Gonzales is reduced to ashes!
SAM HOUSTON
Soon after she was taken to the Músquiz house, Susanna Dickinson asked if she could visit the Alamo. Francisca Músquiz told her it would not be permitted, as the dead bodies—those of her husband, Almeron, and many of their friends—were being burned. As confirmation, she pointed out the column of smoke rising from the Alameda, which occasionally wafted westward, the stench of charred flesh permeating every part of the city.
On Monday, the day after the battle, Susanna and the other women and children were escorted across Main Plaza to El Presidente’s quarters. Francisca Músquiz had provided food for them and some measure of comfort. Now the final disposition of these prisoners would be decided.
Santa Anna interviewed them all, one family at a time. He gave each widow two silver pesos and a blanket after they swore allegiance to him. Eliel Melton’s widow, Juana, was terrified that she would be punished for her recent marriage to one of the norteamericanos, and begged Anna Esparza not to mention it; Mrs. Esparza promised not to. The only two who escaped the humiliating interview with the general were the two daughters of Santa Anna’s old friend Angel Navarro.
Colonel Almonte translated when it was Susanna’s turn. Santa Anna seemed taken with the pretty Angelina. He said something in Spanish, and Almonte told Susanna that the general wanted to take her and her child to Mexico with him. Aghast, Susanna protested. Then the general expressed a wish to adopt her little girl—he would see that she was well educated, like his own children. Susanna had no husband, he pointed out, and no money, and would be incapable of caring for her child as Angelina deserved, but as his daughter, “she would have every advantage that money could procure.”
Never, said Susanna—she would “rather see the child starve than given into the hands of the author of such horror,” she announced, and listened while Almonte pleaded her case. Then she was escorted back to the Músquiz house before a decision was made. She had been numb with shock to this point, but when she realized the grimness of her situation, and possible plight, she broke down. For several days her grief and fear were beyond control.
Almonte finally persuaded Santa Anna to allow her to leave with her child. A few days later, she and Angelina were placed on a pony, given a mule with blankets and food, and started on the road to Gonzales. Almonte’s diminutive servant, Benjamin Harris, rode with her, “to assist her safe”—though Ben may have decided to cast his lot, at least for the present, with the Texians rather than risk being run through with a sword, as Santa Anna had threatened the night before the assault; one never knew when His Excellency might change his mind. His extensive experience as steward would guarantee him a job in New Orleans, or elsewhere.
The two rode past the Alamo, passing between the tall cottonwoods lining the Alameda. On each side Susanna could see a large pyre of bones, ashes, charred flesh, and wood—one sixty feet long, the other eighty. Her husband’s remains were in one of them.
Just beyond the Salado River, four miles east of town, someone raised his head from the tall grass beside the road and spoke, giving her a fright. It was Travis’s slave Joe, also released by the Mexicans.
Joe had been quizzed thoroughly by Santa Anna and Almonte—about Texas, the state of its army, and the number of Americans in it, among other things. Joe told him there were many American volunteers, and that more reinforcements from the United States were expected. The general told Joe that he had enough men to march to Washington if he chose—not the small village on the Brazos but the U.S. capital itself. Joe was made witness to a review of the Mexican troops, and was told there were eight thousand soldados on hand. That was about twice as many as there had been when the rest of Santa Anna’s army straggled into town in the days following the battle.
Joe and Ben took turns riding as they followed the Gonzales road over the prairies and through woods. Fortunately the cold weather had abated, and though the nights were cool, the days were sunny and warm. At Cibolo Creek, they caught up with a large Mexican force led by General Ramírez y Sesma, which had marched from Béxar that morning. The general gave Ben a proclamation from His Excellency to deliver to the American colonists. It was in English, written by Almonte, and addressed “to the inhabitants of Texas.” The missive justified the severe actions of the Mexican army, guaranteed just punishment for the traitorous pirates, and assured citizens that the rights of the innocent would be respected. “The supreme government has taken you under its protection, and will seek for your good,” he wrote. “The good have nothing to fear.”
