USA > Texas > A pictorial history of Texas, from the earliest visits of European adventurers, to A.D. 1879. Embracing the periods of missions, colonization, the revolution the republic, and the state; also, a topographical description of the country together with its Indian tribes and their wars, and biographical sketches of hundreds of its leading historical characters. Also, a list of the countries, with historical and topical notes, and descriptions of the public institutions of the state > Part 37
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Governor Smith had, on the 17th of December, ordered Houston to make a demonstration upon Matamoras, and on the same day Houston ordered Bowie, then at Goliad, to organize a force for this purpose. To add to the confusion, the Executive Council also ordered Colonels F. W. Johnson and James Grant to lead an expedition against the same place. Here then, were three independent commands organizing for the same purpose. Houston arrived at Goliad about the middle of January and proceeded on to Refu- gio, where he learned, for the first time, of the expeditions of Fannin and Johnson and Grant. He considered that his authority as Commander-in- Chief had been superseded, and he allowed the citizens of Refugio to elect him to the Convention, and immediately returned to the Brazos. Fannin
* December 10th, 1835, the Council appointed the following persons as assistants of Colonel Fannin in collecting supplies for the volunteer army : For Cole's settlement, H. Chriesman ; Washington, John Lott; New Year's Creek, Philip Coe; Mill Creek, Sam- uel Pettus; San Felipe, Mosely Baker; Colorado, J. S. Lester and Jesse Burnham; Navidad, William Thompson and Elijah Stapp; Menifee, (Egypt), Thomas Rabb; Fort Settlement, (Richmond), Randall Jones; East of Brazos, E. Waller; Lake Creek, James J. Foster; Harrisburg, E. Mathieu; Columbia, W. D. C. Hall; Brazoria, J. L. D. Byrom; Bay Prairie, Daniel Rawls and R. H. Williams; Gonzales, William A. Matthews; Spring Creek, Abraham Roberts; and for Mina (Bastrop), L. C. Cunning- ham.
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HISTORY OF TEXAS.
arrived at Goliad about the first of February, and soon afterwards an organization of the volunteers took place. Most of the men were from Georgia, and Fannin was elected Colonel, and Ward Lieutenant-Colonel. Notwithstanding this election and his appointment by the Council, Fannin still doubted his authority to command. In a letter to Governor Robinson, dated February 14th, he says: " I hope soon to receive some intelligence from General Houston, and to see him at the head of the army. I am deli- cately situated, having received no orders from him, or your Excellency. I am well aware that during the General's furlough the command naturally, and of right, devolves on ine; but the fact has not been communicated to me officially, either by the General or the Governor. The steps I have taken are those of prudence and for defence, and would be allowed as Colonel of the volunteers. May I ask for orders, and a regular communi- cation from you, that I may be fully apprised of what is doing for us? I will obey orders, if I am sacrificed in the discharge of them; but if you are unable to afford us reasonable aid, and that in time, it would be best to destroy everything and fall back." On the 16th he wrote again, as follows: " If General Houston does not return to duty on the expiration of his fur- lough, and it meets your approbation, I shall make headquarters at Bexar, and take with me such of the forces as can be spared." He wrote to Gov- ernor Robinson again on the 22d: " I am critically situated. General Houston is absent on furlough, and neither myself nor army have received any orders as to who should assume command. It is my right, and in many respects I have done so, when I was convinced the public good required it." These extracts prove conclusively that Fannin was more than willing to occupy a subordinate position; and in view of subsequent events, they have a peculiar interest. He has even since his death been accused of act- ing contrary to the orders of the Commander-inChief; and we have thought it necessaryto give these facts in vindication of his character. His position was extremely embarrassing. His authority was not recognized by all the officers at Goliad, Captain Dimitt wrote to the Council, suggesting the appointment of General Zavalla to the command. When this appointment. was not made, Dimitt and his company retreated to Victoria, in obedience, as he said, to orders from Houston.
