Under Six Flags: The Story of Texas

by M. E. M. Davis

The air as he rode westward was thick with rumors. He arrived at Gonzales on the 11th. The same day came the first tidings of the fall of the Alamo. It filled the town with a wail of desolation. Of the thirty-two men who had marched from Gonzales to the relief of Travis, and to their own death, twenty had left wives and children behind them.

The arrival of Mrs. Dickinson with her child, and her story of the siege with all its ghastly details, added to the gloom. The moans of the widow and the fatherless mingled with the dreary bustle of preparation for flight. For it was rumored that the bloodthirsty Mexicans were approaching.

General Houston had found three hundred recruits at Gonzales. But they were unprepared for an attack; they had neither provisions nor munitions of war; the place was without defenses of any kind. He therefore gave orders for retreat. At nightfall on the 13th the forlorn handful of women and children mounted horses, or clambered into wagons where a few household goods had been hastily piled; the troops formed around them, and at midnight the march began.

As they moved away across the prairie a light reddened the sky behind them. It came from the flames of their own burning houses. A cry burst from the women, and the eyes already swollen with weeping overflowed again at the sight of their desolated hearthstones.

When Colonel Fannin found himself unable to march to the relief of the Alamo, he reëntered Goliad. He now knew that Urrea was advancing rapidly, and he made haste to strengthen his position. He had at this time five hundred men under his command. They occupied the Mission of Espiritu Santo, called by Fannin Fort Defiance. Earthworks had been thrown up around the old church, ditches dug, and cannon mounted. But the defenses were weak, the men were poorly fed and scantily clad. They were often compelled to mount guard barefoot. Fannin was filled with gloomy forebodings, although the signal-guns of the Alamo, which were to be fired as long as the flag continued to wave over that fortress, were not yet silenced.

About the 12th of March Captain King was sent by Fannin with a small detachment of men to bring away the women and children from Refugio, a small town about twenty miles distant. King was attacked by the advance guard of Urrea’s army, and had barely time to throw himself into the mission church at Refugio. From there he sent to Fannin for more troops. Colonel Ward, with one hundred and twenty-five men, immediately joined him in the church where he was entrenched.

The next morning (14th) Captain King with his men left the fort on a scouting expedition. About three miles from the mission they were surprised by a large body of Mexicans, to whom they surrendered. A few hours later they were stripped of their clothing by their captors and shot. Their unburied bodies were left to decay on the open prairie.

The same morning, about ten o’clock, fifteen of Ward’s men were sent from the mission to the river about a hundred yards away to get water. They had filled two barrels and placed them on a cart drawn by a couple of oxen, and were about returning to the fort when some bullets sang over their heads. A glance showed them the Mexican army on the other side of the river, not half a mile distant. They hurried on as fast as they could, and reached the mission in safety with a good part of the water. One barrel was emptied of about half of its contents through a hole made by a shot from the advancing enemy.

Urrea attacked the barricaded church. The battle lasted nearly all day, but late in the afternoon he drew off his beaten and discouraged force; he had two hundred killed and wounded. Ward’s loss was three wounded.

But the ammunition of the besieged was nearly exhausted, and that night, after supplying the three wounded men with water, Colonel Ward and his men stole quietly out of the church and slipped unseen past the Mexican sentinels.