| Fannin's Fight and the Goliad Massacre |
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| Fannin responded to Ayers request by sending Captain [Amon Butler] King,
of the Georgia Battalion, with 28 men, to bring in the settlers. When
King arrived at Refugio, about 28 or 30 miles from Goliad, he found himself
confronted by Urrea's army. He, on the 12th, sent back for reinforcements,
and the next day Fannin sent Lieutenant-Colonel [William] Ward, with 125
men to his relief. As by this time news of the fall of the Alamo had reached
Fannin, he instructed Col. Ward to return as soon as possible. The night
of the 13th, Fannin received orders from General Houston to blow up the
fort and fall back on Victoria, where, on account of the barrier that
the Guadalupe River forms, a more easily defended position might be maintained.
This order was ignored. Some claim the reason was because Lt.-Gov. Robinson
had ordered him on Feb. 21st to make no retrograde movement, but to await
orders and reinforcements. Others claim he was awaiting the return of
King and Ward from Refugio before retiring to Victona. It is more likely
that his jealousy of Houston and determination not to serve under his
command prompted his action in ignoring the order.
[Historian John Henry] Brown says "...that there is abundant evidence to show that Colonel Fannin was under the influence of an overweening ambition for military preferment coupled with such a desire for independent command as to lead him into disorganizing combinations and well nigh mutinous disregard-for the orders of' the Commander-in-Chief, and however painful to the chronicler of Texian annals may be this part of his duty, these are facts which cannot be suppressed without a wilfull perversion of the truth of history and injustice to the memory of the 376 men murdered with Fannin. and, that Dr. Barnard, who affirms that, Fannin did not intend to disobey orders and that a gallant officer is unjustly censured, had very recently arrived in this country and knew none of the antecedent facts of the case."On the 14th, scouts were sent out to hurry in the men at Refugio, but finding the Mexicans in Refugio, returned without information of King and Ward. On the same day, the La Bahía post was reinforced by the coming of Captain Albert C. Horton with a cavalry force of fifty-two men from Matagorda and the lower Colorado. On the 15th and 16th, scouts sent out to find King and Ward, returned without information. Then Captain Fraser, a citizen, at his own request went. He returned the same afternoon with the information of the defeat and annihilation of King's and Ward's forces, and the cold-blooded massacre of King's men. Most of Ward's men escaped toward Victoria, where they were subsequently captured and shared the fate of Fannin's men. |