Undoubtedly, Fannin's intention was to retreat before the advancing Mexicans, as he had intimated to Governor Robinson; and when he was advised of the advance of Urrea, he ordered San Patricio evacuated. This order was not obeyed, and Yoakum says it was because Colonels Johnson and Grant, who were there, had independent commands, and did not recog- nize Fannin's authority over them. Besides this question of authority, Fannin had a serious distrust of his own ability; a distrust very remarka- ble, not to say unparallelled in military men. In one of his letters to Robin- son he says: "I am not practically an experienced commander, and may, and in all human probability, have erred. I do not desire any command, and particularly that of chief. I feel, I know, if you and the Council do not, that I am incompetent. Fortune and brave soldiers may favor me, and save the State, and establish for me a reputation far beyond my deserts.', Again : " I am a better judge of my military abilities than others, and if I
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am qualified to command an army, I have not found it out. I well know I am a better company officer than most now in Texas, and might do, with regulars, for a regiment, but this does not constitute me a commander."
Wher, on that fatal Palm Sunday after the battle of Colita, he was march- ed out with his comrades to slaughter, Fannin was told that if he would kneel his life might be spared. He replied that he had no desire to live after his men had been killed. A soldier attempted to tie a handkerchief over his eyes. He seized the handkerchief and tied it himself. To the officer in command he handed his watch, with a request that it might be sent to his family ; and he made one further request: that he might be shot in the breast and not in the head; and further, wished to be decently buried. Having made these requests, he deliberately took his position in & chair, and bared his bosom; the signal was given, and the gallant Texan leader was a lifeless corpse ! With a perfidy which language is hardly adequate to portray, the officer kept Fannin's watch; had him shot in the head, and left his body unburied !
As a commander, Fannin distrusted himself and made serious mistakes -mistakes for which he paid with his life; still the views he expressed in his correspondence were eminently correct and praiseworthy. To the Georgia volunteers he wrote, advising them to have nothing to do with the political squabbles of Texas until after the war, when they would become peaceful and permanent citizens. He wrote to the Council deploring the fact that there were so few Texans in the army, but requested that those sent might be infantry, and organized before they reached headquarters, as elections in camp were very demoralizing. To Colonel Nail, at Bexar, he wrote suggesting the propriety of withdrawing the cannon from that exposed position. He also suggested to the Council the propriety of evacu- ating both Goliad and Bexar, and establishing a line of defense on the east side of the Guadalupe river. He further gave it as his opinion that if Santa Anna entered the country with five thousand men, he would penetrate to the interior of the country, and probably cross the Brazos before his pro- gress could be arrested.
The tender solicitude which Fannin expressed for the welfare of his family, shows him to have been a man of strong domestic attachments. He was modest, brave, generous, and patriotic. Among the Texas martyrs to liberty, the name of FANNIN will occupy a conspicuous place. Texans of future ages will hold it in profound veneration; and his memory will be cherished by all, in every clime, who appreciate soldierly daring and moral worth.
The bodies of the victims of the horrible massacre were left unburied, though partially burned up in a brush fence. Late in the summer, when the Texan army under Rusk occupied Goliad, their bones were collected an l buried with proper funeral rites.
Dr. Shackelford, Captain of the Red Rovers, from Alabama, in reviewing the events of this disastrous campaign, says Fannin erred in sending off King and Ward, and thus giving the enemy a chance to cut him up in detail. Fannin erred again in not retreating more rapidly and placing the Guadalupe river between himself and the enemy. The Doctor further
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states that Fannin, as well as many others in the command, had too great & contempt for the prowess of the Mexicans. They did not believe Urrea would venture to follow them. In answer to the question, " Why did they not retreat the night after the battle?" the Doctor said: "Their teams were either killed or scattered, and they could not transport their wounded, and would not leave them ; and they still hoped Horton would return from Vic- toria with reinforcements. They surrendered in good faith. Neither Fan- nin nor any one of his men would have surrendered except upon the pledge of being treated as prisoners of war in honorable warfare. The Mexicans were alone responsible for the subsequent violation of the terms of surren- der and the bloody massacre."
