On Mar. 12, 1836, six days after the fall of the Alamo, Gen. Sam Houston sent an urgent message to Goliad ordering Philip Dimmit to meet him at Gonzales.
Few Anglo-Americans came to Texas earlier than the young Kentuckian, who arrived at San Antonio in 1823, the same year Stephen F. Austin got the final go-ahead to populate the Mexican province. Dimmitt learned Spanish, married a local girl and became a successful and popular trader with posts at Victoria, Goliad and Lavaca Bay.
When discontent flared into defiance of the central government in the summer of 1835, planters and merchants almost to a man denounced the hotheads that dared to rock the boat. They had a good thing going and were not about to risk it all in a reckless confrontation with their Mexican hosts.
