Fannin Battleground State Historic Site – Victoria, TX
Fannin Battleground State Historic Site marks the spot where the Texas Revolution’s worst chapter started. This is the prairie near Coleto Creek where Colonel James Walker Fannin and roughly 350 men were caught in the open by General Urrea’s cavalry on March 19, 1836, during their too-late retreat from Goliad to Victoria, about 16 miles away.
Fannin’s men formed a square and fought through the day, but they were surrounded on open ground with wounded piling up and no water. After a second morning under fire, Fannin negotiated a surrender, believing his men would be treated as prisoners of war by a civilized nation. They were marched back to Presidio La Bahia and held prisoner. A week later, on Santa Anna’s direct orders, nearly all of them were executed in the Goliad Massacre. That story, and the monument over their mass grave, is covered in our post on the Fannin Memorial Monument.
The battlefield itself has given up real evidence. Archeological surveys using remote sensing recovered over 500 artifacts here, including 415 lead balls, mapping where the square stood and where the fighting was thickest. Today the site is a quiet state historic park with a monument, interpretive exhibits, and picnic areas, which is a strange fate for a field like this one, but a peaceful place to stand and think about what nearly 350 men walked into.
The massacre here and at the Alamo spurred swift retribution. On April 21, 1836, at the Battle of San Jacinto, the Texian army broke Santa Anna’s force in 18 minutes, yelling “Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!” as they came. Texas independence was won in large part on the memory of the men captured in this field.