The next day, Susanna and her companions pushed on ahead of the column. About midday on March 13, just east of where the road crossed Sandies Creek near the Castleman place, they spied three horsemen in the distance. Joe took to the tall grass and urged Mrs. Dickinson to do the same. He was sure they were Comanches. Susanna refused—she would as soon perish one way as another, she told him.
The three mounted men were not Comanches. They were scouts Deaf Smith, Henry Karnes, and Robert Handy, sent by General Houston to reconnoiter. After hearing her story, Karnes, who was on the fastest horse, galloped back to Gonzales to deliver the news and Santa Anna’s proclamation. Smith and Handy escorted the party eastward at a slower pace.
WEARING A RED CHEROKEE BLANKET coat over his buckskins and a feather in his hat, Sam Houston had left Washington on the afternoon of March 6, two days after the convention confirmed him as commander in chief of the army—regulars, volunteers, and militia. That morning, while the delegates were eating their breakfast, an express rider arrived with a letter from Travis dated March 3. While word spread and citizens gathered at the doors to listen, the missive was read before the assembly. When Travis’s report of the size of the Mexican force surrounding him and his passionate plea for reinforcements was finished, some of the representatives and citizens doubted the veracity of the dispatch. Only when a delegate familiar with Travis and his handwriting pronounced it genuine did the gathering accept it wholeheartedly.
Someone leaped to his feet and proposed that the entire body adjourn and ride to Béxar. His suggestion was greeted with cheers, and almost every member of the convention announced his intention to immediately depart for the front.
Sam Houston stood and implored them to stay, stressing the importance of finishing the job they had begun. Without a constitution and some sort of government, they would be considered little more than pirates, or an unorganized—even criminal—revolutionary movement. Much-needed American and international support would be minimal. Houston would leave as soon as possible to organize the army and ride to the aid of the Alamo garrison.
The delegates saw the wisdom of his argument and returned to their seats, where they were joined by Samuel Maverick, who had finally arrived in Washington. Houston left that afternoon with a few companions, riding south to San Felipe, then west to Burnham’s Crossing on the Colorado. He remained there for two days, much of his time spent dispatching express riders in several directions with orders and requests for reinforcements and supplies. He sent a courier to Fannin with orders to proceed to the west bank of the Cibolo and await the arrival of the forces in Gonzales. At last report, James Neill was there with a small group of men preparing to return to Béxar. But there was no point in rushing to Béxar until a sufficient number of volunteers had mustered.
Two days later, at four in the afternoon of March 11, Houston rode into Gonzales. He found Neill in charge of about three hundred volunteers bivouacked on the southern edge of the town. Most of them had only arrived in the last two or three days. Many were without arms. A few days earlier, on Monday, March 7, John Smith had finally headed west, leading another group of well-armed and well-provisioned volunteers, almost thirty men, with the goal of reinforcing the Alamo.
Houston assembled the men in town. He apprised them of the convention’s work and read the declaration of independence, his commission, and his orders. Then, remembered one young colonist, “he delivered a short speech setting forth in stirring words the complications of troubles that threatened our Republic, finally closing with a rousing appeal to every Texan to be loyal and true in that hour of need and peril.” They would begin organizing the army the next day.
Around sunset, two Tejanos rode into town from the west. Their names were Anselmo Vergara and Andres Barcena, and the news they brought was dire—“disagreeable intelligence,” as the man assigned to record their interview put it. They described the March 6 early-morning assault by Santa Anna’s army in sufficient detail, including the most important: “All within the Fort perished.”
Despite some contradictions in the men’s accounts, Houston suspected the story to be true—Travis had told John Smith that he would fire the eighteen-pounder every morning, noon, and evening as a signal that his garrison still held the Alamo, and no cannon had been heard since early Sunday. To prevent panic, Houston publicly pronounced the two Tejanos spies and ordered them taken into custody. But he could not prevent the spread of the news of the catastrophe to the townspeople of Gonzales. The town had contributed significantly to the Alamo garrison, and if the news was true, a dozen or so women, several of them expecting, were left widowed. “For hours after the receipt of the intelligence,” remembered a witness, “not a sound was heard, save the wild shrieks of the women, and the heartrending screams of the fatherless children.”
