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Last Updated 06/20/05
Email: joy@our-town.com
March 27, 1836 Goliad
by Joyce Whitis
The morning was clear and cool, on that March 27, one hundred and sixty- nine years ago. Mexican guards woke up the Texians that had been taken prisoners March 20. These men were part of General Fannin’s volunteers, captured at Coleto Prairie.
The Texians had been held prisoners at the fort in Goliad for eight days and been treated well. They had been told that they would be free to go home soon and indeed the prisoners had joined together in singing, “Home Sweet Home” just the night before. Now the guards summoned them to form three groups and indicated that they were going to march to the San Antonio River where a boat would take them to New Orleans. The mood of the prisoners was a happy one as they marched along in the free air, certain that soon they would see their families once more. The past months had been ones of hardship and discouragement as they struggled against vastly superior Mexican forces and they chaffed under the questionable leadership of Col. James Fannin.
Fannin had accepted the Colonel’s bars given him by Sam Houston, although as a former appointee to West Point, he thought he should have been made Brigadier General. Fannin, a tall, gangling Georgian of 32 years, suffered from the same problem that haunted Shakespeare’s Prince Hamlet. That is, he just could not make a decision and follow through. He was a bad advertisement for West Point where he ran away after a quarrel with another cadet. His running away was one of the few decisive actions he ever undertook. He had tried to decide whether to answer Travis’ urgent letter for reinforcements at the Alamo…..he didn’t, or to attack the city of Matamoros….he didn’t, or to follow Houston’s orders to join him….he didn’t. Instead his indecision allowed the Mexican troops to surround him, forcing his surrender at Coleto.
Caught on the prairie, completely unprotected by natural surroundings, Fannin had pulled his men together and formed a square of wagons and equipment.
From that fragile fortress they fought gallantly for two days, killing 250 Mexicans, losing seven men killed and 60 wounded, including Fannin himself. At the surrender, Fannin had asked for, and been granted by General Urrea, humane treatment and was promised a later release. Gen. Urrea was in fact willing to let the captured men go but he received a direct order from Gen. Santa Anna to shoot all prisoners. Fresh from the annihilation of those who resisted him at the Alamo, Santa Anna was in no mood to give in to the insurrection and free anybody who fought against him. His directive to Urrea was plain and not to be disobeyed. Reluctantly, Urea, understanding the situation, left the fort, leaving Col. Portilla in charge. Thus much like Pontius Pilot washing his hands of the blood of Jesus, Urrea dodged the order from Santa Anna to kill the prisoners.
At sunrise on Palm Sunday, the unwounded prisoners were drawn up in three groups and marched toward what they thought would be freedom. There were more than four hundred unarmed prisoners and at least seven hundred heavily armed Mexican soldiers. Suddenly, near the river, the Mexicans turned and formed one line to face the Texians. There was a command to halt and a Mexican officer shouted at the prisoners to kneel. A terrible noise disturbed birds in the trees along the river and rabbits in the tall grass. As shots rang out and thick clouds of smoke rolled slowly toward the river, animals scurried for cover. Blood from those that lay dying spurted onto the clothes of the living as every Texian still able to move, ran for the cover of trees along the riverbank.
About 30 Texians were able to escape the death march, one of those was Capt. Jack Shackelford. He told of the courage shown by the prisoners when the Mexican soldiers fell in line for the execution.
“Boys, they are going to kill us, die with your faces to them, like men,” someone shouted.
“Two other young men, flourishing their caps over their heads, shouted at the top of their voices, ‘Hurra for Texas!’ Can Texas cease to cherish the memory of those, whose dying words gave a pledge of their devotion to her cause?” Shackelford said.
Fannin was not among those whose blood soaked the dry ground. Unable to walk in the death march because of his wounds, he and some 40 other injured men were executed separately in the fort. The soldiers, following the orders of Santa Anna, shot the wounded in the beds where they lay. After the carnage, the dead were dragged one by one into one huge pile and their dreams of freedom turned to smoke as their bodies were set on fire.
After the charred remains cooled, lonely coyotes and hungry buzzards came to pick through the charred bones. Like those who died at the Alamo, the men massacred at Goliad, were not forgotten. When the Texians swarmed into Santa Anna’s camp on April 21st they were shouting as they shot and stabbed, “Remember the Alamo, Remember Goliad.” Their war-cry was heard around the world.