166 years later, Texas recalls the Goliad massacre
Posted on 03/24/2002 10:16:30 AM PST by MeekOneGOP
166 years later, Texas recalls the Goliad massacre
Historic battle helped gather support for cause against Mexico
03/24/2002
There likely isn't a Texan or an American who hasn't heard the famous cry, "Remember the Alamo!"
But what about Goliad?
It will be 166 years ago Wednesday that 342 Texians, most of whom had been surrendered by Col. James W. Fannin seven days earlier and held in the presidio at Goliad, were killed by Mexican soldiers.
The Goliad massacre came 21 days after the fall of the Alamo, amid Texas' fight for independence against Mexico. The Alamo had fallen to Mexican Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna's army after a 13-day siege and all of its 180-plus defenders had been killed. Santa Anna had given orders to his commanders that all foreigners taken in arms against the Mexican government were to be executed.
The siege and final battle at the Alamo is better known, but the Goliad massacre is credited by many historians with generating support for the Texas cause both within Texas and in the United States.
After the fall of the Alamo on March 6, Col. Fannin, who had been ordered to evacuate La Bahía and retreat northeastward to Victoria on the other side of the Guadalupe River, hesitated and didn't leave until March 19. It was too late; the Texians got only about 10 miles before they were caught by Mexican cavalry in open prairie. After a skirmish, they surrendered the next day.
The prisoners were marched back to La Bahía, under the impression that they were to be treated as prisoners of war. There, they were crowded into the church, remembered one of them, Herman Ehrenberg, a young (probably about 19 or 20) Prussian, who had been with the Texian army when it drove Mexican troops out of San Antonio (then called Bexar) in December 1835. He had spent part of the winter in the Alamo, but left before the siege began and joined Col. Fannin's troops in Goliad. He was captured with the others while retreating and marched back to La Bahía.
"[We] were stuffed into the old church for the night," he wrote later in a first-person account of his experiences, The Fight for Freedom in Texas in the Year 1836. "Literally stuffed, as we stood so close man to man that it was possible at the most for only one-fourth to even sit down. ... Many slept while standing, as the bodies were pressed so close against one another, it made it impossible to fall over. ... The next morning finally appeared, but with it still no liberation from this deathly dungeon. Our breakfast, as before, consisted of water."
Staying loyal
Ehrenberg wrote that he refused an offer made to Prussian citizens to defect to the Mexican side. He also noted that on the morning of March 26, soldiers brought in another 100 prisoners, volunteers from New York who had been captured.
That was also the day that Col. José Nicolás de la Portilla, the officer left in command of La Bahía, received a direct order from Santa Anna to execute the prisoners. Col. Portilla's superior, Gen. José de Urrea, had appealed to Santa Anna for clemency for the prisoners, but that reportedly had only outraged the Mexican commander.
The next morning, March 27, Palm Sunday, the prisoners were divided into three columns and marched out of the presidio. Ehrenberg's column proceeded in silence on the road toward Victoria. Then, without notice, they were marched off the road toward the San Antonio River and ordered to halt.
"At that moment, we heard the muffled rolling of a musket volley in the distance," Ehrenberg wrote later. "We looked at each other and cast questioning glances, first at ourselves and then at the Mexicans. Then another command 'Kneel down!' rang out from the lips of the Mexican officers. Only a few of us understood Spanish and could not, or would not, obey the order.
'Everything was quiet'
"The Mexican soldiers, who stood only three steps away, leveled their muskets at our chests, and we found ourselves terribly surprised. We still considered it impossible to believe that they were going to shoot us.
"... Sounds of a second volley thundered over to us from another direction, accompanied by confused cries, probably from those who were not immediately killed. This shocked our comrades out of their stark astonishment, which had lasted around five or six seconds ...
"A terrible cracking sound ... and then everything was quiet. A thick smoke slowly rolled towards the San Antonio. The blood of my lieutenant was on my clothing. Around me my friends quivered. ... I did not see more. Deciding quickly, I jumped up and, concealed by the black smoke of the powder, rushed down along the hedge to the river.
