Bartee Haile
The moment Francita Alavez heard the nightmarish news on the evening of Mar. 26, 1836, she sprang into swift but secret action. The brave wife of a Mexican officer would not stand idly by while her countrymen killed the defenseless detainees at Goliad.
The Tampico prisoners served as guinea pigs for Santa Anna’s get-tough policy toward meddlesome foreigners. A number of Americans were among the 28 followers of Gen. Jose Antonio Mexia tried for piracy and put to death on Dec. 14, 1835. Encouraged by the ho-hum reaction from the United States, the tyrant issued his infamous no-quarter decree that his puppet congress made the law of the land two weeks later.
Gen. Jose de Urrea, commander of the eastern army sweeping north up the Texas coast, believed the summary slaughter of prisoners was unconscionable overkill. But he had to do something with the Texans taken at San Patricio on Feb. 27, 1836, and Santa Anna demanded their immediate annihilation. A last-minute appeal from an Irish priest gave him a good excuse for letting the rebels live, and he shipped them off to Matamoros.
Urrea faced an identical dilemma two weeks later at Refugio, where 33 armed insurrectionists raised the white flag. He solved the problem by shooting the half that hailed from Kentucky and Tennessee and turning loose those claiming colonial residency and Mexican citizenship.
Later in the week, Urrea fought a bloody two-day battle with Col. James W. Fannin that was suddenly interrupted by the Georgian’s unexpected offer to surrender. Since the Mexican already had lost 250 soldiers and feared far more casualties if the fighting continued, he was ready to promise his opponent the moon.
Negotiations hit a serious snag, when the rebel representatives insisted upon humane treatment as POW’s and prompt parole to the U.S. Urrea took Fannin aside for a confidential chat and privately pledged complete compliance with the unacceptable terms if he would only lay down his arms.
Fannin should have known better than to strike the fatal bargain. He was well aware of Santa Anna’s standing order, which had been so mercilessly carried out at the Alamo. What made him think Urrea had the power to keep such a pie-in-the-sky promise?
The rebel troops, many against their better judgment, did as they were told and dumped their weapons in a pile. A Mexican officer reacted to their submission with the reassuring wisecrack, “Well, gentlemen. In eight days, home and liberty!”
Urrea reported by messenger to his superior and recommended clemency for the captives. Santa Anna answered on Mar. 23 with a direct order for the mass execution of the “perfidious foreigners” and just to be on the safe side sent the same instructions to the colonel in charge of the Goliad garrison.
By the time Jose Nicolas de la Portilla received his orders on Mar. 26, Urrea was long gone. Resigned to the inevitability of the massacre, he chose to be someplace else when the carnage commenced.
The prisoners were in especially high spirits that dreadful night following word from the gullible Fannin that the Mexicans were busy making the necessary arrangements for their safe departure. The poor souls sang themselves to sleep with a few choruses of “Sweet Home Alabama.”
Haunted by hellish visions of what the morning would bring, Francita Alavez could not close her eyes. Her kind heart had already gone out to the prisoners at Copano Bay, where she coaxed the guards into loosening the ropes cutting off the circulation in their arms, an act of compassion that paled in comparison to her current mission of mercy.
Senora Alavez had a kindred spirit in a colonel named Francisco Garay, who was also willing to risk his life to save as many prisoners as possible from the firing squads. At first light he led a score or so of confused captives to his tent in a peach orchard and told them to stay put until he returned.
As the condemned filed past, Senora Alavez spotted a young boy in the doomed ranks. She pleaded with a high ranking German mercenary to leave the lad with her, and without a word or change of expression the request was miraculously granted.
Minutes later the sound of musket fire and the screams of the dying shattered the Palm Sunday silence. “Curse you, Santa Anna!” shouted Francita Alavez. “What a disgrace you have brought to this country!”
From his sanctuary in the orchard, Dr. J.H. Barnard heard the murderous madness. “I saw through the trees several of the prisoners running with their utmost speed and directly after some Mexican soldiers in pursuit of them.
“Colonel Garay now appeared and said to us, ‘Keep still, gentlemen. You are safe. This is not from my orders nor do I execute them.’”
Three hundred and forty-two men died that day shot down like rabid dogs. Of the estimated 65 survivors, no fewer than 37 owed their lives to the “Angel of Goliad” and the courageous colonel.
Meet Bartee in person at The Woodlands Waterway Arts Festival on Saturday, April 11. Look for him at one o’clock in the Village Books tent.
