Taking Bearings

Fannin Memorial at Goliad, Texas. Photo: K. Lee Lerner ©LMG 2019

Prisoners of War

Fannin’s men at Goliad

brutally murdered

Remember Goliad and

Remember the Alamo!

Just weeks after the fall of the Alamo on March 6, 1836, the Mexican army under the command of the dictator Santa Anna defeated vastly outnumbered soldiers of the nascent Texas Army under the command of Col. James Walker Fannin at the battle of Coleto (March 19 to March 20). The captured Texians, now prisoners of war, were held at the Presidio La Bahia, where — in accord with the direct written order of Santa Anna — they were massacred by Mexican troops under the command of Mexican Gen. Urrea on Palm Sunday, March 27, 1836.

On that fateful Sunday, of the approximately 400 POWs, those who were able to walk were marched out in three directions under the guise of being transferred to other garrisons. About a half a mile from the Presidio, the columns were halted and the men shot.

The wounded who remained in the Presidio were killed, one by one.

Forced to watch the murders of his men, Col. Fannin was saved for last. When his time came, Fannin requested that his watch be given to his family, that he be shot through the heart while standing, and that his body–along with the bodies of his men–be given Christian burials.

Fannin was tied to a chair and shot in the face. Fannin’s body, and those of his men, were burned and left unburied.

Fannin’s watch was taken by a Mexican officer and not returned to his family.

We know the details of the massacre because three doctors were spared and about 25 men present in the garrison were saved by a Mexican woman, “The Angel of Goliad.” About 30 Texans escaped from the execution squads along the roads leading from the Presidio by feigning death or swimming the San Antonio river.

A little over three weeks later, on April 21st, Texian troops under the command of Gen. Sam Houston–carrying the Goliad flag and shouting “Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!”–won a decisive victory over Santa Anna’s army at the Battle of San Jacinto to secure Texas independence .

In June 1836, Texas troops under the command of Gen. Thomas Rusk returned to Goliad. They collected the remains of Fannin and his men and gave them a military burial in the mound shown, atop which now sits a monument to Fannin and the approximately 342 men killed at what became known as the  Massacre of Goliad.

The severed arm flag shown in the photo dates to a few months before the massacre when, in December 1835, the first Texas Declaration of Independence (the Goliad Declaration) was signed on the altar of Our Lady of Loreto Chapel located within the walls of the Presidio. The flag –symbolizing a defiant wish of the Texian rebels to cut off their right arms rather than continue to live under the tyranny of Santa Anna — represented a major shift in political sentiment from Texas remaining a quasi-independent Mexican state to be governed under the Mexican Constitution of 1824 to a desire for a fully independent Republic of Texas.  Designed by then garrison commander Capt. Phillip Dimmitt and based on a similar design by Capt. William S. Brown, the flag for only a few weeks before Dimmitt and his men were run out of the Presidio by Federalist Texian rebels who wanted to remain a part of Mexico.

According to the Texas State Historical Association, the real surname and place of birth of the  “The Angel of Goliad” are not definitively known, but her first name was “variously given as Francita, Francisca, Panchita, or Pancheta, and her surname as Alavez, Alvárez, or Alevesco.” She is credited for previously pleading for mercy and humane treatment for Maj. William P. Miller’s Natchez volunteers when they were held captive by Gen, Urrea’s troops at Copano Bay. At Goliad she is credited with persuading Mexican officers not to execute Miller’s men (who had been transferred to Goliad) during the massacre of Fannin’s men. She is also credited for saving the live of some of Fannin’s men by slipping them out of the garrison into hiding.