Remember Goliad

Their Silent Tents

De: Clifford Hopewell

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Palm Sunday, March 27, 1836, turned out to be the blackest day in the war of independence between Texas and Mexico. Colonel James Walker Fannin Jr. and his men were ruthlessly slaughtered at the Presidio La Bahia, near the town of Goliad. The order was given direct by General Santa Anna. The author describes the background leading up to the start of hostilities in October 1835, and the two Mexican armies who threatened to overrun the Texans, with the massacre at the Alamo on March 2 and then the attack on the Presidio La Bahia, which Fannin called Fort Defiance. A description of garrison life, and of the men under Fannin's command precedes the battle of Coleto Plains where Fannin's Texans without an adequate water supply and defenses, were surrounded by General Urrea's army and forced to surrender. One of more traumatic aspects of the battle and executions involved a group of young soldiers from Alabama, mostly from the same area, whose leader, Dr. Shackleford, was spared to minister to the sick and injured and was forced to witness the deaths of his protégées.