WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1836
366
1 Yoakum, History of Texas, II, 472. Brown, History of Texas, II, 570-571. Wortham, History of Texct-S, III, 234. The Southwestern Historical Quar- te,·ly, XXIII, 272-273. El Correo Atlantico, April 14, 1836. 2 See The Southwesteni H'istorical Qua,·terly, XXIII, 273-276, for a dis- cussion of Fannin's failure to obey this order.
TO PHILIP DIMMIT 1 Headquarters, Texas, March 12, 1836.
To Captain Philip Dimit2 Sir: You are ordered with your command to this place- bring all your disposable force- and, should there be any com- panies, or troops, at Victoria, whose services are not indespens- able to the present emergencies of that section of the frontier, you will notify them that it is my order that they forthwith repair to this point. Colonel J. W. Fannin is ordered to fall back on Victoria, after blowing up La Bahia. You will send expresses to headquarter_s as often as practicable. Sam Houston. 1 Yoakum, History of Texas, II. 472-473. 2 Philip Dimmit (correctly spelled, so the Dimmit family say, "Dimmit") <'ame to Texas from Kentucky in 1822. Ten years later he established a trading post at the old fort built by La Salle on the Lavaca River, or La Garcitas Creek, a tributary to the Lavaca. This place came to be known as Dimmit's point. When the Texas Revolution broke out in October, 1835, Dimmit was one of the first to go into the Texas Army. He was with Captain Collinsworth at the capture of Goliad, October 9, and when Col- linsworth was raised to the rank of major and transferred from his com- pany, Dimmit was unanimously elected captain, and was ordered to retain and defend Goliad. Having eighty-five men in his company, Dimmit thought he would be able to hold Goliad, and at the same time send a detachment to take the small Mexican force at Lipantitlan, so he sent Ira Westover to take that force. The twenty-one Mexican soldiers at Lipantitlan sur- rendered without giving battle, and gave up their two cannon to the Texans. But on the next day as the Texans were on their way back, while crossing a stream, they were attacked by seventy Mexican soldiers. Westover had but thirty-six men in his·detachment, so knew from the first that the con- flict must be hotly contested. But it proved a victory for the Texans, with twenty Mexicans killed, and only one Texan wounded. On December 20, 1835, Philip Dimmit was very active in a public meeting at Goliad which declared for Texan independence, and drew up resolutions to that encl. In 1836, he was placed in command of the fort at Victoria, but retreated on the approach of Urrea, thus escaping the fate of Grant and Fannin. In 1841 he was preparing to engage in the mercantile business on the Nueces Rive~-, fifteen miles from the site of the · present town of Corpus Christi (then known as the ranch of Aubrey and Kinney). While he and some workmen were building his storehouse, Captain Sanchez, aide to General
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