The story was further corroborated later that evening with the return of John Smith and his group of volunteers. On Tuesday night, they had reached Cibolo Creek, twenty-four miles from Béxar, and bivouacked. A heavy silence raised Smith’s suspicions. On Wednesday morning, he sent eight men as scouts toward the town. They had only proceeded six miles when they ran into an advance force of Mexican cavalry, which pursued them. They managed to gallop back to the Cibolo and warn Smith in time for the entire group to escape.
Houston had Captain Juan Seguín send two men to Casa Blanca, Seguín’s ranch, to ascertain the truth of the story, though by now he was sure it could not possibly be false. He dispatched another express rider to Goliad with the news of the Alamo’s fall and a change of orders: Fannin was to blow up the presidio there—one fort had fallen; they could not afford the fall of another—and immediately go back to Victoria, thirty miles northeast, on the Guadalupe’s east bank. “The immediate advance of the enemy may be confidently expected,” Houston concluded. “Prompt movements are therefore highly important.” Privately, he had no confidence in Fannin, and expected no cooperation from him. He quietly made preparations to retreat with his small army to the Colorado River, which, because it was wide, deep, and swiftly running, would make a more formidable natural defensive line.
The next day was spent organizing the men and electing officers. By Sunday, March 13, Seguín’s two Tejanos had not returned. But scouts Deaf Smith, Henry Karnes, and Robert Handy assured Houston that they would get within sight of Béxar, accurately assess the situation, and return within three days. They left that morning.
Sometime between eight and nine o’clock that evening, the redheaded Karnes rode into Gonzales with the news of Susanna Dickinson’s approach. Her eyewitness account of the Alamo’s fall served as final confirmation. Karnes also delivered more dire intelligence: according to Mrs. Dickinson, as many as two thousand Mexican soldiers were on the march eastward, and had spent the night of March 11 at Cibolo Creek. Santa Anna’s army might be just hours away from Gonzales.
Two thousand regulars, including a company of the feared Mexican lancers, against some four hundred untrained and undisciplined volunteers, many of them without arms or ammunition: Houston’s decision required little deliberation. “It would have been madness to hazard a contest,” he wrote two days later. “By falling back, Texas can rally, and defeat any force that can come against her.” Houston gave orders to immediately take up the line of retreat. He also dispatched some two dozen of Seguín’s Tejanos to the ranches on the lower San Antonio River to help protect the families there from Indian depredations, and put Seguín in command of the rear guard, with orders not to leave anyone behind. Twenty of Houston’s men immediately deserted, either to guard their families or to save their own skins. They would no doubt spread panic among the settlements to the east, which would make recruitment that much more difficult. But there was nothing to be done about that now.
Most of the few wagons Houston had brought with him were given to the families of Gonzales, and it was strongly suggested that they head east also, and as soon as possible. The army moved out around midnight, coming up from their campsite south of town and marching through the streets, most of the houses already empty and dark, others lit as their owners prepared to leave; the army’s only remaining cart, pulled by four oxen, carried the force’s meager supply of ammunition. With no way to transport their two cannon, the men tossed them into the Guadalupe.
During all this, Deaf Smith and Robert Handy rode in with Mrs. Dickinson, her daughter, Angelina, and their two companions. Wives and mothers surrounded Susanna, screaming and begging for news of their husbands and sons. She could only muster one answer: “All killed, all killed.” She was escorted to the house of James Tumlinson, whose wife, Elizabeth, took her in and comforted her. The Tumlinsons’ son George was with the Alamo garrison, and on the Sunday previous, they had been awakened by the rumble of distant cannon fire. When it ceased, Tumlinson had said, “Our boy is gone.” Mrs. Dickinson told them of the battle, and of the death of every man in the fort. Houston came to the house and listened with tears in his eyes. Then he advised everyone to leave with the rest of the families.
He returned to his men with the proclamation Mrs. Dickinson had carried from Santa Anna, which offered a pardon to all who would lay down their arms and submit, and certain death to anyone who did not. Houston read it to the men, then threw it down and stamped on it, shouting, “Death to Santa Anna, and down with despotism!” The men joined in on the shout. Some of the men were infuriated at the retreat orders. They were convinced they could “whip ten-to-one the carrion-eating convicts under Santa Anna,” as one cocky fifteen-year-old, a veteran of the battle of Béxar, would claim years later. A few of them would never forgive Houston, and would continue to criticize his every move over the next several weeks.
