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As one of the few semi-professional soldiers among the rebels it should come as no surprise that Colonel James Fannin realized that Goliad was the only decent fort in Texas and promptly made himself comfortable there on February 12. He was not alone, 400 men from the expedition to Matamaros had agreed to garrison the fort after realizing that that the expedition was a bit rash even by Go Ahead standards.

When Fannin learned on February 26 that the Mexican army had surrounded the Alamo, he immediately decided to leave 100 men to guard Goliad and prepared to march with the rest of his men to San Antonio, a hundred miles away. Most of his men were barefoot, and underfed, so they had only covered two miles when they had to stop because several of the wagons had broken down. Informed that desperately needed supplies were waiting at Matagorda Bay, Fannin eagerly used picking up the supplies as an excuse for calling off the relief mission. Back in Goliad, he was told that the remaining sixty men who had continued with Colonel Frank Johnson to Matamoros had been destroyed by cavalry under General Jose Urrea, which ended any thought of relieving the Alamo for the moment.

When news arrived that the Alamo was continuing to hold out against overwhelming odds, Fannin began to regain his confidence. Aware that Urrea’s troops were nearby, Fannin decided to send just half of his force to the Alamo and expected to have them moving by March 2 but they never actually left. Instead, he sent a message to the Alamo saying that he was not coming.

Although the delegates to the Texas Convention declared independence on March 3 and Sam Houston was made commander of the army the next day, it was not until March 9 that he sent orders to Fannin to advance to the Cibolo River, while he gathered men at Gonzales in preparation for relieving the Alamo. However, Houston arrived at Gonzales on March 11 to find less than two hundred men waiting, so the next day he ordered Fannin to abandon Goliad and fall back to the Guadalupe River near Victoria in order to protect Copano.

Unfortunately for Houston’s plan, the same day that Fannin received Houston’s orders, he learned that troops sent to help evacuate Refugio needed help so he dispatched two hundred men under Ward to relieve them but those troops were mauled by Urrea on March 14 before they could reach Refugio. Although Urrea had accumulated a total of sixty prisoners, he had resisted executing them even though they were slowing him down, but on March 16, he intercepted a message from Fannin saying that he would wait for Ward before abandoning Goliad. Realizing that he had a priceless opportunity, Urrea ordered thirty of the prisoners executed (the mercenaries) and the other thirty (Tejanos and colonists) released, as the army raced towards Goliad.

With a garrison of 400 men, a safe water supply and cannon-proofed walls strengthened with packed earth, Goliad could probably have been held indefinitely, so Fannin was naturally tempted to stay and fight. Actually, it did not really matter whether he retreated or stayed, as long as he started preparing immediately, but he could not make up his mind. Even the appearance of the lead elements of Urrea’s army could not force him to make a decision, instead he wasted a day ordering the artillery buried, dug up and then buried again. This lack of decision should not come as a surprise since Fannin had realized that he did not possess the necessary temperament to lead militia and had repeatedly requested to be relieved of his command.

Urrea’s troops arrived on March 18 and began preparing to besiege the fort but the rebels were able to slip out the next morning under the cover of fog. Unfortunately, they did not have much of a head start and Urrea’s cavalry moved much faster than Fannin’s men, who were slowed down by overloaded carts because the troops had decided to take all of their possessions with them. When the oxen seemed about to give out, Fannin decided to halt in an open field in sight of Coleto Creek Forest, which offered cover and a water supply. He did not press on because he was confident that his rear guard would warn him and he believed that Mexican troops were useless. However, the men in the rear guard had been napping and were woken up by the sound of the Mexican cavalry, so they barely escaped with their lives.

Facing disaster, Fannin got his troops moving as fast as they could toward the safety of the forest but oxen are slow and Urrea’s cavalry easily cut them off. The surrounded rebels formed a square and fired grapeshot from the cannon to hold off the Mexicans until nightfall. The men could have escaped in the darkness but the oxen had been killed by Mexican snipers and Fannin refused to leave the wounded. Urrea received reinforcements during the night, so the Mexican force grew from a few hundred men to a thousand with real artillery. Fannin was down to 200 men and he had hopes that his cavalry commander, Colonel Albert Horton, would arrive with reinforcements from Victoria but Horton and forty men showed up just in time to see the rebels surrender. They were marched back to Goliad where several days later they were joined by Colonel Ward and 120 men who had initially escaped Urrea but got lost and were captured.

Unknown to the prisoners, Urrea was negotiating with Santa Anna to spare their lives because he felt that killing that many men was too much. He had a total of 500 prisoners, including 82 rebel volunteers from New York who had been caught a few days earlier when they landed at Copano. Fed up with Urrea’s defiance, Santa Anna sent a direct order to the officer in charge of the prisoners, Colonel Jose Portilla, who had them all executed on March 27. The troops had refused to believe that they would be executed and had expected that they were being sent home. Among Fannin’s men were the sixty men of the Alabama Red Rovers, which had been mainly recruited from the small town of Courtland, Alabama, so Courtland lost most of its young men that day. 100 men were spared, either skilled laborers or doctors, although a few were saved by Mexican soldiers and the wives of officers, who hid as many as they could, and a handful of men escaped the executions by running away in the confusion.

The slaughter of the Alamo’s garrison, the destruction of the Matamoros expedition, and the capture and execution of Goliad’s garrison meant that Houston was head of a basically non-existent army. Ignoring the intense disapproval of his officers, he exchanged his original plan of digging in along the Guadalupe River for a simpler plan, namely retreat as fast and far as possible from the advancing Mexican army.  

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Further Reading:

Duel of Eagles: The Mexican and US Fight for the Alamo-Jeff Long, New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc, 1990.

It is simply an excellent book that covers the entire Texan War of Independence and punctures pretty much every myth about Texan independence. Brief yet insightful biographies introduce all of the major participants. The final chapter quickly covers the Republic’s short history and the Mexican War that followed the American annexation of Texas but focuses more on the tragic lives of Travis’ slave Joe and Susannah Dickinson, as well as the further misadventures of Santa Anna. Long’s writing is entertaining although occasionally a bit too melodramatic, which was probably the result of reading so many diaries filled with florid language. I imagine a great number of Texans must have been offended when his book came out.

Lone Star Rising: The Revolutionary Birth of the Texas Republic-William C. Davis, New York: Free Press, 2004.

A surprisingly long section of the book is an in-depth look at the Mexican revolution and previous attempts by American filibusters and other foreign schemers, including the Lafitte syndicate, to seize control of Mexico that took place during the chaos of the revolution. The infighting among American filibusters, the Lafitte syndicate, former followers of Napoleon, and Mexican revolutionaries makes for fascinating reading. Another lengthy chapter is devoted to the story of Austin’s land grants and the development of legitimate colonies, where the colonists learned to depend on themselves. I am pleased that Davis does not just compare the Mexican Revolution to the American Revolution but also to the revolutions in Central and South America, which is a more valid comparison. However, no mention is made of the steady drinking that accompanied the majority of decisions during the Texan revolution and he fails to make the main actors come to life. Unfortunately, the detailed examination of the background and situation in Mexico means that the battle for the Alamo is covered in a single chapter. Davis also gives some credence to the hallowed myth that Bowie and Travis decided to hold the Alamo to buy time for Houston to build an army, believing that it is an important part of Texan history.

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