As the Texas people of all coming time will feel a profound interest in the bloody holocaust at Goliad, we subjoin Dr. Shackelford's account of the horrible massacre :
" The dawn of day, Palm Sunday, March 27th, we were awakened by a Mexican offi- eer calling us up, and saying he wanted the men to form a line that they might be counted. On hearing this, my impression was that, in all probability, some poor fellows had made their escape during the night. After leaving the church, I was met by Colo- nel Guererro, said to be an Adjutant-General of the Mexican army, who requested that I should go to his headquarters, in company with Major Miller and his men, (Miller had been taken at Copano, but without arms, hence not put to death), and that I would take my friend and companion, Dr. Joseph H. Barnard with me. We accordingly went to his tent, about one hundred yards in a southwest direction. On passing the fort I saw Ward's men in line with their knapsacks on. Inquired of them where they were going; some of them said they were to march to Copano, and from thence to be sent home. (The evening before they had been playing the tune, "Home," on their flutes.) After reaching Colonel Guerrero's tent, to attend to some wounded, as we supposed, we sat down and engaged in familiar conversation. In about a half hour we heard the re- port of a volley of small arms, towards the river and to the cast of the fort. I immedi- ately inquired the cause of the firing, and was assured by the officer that he did not know, but expected it was the guard firing off their guns. In fifteen or twenty minutes thereafter, another such volley was fired directly south of us and in front. At the same time I could distinguish the heads of some of the men through the boughs of some peach trees, and could hear their screams. It was then, for the first time, that the awful conviction seized upon our minds, that treachery and murder had begun its work. Shortly afterwards Colonel Guerrero appeared at the mouth of the tent. I asked him if it could be possible they were murdering our men ? He replied that it was so; but he had not given the order; neither had he executed it. He further said he had done all in his power to save as many as he could; and that if he could have saved more he would have done so. The men were taken out in four divisions, and under different pretexts-such as making room in the fort for the reception of Santa Anna, going out to slaughter beef, and being marched to Copano to be sent home. In about an hour, the closing scene of this base and treacherous tragedy was acted in the fort; and the cold-blooded murder of all the wounded who were unable to be marched out, was its infernal catastrophe. Fannin was the last victim. About eleven o'clock we were marched into the fort and ordered to the hospital. We had to pass by our butch. ered companions, who were stripped of their clothes, and their naked, mangled bodies thrown in a pile. The wounded were all hauled out in carts that evening, and some brush thrown over the different piles, with a view of burning their bodies. A few days afterwards I accompanied Major Miller to the spot where lay those who were dear to me while living; and whose memory will be embalmed in my affection until this poor heart itself shall be cold in death-and oh! what a spectacle! The flesh had been
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burned from off the bodies; but many hands and feet were yet unscathed. I could recognize no one. The bones were all still knit together, and the vultures were feed- ing upon those limbs which, one week before, were actively played in battle."
FIELDS, RICHARD .- A half breed Cherokee chief, who, in 1821-22, visited Mexico to make arrangements to settle the tribe in Texas. He was accom- panied by Bowles. They obtained a verbal promise of lands, and settled in what is now Cherokee county. These Indians were called civilized, and lived by cultivating the soil. But the government was slow in giving them titles to their land, and Fields and some others joined the Fredonians, in 1826. He was assassinated by those who refused to join the league. He was a Master-Mason.
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FIELDS, WILLIAM .- A native of North Carolina, but came from Tennes- see to Texas in 1837; served in the Legislature from 1847 to 1855; in 1856 was appointed State Engineer; and died in Hempstead, in 1858. He was the author of "Fields' Scrap Book."
FISHER, S. RHOADS .- Was a native of Philadelphia; came to Texas in 1851, and settled at Matagorda; represented that municipality in the Con- vention of 1836, and was appointed Secretary of the Navy. He died in Matagorda in 1839.
