rusk that it would not be safe for him to attempt to pass through Goliad, as he could not answer for what his own men might do. Andrade was therefore obliged to cut a crossing seven or eight miles long through the chapparal thickets, in order to reach the main road. The Mexican army marched slowly westward with trailing banners. San Antonio and other places held by Mexican garrisons were given up. At length the Rio Grande was reached and crossed.

The independence of Texas was achieved.