Ottr Catl1olic Heritage in T e:xas
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after the massacre. He wrote one of the best accounts of the Goliad tragedy, but it remains untranslated. 55 Dismal, indeed, were the beginnings of the campaign that was to result in the unexpected success of the Texan struggle for independence. The Convention had hurriedly ap- pointed General Sam Houston commander of regular and militia troops on March 4, 1836, and ordered him to the field at once. Two days later he took leave and proceeded to Gonzalez, where he arrived on March 11. It was here that he received the sad reports of the fall of the Alamo. Anxious to dispel alarm, he feigned skepticism by arresting the Mexican messengers as spies. On March 13 he sent Deaf Smith, Henry Karnes, and R. E. Handy to ascertain the truth. The scouts did not go far before they met Mrs. Dickenson, escorted by Santa Anna's Negro slave. 56 There was no longer any doubt about the fate of the brave defenders of the Alamo. All Gonzalez mourned with the thirty widows and the many orphans. Panic seized the town when it learned that General Sesma was on the way and that Santa Anna was coming with him. The little band of undisciplined men, without clothes or ammunition, who had welcomed Houston, melted away. The volunteers deserted in droves to help their families flee across the Sabine to safety. Houston found himself forced to order an immediate retreat. Since the wagons were needed by the settlers, all excess baggage was destroyed. The two cannon were dumped into the Guadalupe. The town was burned to keep it from falling into the hands of the enemy, while the dispirited army and settlers wearily made their way to the Colorado and the heart of the colonies. By midnight of March r3 Gonzalez was in ashes. Tlee San Jacinto Campaign. Four days later Houston was at Burnham's Crossing on the Colorado with about 600 men. He crossed to the east bank near Columbus, where he rested for a week. While here he learned from a prisoner that General SSThe two best accounts of the Goliad massacre are the ones found in Johnson, Texas and Texans, I, 429-441, and in \Vharton, Remember Goliad, in which a mass of pertinent material has been gathered. For the Mexican accounts and attempts at justification, see Castaneda, The Afexica11 Side of tl,e Texa11 Revol11tio11, 16-20, 106, 128, 234-236. A study of all the materials available indicates that the real cause for the trag~dy was the indecision of Fannin and the rivalry of King and Ward. King could have returned to Goliad with Ward, and Fannin could have saved all his men by retreating as ordered. S6Binkley, o-p. cit., I, xxx-xx:d; Garrison, Texas, 220; Barker, "The San Jacinto Campaign," Tiu Quarterly, IV, 237-345; Johnson, Texas and Texans, 442-443.
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