FISHER, WILLIAM S .- In 1835 represented Gonzales county in the Con- sultation ; commanded a company at the battle of San Jacinto; in 1837 was Secretary of War; in March, 1840, was in command at San Jacinto, when the Comanche chiefs were killed in the Council House. In 1840 he joined the army of the Republic of the Rio Grande, at San Patricio, at the head of two hundred men. At the termination of that unsuccessful campaign he returned to Texas, and was elected Captain of a company in the Somervell campaign, in 1842. When Somervell left the Rio Grande, Fisher was elect- ed commander of the Mier expedition; was severely wounded at the battle of Mier, and died in 1845.
FLORES, MANUEL .- A Lieutenant in Seguin's company at San Jacinto; afterwards at Nacogdoches, was concerned in at attempt to get up a rebel- lion against the Texas authorities; in 1839 he went to Matamoras, when General Canalizo employed him to visit the Indians on the Texas frontier, and rouse them to hostilities. He, with about twenty-five Indians, was discovered, May 14th, on the Gabriel river, by a company of Rangers under Lieutenant James O. Rice. Flores was killed and his dispatches captured.
FORD, DR. JOHN S .- A native of South Carolina; came to Texas in 1836; after serving in various capacities in the army, he, in 1843, commenced the practice of medicine in San Augustine; in 1844 he was elected to Congress; in 1846 he was Adjutant in Hays' regiment, and in command of a spy com- pany in the Mexican war; in 1849, in connection with Major Neighbors, he laid out a road from San Antonio to El Paso and Santa Fe. He then re-
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sided in Austin, and in 1852, on the death of General Burleson, Ford was elected to his place in the State Senate. In 1858 he was in the Ranging ser- vice, and commanded a battalion which had a severe fight with Indians on the Canadian river; about sixty Indians were killed. In 1860 61, he was in command on the Rio Grande, and had several skirmishes with Cortina. During the war he was employed in various capacities in the Confederate service on the Rio Grande. At the close of the war he started a paper at Brownsville, but was soon called to lead a company against border cattle and horse thieves. In 1873 he was cattle and hide inspector for Cameron county ; in 1874, Mayor of Brownsville; in 1875, in the Constitutional Con- vention; in 1876, in the Senate from Brownsville.
FRANKLIN, B. C .- Was a member of Deaf Smith's spy company in 1836; fought as a private at San Jacinto, and was soon afterward appointed to & District Judgeship, by President Burnet. He was one of the first settlers on Galveston Island. He frequently served as District Judge, and also represented the county in the State Legislature. He was elected to the Senate from the Galveston district in 1873, but died before the Legislature met.
GAINES, JAMES .- A native of Virginia, and a relative of General E. P. Gaines; came to the Sabine river and established a ferry in the first years of the present century ; was a captain in Magee's army in 1812; but took sides against the Fredonians in 1825. He was a brother-in-law of Norris, the Alcalde deposed by the Edwards party. Gaines entered heartily into the Revolution in 1836, and was a member of the Convention that declared the independence of Texas. Before the Revolution he had filled the office of sheriff and alcalde, and after the establishment of the Republic represented his district in Congress. About the time of annexation he removed to Bastrop, and in 1849 to California, where he died.