Left behind were ten men with orders to burn the town. “Not a roof large enough to shelter a Mexican’s head was to be left,” recalled one captain. A five-man squad started at each end of the town and with their torches made quick work of it. Kimble and Dickinson’s hat factory… the modest hotels of Turner and Smith… the mercantile stores of Miller and Eggleston… Sowell’s blacksmith shop… the unfinished log schoolhouse… all these and every residence in sight were set ablaze. Within minutes flames shot up into the sky.
In wagons, on horseback, and on foot, some leading animals packed with their belongings, the citizens of Gonzales moved eastward, aided by the few able-bodied men left in town. “Red Adam” Zumwalt, assisted by David Kent and a few of the older boys, directed the exodus of his family and the Kents. Byrd Lockhart led his large family and others along the road he had cleared almost a decade ago. Sidney Gaston Miller Kellogg, who had lost a brother and her first and second husbands in the Alamo, carried a baby, John B. Kellogg III, born the night before. Another ten widows walked through the streets of Gonzales with their children, as had the other evacuating families, leaving all they owned except for what they could carry.
Under a moonless sky, they trudged along the San Felipe road for hours, through scattered forests of oak and mesquite and long, open prairies of sandy loam, until they could barely lift their legs. Fortunately, the night was warm. Just before dawn the army halted at Peach Creek, about ten miles from Gonzales. As exhausted soldiers dropped to the ground, and Texian families continued to straggle into camp, a bright orange glow lit up the horizon behind them. When a series of explosions was heard on their backtrail, it touched off a panic. Many feared that the Mexican army and its artillery were close on their heels. Only when someone ventured that the cause of the explosions could have been the powder stores in the shops—someone else said it might have been the whiskey barrels, or barrels of some other liquor—did the bedraggled company settle down to a fitful attempt at rest and sleep.
Ahead of them the deserters and couriers spread the word of the fall of the Alamo and the rapid advance of the Mexican army, and hundreds of families packed up and set out on the roads east, toward the imagined safety of the Sabine River and the United States border. The Runaway Scrape, as the exodus would come to be known, had begun.
IN BÉXAR, the disparate elements of Santa Anna’s army finally began to arrive in the days after the battle: General Gaona’s brigade on March 7, General Filisola on the ninth, Andrade and the cavalry brigade on the tenth, and Tolsa’s brigade right behind them on the eleventh. That same day, units began moving out. General Morales left for Goliad to reinforce Urrea’s command with two infantry battalions. He was followed by Ramírez y Sesma—with two infantry battalions, fifty cavalrymen, and two cannon—who marched east over Powder House Hill toward Gonzales and the heart of the Anglo colonies: San Felipe. His immediate goal was the destruction of any rebel units, particularly those commanded by Sam Houston. His ultimate destination, if necessary, was Nacogdoches, near the Louisiana border.
Near Santa Anna’s quarters on Main Plaza, a tent was set up where various goods and supplies seized from the rebels were sold. They netted only $2,500—the best of the items had already been taken by His Excellency and his favorites.
For the town’s residents, life gradually returned to something close to normal. Although the soldiers occasionally took possession of materials and foodstuffs, there was no large-scale sacking, rape, or murder, as had happened in Zacatecas the previous May. So most of the bexareños who had fled before Santa Anna’s arrival gradually began to return to their homes, finding the town even more battered and shell-scarred than before. Others remained at their houses along the many rivers and creeks in the area—memories of Arredondo’s brutal retribution in 1813 were still fresh in their minds, and there were many townspeople who might reveal, to the new centralist authorities, the names of those who had cooperated with the rebels.
For his part, Santa Anna dallied with his young “bride,” and planned his strategy. Though some of his officers suggested he lead a fast-moving strike force east to find Houston’s army and crush the last of the rebel resistance, he felt no such urgency. The campaign was essentially over, it appeared. The three columns sweeping through Texas—Gaona to the north, up El Camino Real by way of Bastrop; Ramírez y Sesma through the central region, toward San Felipe; and Urrea to the south, along the coast—would quickly mop up the disintegrating colonists and their filibustering friends from the United States.
