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Slaughter at Goliad: The Mexican Massacre of 400 Texas Volunteers

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In "Slaughter at Goliad", Jay Stout recounts the horrific tale of the single largest loss of American warriors until the American Civil War. Goliad, Texas is located only 80 miles from the most famous site of the Texas Revolution, the Alamo. Why is it that many of us have never heard of this place? By the conclusion of the book, Stout posits his answer to this question.

Stout provides the reader with an abbreviated course on Mexican history, including the rise of the militaristic despot, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. While not directly related to this battle, Santa Anna definitely influenced the massacre. His "Tornel Decree" declared anyone who took up arms against Mexico to be a pirate. Under Mexican law at the time, this meant death for any volunteer who had taken up arms. After the battle the commanding Mexican officer, General Jose Urrea, used this document and a letter from Santa Anna to the officer responsible for the slaughter to justify the murderous actions of his men.

After providing the strategic context of the Mexico-Texas relationship in 1836, Stout described the material incentives offered to bands of volunteers, such as the New Orleans Greys and the Alabama Red Rovers who came to the Texas frontier. With the motivations of both sides clearly described, Stout delivers a factual accounting of the final days of these 400 volunteers, including James Walker Fannin's aborted attempt to send a relief column to the Alamo, which was under siege only weeks before these men met their murderous end. Using personal diaries from both belligerents as source material, Stout was able to recreate a vivid image of the battle for the reader.

After 120 men held off a Mexican army during the battle of Matamoros a few days earlier, the 270-person contingent held off a second Mexican army at the Battle of Coleto creek. At the end of first day of battle, scores of Mexicans lay dead or wounded, at an American cost of only 9 dead and a few dozen wounded. General Urrea understood the Americans would have continued to inflict grievous harm on his army, so he accepted the conditional surrender terms of the Americans. With these honorable surrender terms in mind, the American prisoners marched back to Goliad under the impression they were to be paroled to return to the United States. At this point, General Urrea's least capable commander received a letter from Santa Anna, setting into motion events that would forever change Texas history.

At the Alamo, 182 Americans gave their lives in pursuit of an independent Texas; almost 400 volunteers paid that same price at Goliad. At the Battle of San Jacinto, less than a month later, the Texan volunteers rallied to the battle cry of "Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!" At this battle, General Sam Houston finally defeated Santa Anna, leading to the birth of the Republic of Texas. As time went by, the battle cry was halved to only "Remember the Alamo!" Stout's analysis offers very compelling arguments as to why this event was selectively forgotten from American history.

Stout brings to life this horrific event, remembering the brave men who fought and died for Texan Independence. He does these men a great justice by keeping their stories alive. Stout certainly knows how to tell a tale - I couldn't put the book down after I started it. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did.

The author has done American Historians a notable service in writing the definitive work on this usually overlooked episode in American history. The research is thorough, and his writing is excellent.

The center of his story is the massacre of approximately 400 American volunteers from mostly Southern states who went to Texas to assist the Anglo settlers there in winning independence from Mexico. To put this inexcusable event into context, author Stout briefly covers Mexico's history concentrating on the period from Mexico's independence from Spain in 1821 until the Santa Anna dictatorship. Unfortunately, the insurmountable problems faced by people raised in an authoritarian social structure when attempting to form a democracy without any concept of its workings is ignored. On the American side Stout describes the Americans using De Tocqueville's depiction as "freewheeling, free traveling, and hardly constrained by circumstances, class, or borders."

The Spanish and later Mexicans were simply unable to colonize Texas and what later became the American Southwest due to the harshness of the land and the indigenous Indians. Catholicism, being based on authority emanating from an emperor/priest, failed miserably in obtaining converts from non-hierarchial Indian societies, and Spanish and Mexican colonists were unable to conquer the Apaches and Comanches sufficiently to achieve a modicum of security. In this vacuum, Americans settlers began to arrive in large numbers, often in agreement with the Mexican government (like Austin's colony), and by 1836 the population of Texas stood at less than 4,000 Mexicans, and 40,000 Americans including their 4-5,000 slaves. Like it or not, the Americans were probably the world's most deadly predators at the time, and they took over the "Indian problem" and solved it. And as always, population was power, and the immigrant Americans had seized it from a hopelessly corrupt Mexican government.

Author Stout rather accurately describes the main player in the Goliad drama, James Fannin, as incompetent and self-important along with many of the other empresarios who came to Texas to win their fortunes. The same cannot be said for the young volunteers from Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and other states who would pay for their youthful wanderlust with their lives.