GALVES, DON JOSE BERNARDO .- For whom our chief commercial city was named, was a native of Malaga, Spain. His father was viceroy of Mexico. In 1765, young De Galvez was appointed Visitor-General of New Spain. After a thorough inspection of the country, he projected many needed reforms in the administration, and unwilling to trust the officers already in the country to carry forward his reforms, he brought a number of accomplished Spaniards and entrusted them with the administration. Having returned to Spain, he was for a short time President of the Council of the Indies. In 1777 he was appointed Governor of Louisiana. This was during the American Revolution and De Galves strongly sympathized with the struggling colonists; and assisted in sending them arms and ammunition up the Mississippi river. In 1779 Spain declared war against Great Britain, and De Galves immediately prepared to expel the British from West Florida. He captured Fort Bute on the fifth of September, and Baton Rouge on the 21st, thus extending the Spanish boundary to Pearl river. In March, 1780, he captured Mobile, taking possession of the coun- try as far as the Perdido, and completed the conquest by capturing Pensa-
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cola on the ninth of May. His authority then extended from Florida to the Rio Grande; and from the Gulf of Mexico almost to the great lakes. In 1789 he was made Captain-General of Cuba and the two Floridas and Louisiana; but his father dying the same year, he was appointed viceroy of Mexico. He proved to be one of the most enlightened and liberal rulers that ever occupied the vice-regal throne in Spanish America. He intro- duced many reforms; increased the number of judges, and created inten- dencies, an office especially designed for the protection of the Indian tribes. This arrangement gave a species of local government to the people. Texas was then attached to the intendency of San Luis Potosi. It has been said that the Mexicans, restive under the Spanish yoke, were anxious to throw it off and to create De Galves their king; but that he, following the example of our own Washington, declined the honor. An immense concourse at the Capital actually proclaimed him king, when he rode out into the crowd and prevailed on the people to disperse. As they did so, De Galvez cried out, "long live his Catholic Majesty, Charles IV." Another uprising in his favor in a distant province was also suppressed. During these excitements the viceroy erected an almost impregnable fortress at Chepultepec ; (after- ward captured by General Scott). Various reasons were assigned for this; some thought he did it for a place of refuge in case of a popular uprising. He was not without enemies; and they conjectured that he possibly medi- tated a revolution against the king, and prepared this castle as a place to raise the standard of revolt. He died very suddenly, in August, 1794, just after a hunting excursion. His friends believed he was poisoned by spies of the king, who was jealous of his influence with the populace.
GATES FAMILY .- This family was originally from Kentucky, and settled in Miller county, Arkansas, in 1809, and in the fall of 1821 started for Aus- tin's colony in Texas ; reached Nacogdoches December 27th, and continued their journey westward; found all the rivers fordable and reached the Brazos, in the neighborhood of Washington, early in January, 1822. At the crossing of the Trinity they overtook Andrew Robinson, who came to the Brazos and established a ferry. William Gates, senior, died in 1829; his sons, Charles and William, in 1822; Ransom in 1828, and Samuel in 1836. Amos Gates settled six miles below the town of Washington, on the first league of land surveyed in Austin's colony, where he still lived in 1877.
GIDDINGS FAMILY .- Giles A. Giddings came from Pennsylvania to Texas in 1835, and was negotiating for an empresario contract when the revolution broke out. He joined Houston's army at Groce's; was wounded at the battle of San Jacinto, and died soon afterwards, from the effects of the wound.
GIDDINGS, J. D .- Came to Texas in 1838, and settled in Washington county ; was for a time connected with the army ; and was in Bogart's com- pany in the Somervell campaign; he filled various offices, and represented his county in the Legislature in 1866; is still living at Brenham.
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HISTORY OF TEXAS.
GIDDINGS, JOHN JAMES .- Came to Texas in 1846; was surveyor for the German colony introduced that year into Texas; while traveling on the overland stage, in 1861, when near Tucson, Arizona, the stage was sur- rounded by Indians, when the driver and he, with five other passengers, were killed.
GIDDINGS, GEORGE H .- Was one of the original proprietors of the over- land stage line. During the war was Lieutenant-Colonel in Ford's regi- ment; is still living.
GIDDINGS, DR. FRANK M .- Was killed by a desperado, in El Paso, in 1858
GIDDINGS, D. C .- Came to Texas in 1850; was in the Confederate army, with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, during the war; was elected to Con- gress in 1870; was re-elected in 1872, and in 1876.
GILLESPIE, JAMES .- (In some reports spelled Gillaspie). A captain at San Jacinto; afterwards in the Ranging service; in 1846 he captured the town of Laredo; and was killed May the ninth, in the battle of Resaca de la Palma.
