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.
Google Search: "The Goliad Texas Massacre photos"
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=The+Goliad+Texas+Massacre+photos
Goliad Massacre Story Link
http://www.karnes-city.isd.tenet.edu/cfair/massacre.html
Texas Revolution Website
http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~delacova/texas.htm
Link to more San Antonio photos
http://www.virtualtexan.com/history/museum/saphoto.htm
San Antonio-Goliad Site Link
http://www.karnes-city.isd.tenet.edu/cfair/corridor.html
TEXAS HISTORY AND CULTURE
http://pw1.netcom.com/~wandaron/txhist.html
Quicktime movie of a 1996 reinactment of the Battle of
Coleto Creek. Warning: it is very large, over 5 megs
http://206.76.136.3/cfair/battle.mov
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Many brave men died so that Texas could be free from tyranny.
Sad what it sometimes takes for folks to stand and fight for their liberty. I would suspect that 166 years ago 300 plus Texans killed in one place is analogious of losing a large city (DFW/Houston/San Antonio) population during our time. Hope the lesson never needs repeating........
God Bless Texas and the USA......Stay Safe !
Not true. Most of the Texicans were legal immigrants. They had agreements with the Mexican government. The Mexican government changed, and began to renig on the agreements, giving ample legal reason for the Texican revolution.
I imagine most who grew up in Texas know about it, since it's part of required Texas state history in our schools. It doesn't have the romance or story associated with the Alamo, since it's basically a story of a massacre of captured soldiers, but it certainly motivated the soldiers in the rest of Texas.
The slaughter at San Jacinto (now inside greater metropolitan Houston) was payback to the Mexicans.
The Battle of San Jacinto
The Battle of San Jacinto lasted less than twenty minutes, but it sealed the fate of three republics. Mexico would never regain the lost territory, in spite of sporadic incursions during the 1840s. The United States would go on to acquire not only the Republic of Texas in 1845 but Mexican lands to the west after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican War in 1848. .......
About 3:30 in the afternoon, during the Mexican siesta period, Houston distributed his troops in battle array, bracketing the line with the "Twin Sisters" cannon. Shielded by trees and a rise in the terrain, the Texans were able to advance with some security. Then with the cries "Remember the Alamo" and "Remember La Bahia" or "Remember Goliad" ringing along their lines, the Texans swooped down on the dismayed Mexican army, pursuing and butchering them long after the battle itself had ended.
630 Mexicans were killed and 730 taken prisoner. Texans lost only 9 killed or mortally wounded; thirty were less seriously wounded. Among the latter was General Houston, whose ankle was shattered.
They took the captive to camp, and on the way, Mexican prisoners recognized him and cried, "El Presidente!" Thus his identity was betrayed; it was indeed the dictator from below the Rio Grande. He was brought to General Houston, who lay under the headquarters oak, nursing his wounded foot.
The Mexican President pompously announced, "I am General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, and a prisoner of war at your disposition." General Houston, suffering with pain, received him coldly. He sent for young Moses Austin Bryan and Lorenzo de Zavala Jr. to act as interpreters.
Santa Anna cringed with fright as the excited Texas soldiers pressed around him, fearing mob violence. He pleaded for the treatment due a prisoner of war. "You can afford to be generous," he whined; "you have captured the Napoleon of the 'West." "What claim have you to mercy?" Houston retorted, "when you showed none at the Alamo or at Goliad?" They talked for nearly two hours, using Bryan, de Zavala and Almonte as interpreters. In the end Santa Anna agreed to write an order commanding all Mexican troops to evacuate Texas.
Later, treaties were signed at Velasco, looking to the adjustment of all differences and the recognition of Texas independence. Thus ended the revolution of 1836, with an eighteen-minute battle which established Texas as a free republic and opened the way for the United States to extend its boundaries to the Rio Grande on the southwest and to the Pacific on the west. Few military engagements in history have been more decisive or of more far-reaching ultimate influence than the battle of San Jacinto.
For the benefit of the non-Texans here, Goliad is pronounced GOAL-ee-add.
These only rebelled when the government of Mexico, i.e. Santa Anna, decided to forgo the Constitution and the protections it offered Mexican citizens.
Mr. Austin was in jail in Mexico City after going there to try to resolve the issues peaceully, and did not return, or approve of the revolution until after it had actually begun.
Many of the imigrants into Texas in the 1820's and early 30's specifically checked to see what the Mexican constitution said. Also, another Mexican state, South of the Rio Grande, rebelled also. Both they and Texas rebelled, not to achieve independence, but to restore the Constitution. -- The flag over the Alamo was the Mexican flag w/ the date 1824, the year the Mexican Constitution was established. The move for independence followed the Alamo.
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But NEXT week, we are driving from Miami, Florida out to Texas to pick up our new born puppy and we intend to completely soak up the rich history of San Antonio. I'm going to take the tour of the Alamo but not tell the tour guide I'm a teacher of American History. See if she can guess my profession. LOL
Can any FREEPER out there recommend a good place to get STEAK; as well as a good Mexican restaurant in San Antonio that won't also eat the entire wallets of a pair of teachers?
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