Cutting to the quick, Fannin commanded about 250 men at Goliad and was faced by the Mexican General Urrea with a force of approximately 1,000 men including 300 heavy cavalry outfitted like French cuirassiers. Fannin's total army of almost 500 men was spread out in multiple detachments, and the southerly ones under Grant and Johnson were rapidly destroyed by Urrea. He sent a third of his army to Refugio under King and Ward, and this detachment was overrun and eventually captured. Fannin dithered, decided not to go to the Alamo, and after a senseless skirmish, decided to leave Goliad to join Houston. Unfortunately he took with him nine cannon and his rate of march was slowed to two miles per hour. It did not take Urrea long to catch Fannin in the open and surround him. After an afternoon of fighting in which the Americans acquitted themselves honorably and a miserable night, Fannin surrendered his command believing he and his men would be spared. Certainly the foreign officers in Urrea's army thought they would be spared and Urrea made statements to that effect, but the surrender document left the terms up to the Mexican Government -- in essence to Santa Anna.

The Mexican Government, at Santa Anna's bidding, had enacted the Decree of Tornel, stating essentially that all foreign invaders on Mexican soil were to be treated as pirates (e.g. subject to execution.) When Urrea contacted Santa Anna as to the disposition of the prisoners, Santa Anna's reply was to execute Fannin and his men.

The following day, Fannin's survivors of the Battle of Coleto and the prisoners from the other detachments comprising about 400 men were shot down or otherwise dispatched in four groups including the officers who were killed separately. The only men spared were those useful to the Mexican Army, namely doctors, nurses and some carpenters. Notably, there was no hesitation on the part of the Mexican soldiers to murder the prisoners. Only a very few prisoners escaped by feigning death or running away when the slaughter began.

The author presents both sides in a fair and impartial manner, carefully documenting Fannin's fecklessness and Santa Anna's mendacity. The cries of "Remember the Alamo" and "Remember Goliad" propelled Houston's force to victory at San Jacinto, but revisionists have carefully deleted the Goliad cry as not wanting to draw attention to Fannin's incompetence and Mexican brutality. This book brings the story home in an scholarly fashion to the benefit of all.

While every American and Mexican schoolchild knows the story of the Alamo, few "Norteamericanos" know the story of the massacre that followed it, that of killing 250 unarmed Texan prisoners at Goliad.

Author Jay Stout's latest book "Slaughter at Goliad" brings this blot on the Mexican military into the harsh light of day. Exceptionally well-written, he brings his experience as a Marine combat aviator into the battle as he explains the fight in terms that every reader can understand.
Superficially, this is a simple story; after a one-sided battle won by the Mexican Army over a bunch of rag-tag Texan-American volunteers, some 250 prisoners were marched to Goliad. After 200 more prisoners were brought to the compound, where they were all massacred on Palm Sunday, March 27, 1836. It was one of the single largest losses of life in the history of the young United States, and the repercussions affected Texas, America, and Mexico virtually immediately.

Of special importantance to the battle and to the book is Stout's examination of the personalities and politics involved. Stout portrays James Walker Fannin, the commander of the doomed unit, as an ineffective leader who misjudged his adversary, Mexico's infamous General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. As author Stout explains, rather than courage, it was Fannin's incompetence as a battlefield commander that put his men into a position where they had to either surrender or be killed - and it was equally Santa Anna's ego and short-sightedness that led him to execute Fannin and his troops.

Fully understanding Clausewitz's dictum that `war is merely politics by another means', Stout goes on to explain how this massacre was integral into galvanizing American public opinion in favor of a war against Mexico.
Not to be forgotten is Stout's description of the boots-on-the-ground stories of Fannin's men. They came to Texas for various reasons, and with equally various and vague backgrounds, yet were integral to the Texan drive for independence. "Manifest destiny" started here, with men like those under Fannin's command, and Stout does an excellent job documenting it.

Neither pro-nor-con Mexico or America, Jay Stout has written an interesting and sophisticated battle history of a long-forgotten incident that helped Texas win their war of independence. This is well worth reading for both the casual and educational reader of both military and North American history. ! Ole !

Coming from a surprising source, the Naval Institute Press, a non-profit arm of the U. S. Naval Institute primarily dedicated to publishing books about modern naval and aircraft history, Jay Stout's study of the Goliad massacre of 1836 is a balanced and well-written work, one that advances our understanding of the historical roots of Texas. While the massacre of Texan revolutionaries and American volunteers at Goliad occurred just a short time after the Mexican defeat of the Texans at the Alamo, it is the latter that is well-remembered, and is an icon and the former that is little-known and far less remembered, even in Texas. Who hears "Remember Goliad," although some Texans shouted it at the Battle of San Jacinto, and while Bowie, Crockett and Travis are revered names, Fannin is forgotten.