GILLESPIE, R. A .- Came to Texas in 1837, and commenced a mercantile business in LaGrange; in 1839 was in Jordan's expedition to the Rio Grande; in 1840 in the battle of Plum Creek, and also in Colonel Moore's Indian campaign to the head waters of the Colorado; in 1841 a Lieutenant in Tom Green's company of Rangers; in 1842 with those Texans who drove Vas- quiz out of the country, and also in the Somervell campaign; in 1844, while a leader of Green's company, was severely wounded in an Indian fight; in 1846 he was a captain in Hays' regiment. He greatly distinguished himself at the battle of Monterey, where he led in a charge in which ten of the Mexican guns were captured. Subsequently, while leading a desperate charge on the Bishop's palace, Gillespie was mortally wounded. His re_ mains, with those of Colonel Walker, were conveyed to San Antonio for interment. Gillespie county bears his name.
GRANT, DR. JAMES .- A native of Scotland; became a naturalized citizen of Mexico. In 1825 he became a large landholder in the neighborhood of Parras. In company with Dr. J. C. Beales, he, in 1833, obtained an em- presario contract for settling eight hundred families between the Nueces and Rio Grande rivers. Fifty-nine of these colonists sailed from New York in the schooner Amos Wright, on the eleventh of November, 1833. On the sixth of December, the schooner entered Aransas pass. The com- pany proceeded with great difficulty, via Goliad and San Antonio, towards their designated territory. They arrived at a little stream called the Las Moras, on the sixteenth of March, 1834, where a village called " Dolores," was duly laid off into streets. The name seemed prophetic; the village was never built up, and the settlement was soon abandoned. Dr. Grant
O. M. ROBERTS.
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was Secretary of the Executive Council of Coahuila, and in 1835 a member of the Legislature dispersed by General Cos. With a few companions, Grant made his way to San Antonio, and in command of a company of forty men, assisted Milam in the capture of the city. He was opposed to the declaration of Texas independence; and even wanted Texas and Coa- huila to remain together, as he had large landed possessions in both States. Early in 1836, in company with Colonel F. W. Johnson, he projected an expedition to the Rio Grande, to re-establish the Constitution of 1824. Grant went directly to Refugio, while Johnson went by San Felipe, and obtained the authority of the Executive Council for their scheme. They arrived in San Patricio early in February, with about seventy men. Johnson established his headquarters, while Grant, with Major Morris and about forty men, went further west to collect a supply of horses. On the 28th of February, San Patricio was captured by the Mexican soldiers of Urrea; Johnson and four companions escaping in the night. Grant and his party, who seem to have been totally ignorant of the advance of Urrea, were completely surprised by a party of Mexicans, while encamped on the Agua Dulce, twenty-six miles west of San Patricio. This was March 2d. Most of the Americans were killed in the fight, including Major Morris. As an item of curiosity we give Yoakum's account of the death of Grant. According to this statement, Grant was wounded and taken prisoner, but was able as a surgeon to dress the wounds of the Mexicans. "He was promised that as soon as he recovered, and those under his care were con- valescent, he should have a passport to leave the country without molesta- tion. The Captain left in command of the town after the departure of Urrea, secretly dispatched eight men in search of a wild horse. The animal was captured about three weeks after the battle of the 2d of March. Grant was now brought forth, and by order of the Captain his feet were strongly bound to those of the horse, and his hands tied to the tail. 'Now,' said the Captain, 'you have your passport, go.' At the same time the cords by which the mustang was tied were severed. The fiery animal, finding its limbs unfettered, sprung away with great violence, leaving behind him, in a short distance, the mangled remains of poor Grant." General Urrea, in his account of these transactions, says Grant was killed in the action of the 2d of March, and his statement is corroborated by that of Colonel Reuben Brown, of Brazoria county, one of the survivors of Grant's party. We subjoin Colonel Brown's account of the death of Grant:
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