IN WASHINGTON, the convention had continued to work on hammering out a proper constitution, their work in the unheated hall made more comfortable by the arrival of warmer weather. It had been more than a week since Sam Houston rode out of town on March 6, in response to Travis’s stirring plea for reinforcements. Since that day, there had been no further word from the Alamo.
In the afternoon of Tuesday, March 15, a man arrived from Columbia, near the coast, with the news that the Mexican army had attacked the Alamo, but had been repulsed with great loss to the enemy. “The rumor was doubted, on account of the circuitous route by which it came,” recorded an observer in his diary. “All hoped it true, but many feared the worst.” A half hour later, an express rider rode in from Gonzales with reports from Houston detailing the fall of the Alamo and the death of every man in it save a few Negro servants. A subsequent letter from Juan Seguín to delegates Ruíz and Navarro confirmed the news. “Still some did, or affected to, disbelievement,” wrote the diarist.
But most did believe the news, and a panic seized the town. A few members of the convention left to go to their families. A delegate proposed that the proceedings be moved to a safer venue, but it was decided to remain. The arrival of Dr. John Sutherland in town with additional confirmation the next morning put the Alamo’s fate beyond any doubt. When more news arrived that the Mexican army was on the march east, the convention made haste to finish its work and at the same time prepared to leave town at a moment’s notice.
Late that night, the constitution was finally ready for approval. While rumors spread through town of a large Mexican force fording the Colorado River at Bastrop, some seventy-five miles away, the remaining delegates voted to accept the constitution. One more job remained: to fashion and elect a provisional government. New officers were sworn in at four the next morning, March 17, and the convention soon adjourned. The delegates joined the families and storekeepers of Washington in hastily packing up and fleeing. “The members are now dispersing in all directions with haste and in confusion,” wrote an observer:
A general panic seems to have seized them. Their families are exposed and defenseless, and thousands are moving off to the east. A constant stream of women and children, and some men, with wagons, carts and pack mules, are rushing across the Brazos night and day.
The tale of the country is becoming every day more and more gloomy…. An invaded, unarmed, unprovisioned country, without an army to oppose the invaders, and without money to raise one, now presents itself to their hitherto besotted and blinded minds and the awful cry has been heard from the midst of their assembly, “What shall we do to be saved?”
ON MARCH 11, Fannin dispatched a force of some thirty men with wagons to Refugio, thirty miles away, to evacuate Anglo settlers there. It was a foolish endeavor, as recent experience should have made clear to him. A few weeks earlier, James Grant and Frank Johnson had split up their small force at San Patricio, Grant taking twenty-six riders to round up wild mustangs for the Matamoros invasion they still envisioned, Johnson remaining in town to guard the hundred horses they already had. Early in the morning of February 27, in a driving rain, one hundred cavalrymen under the personal direction of General Urrea attacked Johnson and his thirty-four men. By dawn the battle was over. Ten Texians were dead, and eighteen taken prisoner. Only seven men escaped, including Johnson, who reached Goliad two days later. Four days later, on March 2, Urrea and eighty dragoons ambushed Grant and his detachment at Agua Dulce Creek, sixteen miles south of San Patricio, as the Texians herded several hundred horses toward town. The results were equally disastrous: six escapees and only six taken prisoner.
Word of each calamity reached Goliad a few days after its occurrence, as did abundant warning of Urrea’s presence in the area as his command swept up the coast from Matamoros. Clearly, small parties of rebels were not safe out in the open. That knowledge had not deterred Fannin.