The words in the book's title are carefully selected, from "slaughter" to "massacre" to the number of victims at 400, to "volunteers." At Goliad on March 26, 1836, nearly three weeks after the fall of the Alamo, 400 unarmed captives were slaughtered under the orders of the notorious Mexican commander and dictator Santa Anna. The rebels had been fighting for Texas independence from Mexico, and regarded by the Mexican leader as pirates, and as such deserved no quarter. Stout tells the story in a narrative manner, sparing no criticism for the mismanagement and terrible leadership on the Texas side. Much historical background, analysis and evaluation is interspersed along the way, something Stout must have learned to do during his time as a defense industry analyst and Marine Corps fighter pilot, experiences clearly in play in the narrative.

The steps leading to the Goliad massacre are a typical military tale of overwhelming force, better led, defeating a ragtag army much more poorly commanded. The professional Mexican Army under Gen. Jose de Urrea, after some initial losses, rather easily defeated the mixed bag of volunteers at Coleto Creek near the presidio at La Bahia. The volunteers who had come to Texas from the United States were fighting under the uninspired and sometimes inept leadership of West Point dropout Col. James Fannin, a man who bragged his way into Texas leadership, possibly after fleeing bad debts in the Georgia. On the part of Fannin and his captives, there was reason to believe from the terms of surrender that they would be paroled out of Texas. About 200 more captive soldiers eventually joined Fannin's forces. On direct orders from Antonio López de Santa Anna, they were virtually all massacred on March 27, 1836. Only a handful of protected doctors treating Mexican wounded, and a few lucky escapees, managed to survive.

Despite leadership on the Texas side found wanting, from the provisional government to Col. Fannin, it is clear from this study that the true stain of inhumanity belongs on the side of Mexico. The effect on Sam Houston and his forces, leading to the eventual defeat of the Mexican troops and the capture of Santa Anna is also examined. Stout addresses the rationales given for justifying such barbarism against fellow human beings, and finds them wanting. The author also minutely examines the doomed American leader, Fannin, whose errors in tactics and strategy, and lack of leadership, in short, his incompetence, caused him to be placed in the surrender or die position. Despite such incompetence, Fannin died bravely, and it is the author's conclusion that his memory deserves better.

There are terrific vignettes about the survivors of the massacre, their harrowing escapes, and their later lives. In fact, one gets a good picture of the soldiers and what brought them to then godforsaken Texas to fight in the first place. The cruelty of Santa Anna, who had nine lives if anyone ever did, is clearly drawn in his monumental corruption, egotistical behavior, and ultimate miscalculation, even though he is not present for the direct action that dominates the book. The author shows how his later attempts to deny responsibility for the massacre fails in the cold light of history. As well, the legendary "angel" of Goliad, the camp follower who contributed to the saving of several soldiers' lives is an important lesson in how condemnation should never apply to all members of a nation for the villainous actions of some. This reviewer found the Epilogue section challenging his assumptions in its examination of the notion that revenge for the Goliad massacre was the catalyst for the ultimate defeat of Santa Anna's forces, of what might have happened had Fannin's forces survived, and why, through shame, Texas chose to virtually ignore the sacrifice of the men at Goliad for virtually a century (it wasn't until 1938 that a monument was built on the site).

This book contains useful maps, photos of re-enactors at Goliad, extensive endnotes, a complete bibliography and a useful index. Those interested in an in-depth study and those interested in a good introduction to this book will find it valuable, and it should be the standard reference work on the subject for some time. Remember Goliad!

As every Texas school child who takes the obligatory Texas history course in junior high school knows, "Remember the Alamo; remember Goliad!" was the battle cry of the victorious Texas army at the decisive battle of San Jacinto in which Texas won its independence from Mexico. The massacres committed by the Mexican troops at the Alamo and Goliad became rallying points for the Texas rebels in their improbable victory over Santa Anna's army. Of course, everyone knows about the battle of the Alamo, at least the romanticized version. Goliad has always been more of an afterthought -- present, but less well known. For those who are not satisfied with regarding Goliad as a historical footnote and want to know more, Jay Stout has written what will almost certainly be regarded as the last word on the subject. The book is so dense with descriptions of events, biographical sketches, and historical details that there simply can't be much left to say. Not only does Lt. Col. Stout cover the battle itself, along with the run-up to it and its aftermath, but also he sets the stage with an indepth analysis of the historical forces at work in Texas, the rest of Mexico, and the United States to place the events at Goliad in context. Finally, with his keen miltary historian's analytical insight, Lt. Col. Stout focuses on the stunning incompetence of the military leadership on both sides. That is something that certainly gets short shrift in the conventional wisdom of the Texas revolution and is the book's major revelation.

