attend … they could easily be trapped. And incidentally, it seemed that the smiling civilians of San Antonio weren’t all so friendly to the Texan cause as they appeared.
Quick, sharp orders to Sesma’s cavalry. A detachment of dragoons were to take infantry officers’ horses (better rested)… attack the town that night … seize the dancing Texans by surprise. As the men saddled up around five o’clock, it began to rain. By the time they got going, a blinding storm lashed them from the north. The pretty green Medina, so easy to ford a few hours ago, was now a deep, foaming torrent. One glance convinced them—it just couldn’t be crossed.
Too bad. It was the kind of operation Santa Anna loved—like the time his men dressed up as monks to seize an unsuspecting rival in Veracruz. But it couldn’t be helped, so new orders went out: Sesma’s whole force would attack on the 23rd.
Meanwhile, the men rested, and Santa Anna received some more interesting visitors from San Antonio—an old priest … a Señor Manuel Menchaca … one of the prominent Navarros. His Excellency didn’t worry: an extra day or two would make no difference against men who spent their time at fandangos when the enemy was twenty-five miles away.
There were no fandangos at Goliad, the main Texas stronghold about ninety-five miles southeast of San Antonio. The Alamo might be disorganized and short of men, but not Goliad. Colonel James Walker Fannin had 420 troops—many of them from the Matamoros expedition, which had finally petered out. The fort was strong too—another of those old Spanish compounds, but it seemed more compact and in much better shape than the sprawling Alamo. And above all, there was organization. For Fannin was a genuine West Pointer, the only one with any significant command in Texas.
True; he hadn’t exactly graduated. He ran away after two years under somewhat cloudy circumstances. And there was a good deal of speculation about his later activities. He came to Texas from Georgia around 1834, always flashed plenty of money, seemed to be mixed up in all sorts of shadowy deals— especially slave-running. Yet the fact remained that Fannin was a military man; he proved it in drilling the Brazos Guards, and even more persuasively in his fighting at Concepción.
His military training rang in everything he did. Professional recommendations flowed from his pen—establish a War Bureau, bring in West Pointers. His headquarters bustled with bright young aides like Captain John Sowers Brooks, who had been a U.S. Marine. His proclamations glowed with assurance: “To the West, face. March!” began his call for men during the Matamoros affair. He always had eloquent words for the fresh volunteers arriving from the United States, and they in turn recognized, to use the words of one committee, “that Georgia’s honor and chivalry stood proudly vindicated in your person.”
He seemed to think of everything, even though he did turn down James Butler Bonham when the South Carolinian appeared on February 18 with an urgent appeal for help from Travis. Yet the Alamo clearly fitted somewhere in Fannin’s master plan, for on the 8th he assured San Felipe that he would “make such disposition of my forces as to sustain Bexar.” And again on the 16th: “I have taken measures to forward provisions to Bexar, and forwarded orders there today to place that post in a state of defense, which if attended to will make it safe.”
It took careful reading of his correspondence with Lieutenant Governor Robinson to find some unexpected words of self-doubt. These remarks were tucked away in bold, bristling paragraphs—but they were there. “I feel, I know, if you and the Council do not,” he wrote Robinson on February 14, “that I am incompetent. … I do most earnestly ask of you, and any real friend, to relieve me, and make a selection of one possessing all the requisites of a commander.”
And on February 21—the same evening that Santa
Quick, sharp orders to Sesma’s cavalry. A detachment of dragoons were to take infantry officers’ horses (better rested)… attack the town that night … seize the dancing Texans by surprise. As the men saddled up around five o’clock, it began to rain. By the time they got going, a blinding storm lashed them from the north. The pretty green Medina, so easy to ford a few hours ago, was now a deep, foaming torrent. One glance convinced them—it just couldn’t be crossed.
Too bad. It was the kind of operation Santa Anna loved—like the time his men dressed up as monks to seize an unsuspecting rival in Veracruz. But it couldn’t be helped, so new orders went out: Sesma’s whole force would attack on the 23rd.
Meanwhile, the men rested, and Santa Anna received some more interesting visitors from San Antonio—an old priest … a Señor Manuel Menchaca … one of the prominent Navarros. His Excellency didn’t worry: an extra day or two would make no difference against men who spent their time at fandangos when the enemy was twenty-five miles away.
There were no fandangos at Goliad, the main Texas stronghold about ninety-five miles southeast of San Antonio. The Alamo might be disorganized and short of men, but not Goliad. Colonel James Walker Fannin had 420 troops—many of them from the Matamoros expedition, which had finally petered out. The fort was strong too—another of those old Spanish compounds, but it seemed more compact and in much better shape than the sprawling Alamo. And above all, there was organization. For Fannin was a genuine West Pointer, the only one with any significant command in Texas.
True; he hadn’t exactly graduated. He ran away after two years under somewhat cloudy circumstances. And there was a good deal of speculation about his later activities. He came to Texas from Georgia around 1834, always flashed plenty of money, seemed to be mixed up in all sorts of shadowy deals— especially slave-running. Yet the fact remained that Fannin was a military man; he proved it in drilling the Brazos Guards, and even more persuasively in his fighting at Concepción.
His military training rang in everything he did. Professional recommendations flowed from his pen—establish a War Bureau, bring in West Pointers. His headquarters bustled with bright young aides like Captain John Sowers Brooks, who had been a U.S. Marine. His proclamations glowed with assurance: “To the West, face. March!” began his call for men during the Matamoros affair. He always had eloquent words for the fresh volunteers arriving from the United States, and they in turn recognized, to use the words of one committee, “that Georgia’s honor and chivalry stood proudly vindicated in your person.”
He seemed to think of everything, even though he did turn down James Butler Bonham when the South Carolinian appeared on February 18 with an urgent appeal for help from Travis. Yet the Alamo clearly fitted somewhere in Fannin’s master plan, for on the 8th he assured San Felipe that he would “make such disposition of my forces as to sustain Bexar.” And again on the 16th: “I have taken measures to forward provisions to Bexar, and forwarded orders there today to place that post in a state of defense, which if attended to will make it safe.”
It took careful reading of his correspondence with Lieutenant Governor Robinson to find some unexpected words of self-doubt. These remarks were tucked away in bold, bristling paragraphs—but they were there. “I feel, I know, if you and the Council do not,” he wrote Robinson on February 14, “that I am incompetent. … I do most earnestly ask of you, and any real friend, to relieve me, and make a selection of one possessing all the requisites of a commander.”
And on February 21—the same evening that Santa
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