1836 newspaper TEXAS WAR OF INDEPENDENCE Goliad Massacre JAMES FANNIN SURRENDERS

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1836 newspaper TEXAS WAR OF INDEPENDENCE Goliad Massacre Texas Army Colonel JAMES FANNIN SURRENDERS & Mexicans massacre the surremndered prisoners - inv # 6F-204Please visit our EBAY STORE for THOUSANDS of HISTORICAL NEWSPAPERS on sale or at auction.SEE PHOTO----- COMPLETE, ORIGINAL NEWSPAPER, the Columbian Register (New Haven, CT) dated April 30, 1836. This newspaper contains 2 inside page columns of headlines and text with coverage of the GOLIAD MASSACRE during the TEXAS REVOLUTION against MEXICO .The Goliad massacre was an event of the Texas Revolution that occurred on March 27, 1836, following the Battle of Coleto; 425-445 prisoners of war from the Texian Army of the Republic of Texas were killed by the Mexican Army in the town of Goliad, Texas. Among those killed was commander Colonel James Fannin. The killing was carried out under orders from General and President of Mexico Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Despite the appeals for clemency by General José de Urrea, the massacre was reluctantly carried out by Lt. Colonel José Nicolás de la Portilla.The Mexicans took the Texians back to Goliad, where they were held as prisoners at Fort Defiance (Presidio La Bahia). The Texians thought they would likely be set free in a few weeks. Urrea departed Goliad, leaving Colonel José Nicolás de la Portilla in command. Urrea wrote to Santa Anna to ask for clemency for the Texians.Under a decree pressured by Santa Anna and passed by the Mexican Congress on December 30 of the previous year, armed foreigners taken in combat were to be treated as pirates and executed. Urrea wrote in his diary that he "...wished to elude these orders as far as possible without compromising my personal responsibility." Santa Anna responded to this entreaty by repeatedly ordering Urrea to comply with the law and execute the prisoners. He also had a similar order sent directly to the "Officer Commanding the Post of Goliad". This order was received by Portilla on March 26, who decided it was his duty to comply despite receiving a countermanding order from Urrea later that same day.Colonel James Fannin the commander of the captured Texian Army at Goliad asked for humane treatment for himself and his Texian soldiers but his request was abruptly denied. Fannin would be tortured and then shot in the head and most of his men were brutally murdered.The next day, Palm Sunday, March 27, 1836, Portilla had between 425 and 445 Texians marched out of Fort Defiance in three columns on the Bexar Road, San Patricio Road, and the Victoria Road, between two rows of Mexican soldiers; they were shot point blank, wounded survivors were clubbed and knifed to death.Forty Texians were unable to walk. Thirty-nine were killed inside the fort under the direction of Captain Carolino Huerta of the Tres Villas battalion, with Colonel Garay saving one, Jack Shackelford. Fannin was the last to be executed, after seeing his men killed. Aged 32, he was taken by Mexican soldiers to the courtyard in front of the chapel, blindfolded, and seated in a chair (due to his leg wound from the battle). He made three requests: that his personal possessions be sent to his family, to be shot in the heart and not the face, and to be given a Christian burial. The soldiers took his belongings, shot him in the face, and burned his body along with those of the other Texians who died that day.The entire Texian force was killed, except for 28 men who feigned death and escaped. Among these was Herman Ehrenberg, who later wrote an account of the massacre, William Lockhart Hunter, also of the New Orleans Greys, who would survive despite being bayoneted and clubbed with a musket, and four members of Shackelford's Red Rovers- Dillard Cooper, Zachariah S. Brooks, Wilson Simpson, and Isaac D. Hamilton, who would escape after days on the run.Owing to the intervention of Francita Alavez (the "Angel of Goliad") and the courageous effort of Garay, 20 more men were spared to act as doctors, interpreters, or workers, including Shackelford.Also spared were the 75 soldiers of ... read more

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