'Nothing to risk'
"... Only the rushing of the water was my guide. Then suddenly a powerful saber smashed me over the head. Before me, the figure of a little Mexican lieutenant appeared out of the dense smoke, and a second blow from him fell on my left arm, with which I had tried to ward off or parry the blow.
"I had nothing to risk and everything to gain. Either life or death! ... The smoke rolled like a black thundercloud over to the other side, and I stood with rapidly pounding heart on the rocks at the edge of the water. As the water flowed at my feet, behind me the hangmen were pursuing.
"Like a corps from hell, they came after me, but ... I threw myself into the rescuing floods."
After the bloodshed
Most historians agree that 342 men were executed at Goliad and 28 escaped. About 20 more were spared because they were physicians, orderlies, interpreters or mechanics.
Ehrenberg was one of those who escaped. He wandered around South Texas for two weeks and finally, nearly starved, he arrived at Gen. Urrea's camp. Posing as a lost traveler, he became a guest of the Mexican army until news came from San Jacinto that Santa Anna had been defeated.
At that final battle, the Texian battle cry was "Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!"
After being discharged from the Texian army, Ehrenberg returned to Prussia, but later made his way back to America where he became known as an explorer, mapmaker and a '49er in the California gold rush.
Natalie Ornish is a Dallas-based free-lance writer. She is author of Ehrenberg: Goliad Survivor, Old West Explorer.
My daughter (a student at UT) just called to tell me she is going on a field trip to Goliad tomorrow. Timely post. Thanks.You're welcomed. I found it interesting too. I did a little homework after finding the
Don't know just who you mean by "We". Some Texians were illegals, most were not. Immigrants were addmitted under the Mexican Constitution, which was patterned after the US Constitution and guaranteed certain fundamental rights. Santa Ana overthrew that Constitution, or at least that's the way the Texians and Tejanos saw it. Many of those fighting for Texas/Tejas were Tejanos rather than recent immigrants from Europe or the United States, although the later made up the majority. The town of Seguin is named after one such man, Juan Seguin. About the same time Santa Ana was trying to put down a similar rebellion on the Yucatan Peninsuala. His commander there, a relative of some sort IIRC, made the mistake of trying to attack Campeche, which since early Spanish colonial days, had been guarded by two substantial forts, and the city itself was walled, although I don't know just how much of the wall was standing in the mid 1830s. The Forts were well armed with cannon, which the local militia used to shoot the cr*p out of the Federal Mexican Army. The area was independent for a time, with protection from Mexican Navy predation for it's merchant vessels provided by the Texas Navy under an agreement between the two former provinces. Sadly, the Yucatan suffered from infighting and was shortly returned to Mexico, a fate which likely would have befallen Texas, if not for it becoming a state of the United States.
My ancestor Jesse Walling was at San Jacinto.
I'm sure he's spinnin' in his grave over what this State and country have become.
Just this morn there was a discussion on talk radio about Ron Howard coming to Goliad as part of his research for an upcoming movie on the Alamo. It would be nice to include the tragedy that occured at Goliad. Most folks never heard of this event...
Yes, I am a Southerner as well. My ancestors fought to set Texas free. I have a strong distrust of anything "mexican", and I am highly supportive of the idea of rounding up illegals and booting them out of the country.
I don't know about Texans in your part of the Great Lone Star State, but up here where I am, many are really PO'ed.
We are not ready to hand over our state to the enemy south of the border. But, it seems our government is.
Do you think Ron Howard will make the movie perfectly historically correct? Or, will he add in just enough political correctness so that no one is offended?
Texas history offends Mexico. Toooo damn bad.
I was engrossed with Texas history as a boy, a long time ago. My mom and dad were Texans.
Why shouldn't illegals (of any country, race, ethnic group) be rounded up and deported? Seems to me that if we had done that earlier, the WTC would still be standing.
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