This book is probably not for the casual reader, however. It is clearly the product of prodigious research, which is reflected in the unusually high density of factual content. Absorbing all of this information requires a commitment on the part of the reader that may exceed the level of interest of some potential audiences. Fortunately, Stout's lively writing style, which comes through in at least parts of the text, prevents the manuscript from becoming dreary. (Interestingly, there seem to be different voices in various parts of the text. One suspects that the author's natural style was at times stifled by the intrusion of an overly zealous editor. Such can be the lot of wordsmiths.)

In summary, the book is a remarkable achievement, and readers who invest the necessary energy will be amply rewarded.

This is well worth the buy and the read. It's billed as the most comprehensive look at the massacre, and I'd go along with that, though I haven't read many others. Especially interesting is the section on weapons, which explains how so many of the American volunteers killed so many Mexican soldados in the Battle of Coleto and how the few survivors of the massacre got away: the Mexican Brown Bess flintlock muskets were rendered poorer by weak, field-made powder.

I've seen several descriptions of how Fannin, who was executed last, supposedly asked not to be shot in the face but was, anyhow. Stout quotes from the only eyewitness account, available at Texas A&M, that Fannin actually asked only that the Mexican muskets not be held so close to his face that it receive powder burns, but he was disregarded. A strange sort of vanity, by a strange fellow, either way. Stout's bibliography is worth having by itself. Despite recent efforts to get the Mexican government to return the flag of the New Orleans Grays, about half of whom were murdered at Goliad, I agree with Stout that it belongs in Mexico, but wish that it would be put on display or, at least, photographed for public view.

Good as Stout's book is, I must say that if you can only afford/read one book on the Texas Revolution, professional historian Stephen Hardin's "Texian Iliad" is still the best.

This book is very well researched and is an easy read. It is a "must" for anyone interested in Texas history. It is not a Mexican bash It simply lays out what happened that April, 1836 morning.

Russ Wege Glenville, New York

Stout has penned a well written book about an important but often overlooked part of the Texas Revolution. The Slaughter at Goliad is as important, or more so, as what happened at Alamo in explaining the type of characters who were leading revolution in Texas.

The title is quite fair; it was a slaughter by the Mexican forces ordered by the shame of Mexico, Santa Anna. Even today, Mexican school textbooks teach the history of Santa Anna as largely an embarrassment and betrayal of the national history.

I purchased this book for my Dad and he loved it! He said he had trouble putting it down. This is a great book for a person who is interested in reading about Texas battles & history.

Most histories of the Texas Revolution follow an outline of: Spanish colonization, Mexican Independence, settlement of Texas, Santa Anna's suspension of the Constitution of 1824, expulsion of Mexican troops from Texas, Santa Anna's invasion, the Alamo, the runaway scrape, and San Jacinto. The Battle of the Alamo is generally the center piece of those books.

This author provides much the same outline. However, he puts Goliad at the center of the story and examines it carefully and exhaustively. Therefore, James Walker Fannin and Jose Urrea are the primary decision-makers instead of Neill, Bowie, Travis, and Santa Anna.

Many topics are well-done: descriptions of the leaders, their men, and their weapons; the raids, skirmishes, and battles in the Refugio-Goliad-Victoria region; decisions by King, Ward, Fannin, Horton, and Miller to attack, retreat, and/or surrender; views of Santa Anna, Urrea, Portilla, Garay, and Savariego on what to do with the prisoners; and rest-of-his-life stories on a few men who escaped the slaughter. Also, an interesting report is included on actions of "the angel of Goliad" Francisca Pancita.

Few maps are included, but they are well done. This book is one of the few using a base map of Texas showing the rivers as free-flowing instead of showing today's lakes along their courses. Almost every location mentioned in the book is included on the base map, although Galveston Island and San Jacinto are missing. One mis-location is Harrisburg, which should marked near the "g" rather than the "H" of Harrisburg. The sketch of the volunteer formation at Coleto Creek shows (probably correctly) a rectangle instead of a square which some other books have shown.

One mis-statement is in chapter 17: "Rusk, while dogging the Mexican army out of Mexico ...." The "out of Mexico" should clearly be "out of Texas."

And, the book includes a set of re-enactment pictures to help readers visualize the men, the battle at Coleto Creek, and the massacre.

I heartily recommend this book to every serious student of the Texas Revolution.