Favorable terms were secured from General Urrea by Fannin, and the prisoners of war were marched back to Goliad and placed in the mission church—Fannin’s Fort Defiance. The wounded were brought in the next day and housed in the barracks; and several days later Ward and his men were thrust into the overcrowded church.
The prisoners were ill fed and badly treated. But when the first shock of their defeat had passed, they began to look forward eagerly to their release. They were told that they were to be placed at once on ships and sent to New Orleans, where they would be paroled and set at liberty.
On the Saturday evening after their capture, the sounds of gay laughter echoed from the time-stained walls of the chapel. The men sang “Home, Sweet Home,” to the music of a flute played by one of their number. Fannin talked of his wife and children far into the night.
The next day was Palm Sunday.
In the old days of the mission, the Indian converts were accustomed on Palm Sunday to walk up the aisles of the church bearing green branches in their hands, in memory of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem; and hymns of joy and praise mingled with the incense which arose from the altar.
At just the sunrise hour, when in those old times the converts came carrying their dewy sweet-smelling boughs from the forest, the prisoners were awakened by their guards and marched out of the church. They were formed into four divisions and hurried away under various pretences. Some were even told that they were starting home.
Three-quarters of a mile from the fort they were halted, drawn up in sections, and ordered to kneel. Everything had been so orderly, so natural, so swift, that only at the last moment did the men realize what was about to happen. “My God, boys,” cried a voice that echoed like a shot on the clear air, “they are going to kill us.”
The guns of the guards were already turned upon the prisoners. A deliberate discharge followed this despairing cry; another, and another, and a heap of writhing, bleeding bodies was all that remained of Fannin’s gallant band. A few escaped, struggling to their feet and fleeing to the swamp pursued by shots and curses. The surgeons and one or two others were saved by the kindness of Colonel Garay, a Mexican officer.[25] One of these, Dr. Shackelford, captain of the Red Rovers, heard the firing as he entered the tent of his preserver. He did not know that anything had gone wrong; but he trembled and turned pale, and well he might! For three of his young nephews and his own son were among the killed.
Señora Alvarez, a Mexican woman, concealed several prisoners until after the massacre, and afterward helped them to escape. It was her tears and entreaties which moved Colonel Garay to risk keeping the surgeons in his tent. While the butchery was going on, she stood in the plaza, with her black hair streaming over her shoulders; and with flashing eyes she denounced Santa Anna and called down the vengeance of heaven upon his head. When she learned that Dr. Shackelford’s son had been shot, she burst into tears and cried out, “Oh, if I had only known, I would have saved him.”
Her husband was one of Urrea’s officers, and her kindness to the Texan prisoners throughout the war ought never to be forgotten. “Her name,” writes one of the survivors of the massacre, “should be written in letters of gold.”