Colonel Fannin had waited for the little garrisons at San Patricio to collect the women and children and join him. But the advance of the Mexican soldiers sent by Santa Anna into the south had been too rapid, and the Texan troops had been cut off. Then on the morning of March 19 he had begun his retreat to Victoria, with 350 men and ten cannon. But that same day, on a grassy prairie, he had been surrounded by General Urrea and 900 cavalry and infantry, with cannon and about 100 Indians. Colonel Fannin formed a hollow square, and beat them off all day long. Early the next morning 400 more Mexicans arrived, with more cannon, and with 100 pack mules bearing new supplies. Sixty Texans had been wounded, and there was no water, and very little food, and the ammunition was almost gone. So before noon Colonel Fannin had agreed to surrender. He and his men were to be treated as prisoners of war. The outside volunteers were to be sent back to New Orleans and the few Texas citizens were to go home, on parole, not to fight again in the war.
But this was bad news indeed. Jim indignantly hurled his hat on the ground.
“Think of it!” he exclaimed. “Gee whiz! Think of it! Right at this time when we needed that crowd! The Mexican says if Fannin had marched only three miles further ’stead of camping in the open he’d have been in the timber and all Mexico couldn’t have cut him off!”
“We can fight without him, anyhow,” blurted Sion. “We’ve got enough to lick Sesma and Woll. And I reckon we’ll do it, about day after to-morrow.”
“Don’t know whether we will or not,” retorted Jim. “And supposing we do. They’re just an advance guard. There’s Urrea, now, down south, with twelve or fifteen hundred regulars, and nobody to hold him; and there’s Santa Anna coming, with a few thousand more. And who’s helping us? Half of us are down with the measles, anyway. Where are those East Texas militia we’ve been hearing about? Where are those reinforcements and those cannon from the mouth of the Brazos? And look what we’ve lost! All those companies from the United States, except the Newport Volunteers that are in this camp. The New Orleans Grays, the Mobile Grays, the Kentucky Mustangs, the Alabama Red Rovers, the Georgia and Tennessee companies, and all the rest—the best armed troops we had; and one of the best officers—Jim Fannin.”
“Well,” said Ernest, determined to make the best of it, “they weren’t all shot. They just surrendered. Only half a dozen were killed and they wiped out about three hundred Mexicans.”
“They all are paroled, though; they can’t fight any more. They won’t break their parole; they’re not like Cos,” insisted Jim. “And remember the Alamo. Every man massacred whether he’d surrendered or not. And remember how those other men were tied to oak trees and shot. We’re liable to hear the same kind of news from Fannin yet.”
“Can’t help it,” declared Sion, doggedly. “I’m here to fight, and so are the other men.”
“You talk as if you were as tall as that gun you’re lugging round,” scoffed Jim. “Sounds as if you were going to account for the whole Mexican army.”