On the 1st of March the General Convention met at Washington on the
Brazos. On the 2d, while Travis’ signal guns were still sending their
sturdy boom across the prairies, a declaration of independence was read
and adopted.
Houston was made commander-in-chief of the armies of the Republic of
Texas. David G. Burnet was elected President and Lorenzo D. Zavala
Vice-President. Thomas J. Rusk was made Secretary of War.
Sunday, the 6th of March, the day the Alamo fell, Travis’ last appeal
reached Washington—after the hand that wrote it was cold in death. His
letter was read by the President to the members of the convention; it
produced a powerful effect. In the first burst of feeling it was even
proposed that the convention should adjourn, arm, and march to San
Antonio.
[Illustration: Mission at Goliad.]
Houston spoke earnestly against such a step, and as soon as quiet was
restored, he himself with two or three companions left for Gonzales,
where the new volunteers were ordered to gather.
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.
On the 21st, after weary marches through swamp and thicket and constant
skirmishes with the enemy, they surrendered on honorable terms to Urrea,
and were taken back to Goliad.