Led by Captain Amon B. King, a former sheriff from Kentucky, the small company had reached Refugio on March 12. Instead of gathering the families and leaving immediately, King decided to punish loyalist rancheros in the area. When the rebels ran into lead elements of Urrea’s cavalry, who pinned them down in a church, King dispatched a courier to Fannin requesting help. William Ward and the Georgia Battalion of eighty men arrived the next day, March 13, and dispersed the Mexicans. Even then, King refused to return to Goliad, and that night rode out to raid a nearby ranch in search of more spies. The delay enabled Urrea to engage the rebels when they attempted to return to the church the next morning. The Texians established a strong position in a grove of trees along a river. The two forces fought until darkness, with King’s long rifles getting the best of it. Both Ward and King were short on powder and ball, and had to make their escape as best they could under cover of a moonless sky. Urrea tracked King’s detachment down the next morning and took it without a fight—what little powder they had was wet. By the next day they were back in Refugio, where thirty-three of them were executed. Ward and the bulk of his battalion would manage to evade capture for a week, until they were taken on March 22. They would eventually be returned to Goliad.
Meanwhile, on March 14, Fannin had received Houston’s news of the Alamo’s fall and his orders to blow up the fort at Goliad and fall back thirty miles east to Victoria, on the Guadalupe. He continued to wait for King and Ward to return, and then postponed a planned departure on the night of March 18, when scouts reported the night too murky. Finally, on March 19, his garrison spiked their heaviest pieces of artillery, loaded their wagons with five hundred extra muskets and as much ammunition as they could carry, put the town of Goliad to the torch, and marched east: about three hundred men, with nine brass cannon, a few howitzers, and several baggage wagons, all drawn by oxen. None of the wagons carried food; in their haste, the soldiers forgot to bring any. The column departed at eight a.m. The twelve-hour delay would prove fatal.
They spent much of the morning crossing the San Antonio River, and entered a large prairie extending twelve miles to heavy timber on Coleto Creek. Some of the unwieldy fieldpieces were abandoned along the way, followed by some of the men’s personal belongings, and finally a few of the overstuffed wagons. At noon, just a few miles before they reached the safety of the woods, Fannin called a halt, and the hungry oxen were unyoked and turned out to graze. Some of his officers protested, but Fannin’s low opinion of Mexican soldiers had him convinced that they would not dare attack a force of such size. An hour and a half later, when they were about to resume their march, a unit of Mexican cavalry was seen ahead, blocking their way.
Some of his officers advised making for the timber with all speed. But Fannin ordered his men to form a hollow square and prepare for battle. The four remaining cannon were placed at the corners.
The Mexicans, only about 340 of them at first, advanced. Fannin’s men held their fire until the horsemen were well within range. The barrage did efficient work on the Mexican ranks. They retreated. Another charge was ordered, then another. The Texian lines held firm, though the Mexican soldiers and cavalrymen fought bravely.
Over the next several hours, until sunset, the battle continued in a desultory fashion. The Mexicans had no cannon, which hindered their attack. But they were soon bolstered by the arrival of reinforcements.
By the time darkness fell, the Texians were low on ammunition and suffering from a severe lack of water—both for their overheated cannon and their wounded, whose cries of agony and discomfort lasted throughout the cold, wet night. The men worked until dawn digging a three-foot trench and erecting fortifications of wagons, dead horses, and even their dead comrades. A council of war was held, and some of the officers argued for a breakout under cover of darkness. But besides ten men killed, there were at least fifty wounded, and with too many of the oxen dead, there was no way to transport them. Fannin, who was injured in the right thigh, refused to consider any plan that would leave the wounded behind. They remained where they were.
Dawn brought the realization of new dangers. Mexican artillery positioned on high ground threatened to do severe damage to the rebels’ square. Fannin had hoped that his small force of cavalry, which had escaped, might bring aid from Victoria, about ten miles away, but there was no sign of reinforcements, and now it was clear they were badly outnumbered. After the Mexicans opened up with several barrages of round shot from their brass nine-pounders, a parley was arranged.
With the help of translators, Fannin treated directly with Urrea. Before he limped out to negotiate, he and his men had agreed that they would only surrender under honorable terms—or fight to the death.
Urrea demanded surrender at discretion—unconditional, no guarantees. Fannin insisted his soldiers be treated as prisoners of war. The agreement they signed included both conditions. Urrea, a man of honor, disagreed with his government’s policy of execution for the rebels, and promised Fannin he would do what he could to protect them. His own losses included fifty dead and 140 wounded, but he admired the valiant stand put up by Fannin and his men.
Fannin returned to camp and told his soldiers that they were to be treated as prisoners of war and eventually returned to Copano to be shipped to New Orleans under parole, not to fight against Mexican troops. Though some of them—particularly the New Orleans Greys—objected to the surrender, the rebels gave up their arms and were escorted back to Goliad. Ward and his Georgia Battalion were herded into the fort a few days later and joined their comrades confined in the church.
Though the conditions in the church were unpleasant—the men were packed so tightly together that only a few could lie down at one time, and they were only given some meat once a day—hopes were high that they would soon be paroled. Fannin and his adjutant were even escorted to Copano, near the coast, to book passage on a ship to New Orleans. The vessel had sailed, but when they returned to Goliad on Saturday, March 26, “they cheered the men with their good spirits and the kind treatment they had received,” remembered one of their doctors. Before retiring, some of the men sang “Home, Sweet Home” in anticipation of their coming freedom.
That evening a member of Santa Anna’s staff arrived at the fort with a message from His Excellency. Urrea had left one of his officers, Lieutenant Colonel José Nicolás de la Portilla, in charge and continued his sweep through southern Texas, taking Victoria with no resistance. He had directed de la Portilla to keep the rebels alive, and in a letter to Béxar, he attempted to intercede with Santa Anna for the lives of Fannin and his men. Santa Anna’s reply to Urrea was uncompromising: all foreigners captured with arms were to be treated as pirates and executed immediately. His orders to de la Portilla were the same. An hour after Santa Anna’s communiqué, a courier rode into Goliad with a message from Urrea: “Treat the prisoners with consideration, and particular their leader, Fanning.”
De la Portilla, a twenty-eight-year-old native of Jalapa so darkly complected he was called El Indio, considered himself a soldier, not an executioner. He, too, had been charmed by Fannin—they had recently shared a bottle of wine at dinner, where Fannin had drunk to the health of Urrea. De la Portilla spent a sleepless night agonizing over his choices—the last place he wanted to be was in the middle of a life-or-death argument between two superior officers. In the end, he concluded that he must obey the direct order of his commanding general.
At dawn the next morning, March 27, Palm Sunday, the uninjured Texians—save for a couple dozen spared as physicians, orderlies, or craftsmen—were awakened and divided into four groups. Each was given a different story: they were to march to Copano, or Matamoros, or gather wood, or drive cattle. They were led under heavy guard down three roads in different directions. About a half mile from the fort, each group was halted, then shot at close range. Those not killed on the first volley were shot again, bayoneted, or lanced by Mexican horsemen. Somehow twenty-eight men managed to escape across the San Antonio River.
Back at the fort, some of the fifty wounded, unable to walk, were dragged out and executed against the chapel wall. Others were taken to a spot near the gate, where soldados set them on the ground, bandaged their eyes, and shot them two at a time. The rest were slaughtered on their pallets.
Fannin was the last to die. His bravery during the battle had restored much of the confidence the men had lost in him, and indeed his own. Now he asked that his pocket watch be sent to his widow, that the executioners aim at his heart, and that he be given a Christian burial. His watch was kept by the Mexican officer directing the slaughter, and he was seated on a chair and shot in the face. His body was thrown on a pyre and burned with the rest of his soldiers.
When the escapees reached safety and told their tales, and the story of the Goliad massacre spread throughout Texas and beyond, the response in the United States and the rest of the world was outrage. Santa Anna had been considered the ruthless but honorable leader of a young republic fumbling toward the new ideal of liberty and equality. The death of every defender at the Alamo, and the execution of a few prisoners, was defensible; the massacre of almost four hundred unarmed men who had surrendered at discretion but had been led to believe they would be paroled was not. The news of such cruelty and bad faith turned much of the world’s opinion against Santa Anna and his troops, and sparked an outpouring of sympathy and a renewed effort throughout the United States to aid the enemies of such a despot. Thousands of volunteers, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, would soon begin making their way into Texas. For now, though, much of the civilian population of the new republic, and its small, irregular army, fled across Texas with Santa Anna’s Army of Operations at its heels.