The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963 Page: 572
641 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
only occupants of Goliad,s9 again he describes a severe battle about
the 2oth, Nov.leo Magee's forces being first three hundred and sixty
five men [I never counted them] with the one nine pounder, above
named, and three or four carronades."' (I never saw them.)
This battle he says was fought within the town and under the walls
of the fort from 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning until 2 o'clock P.M. but
the loss of the enemy was not known as it was their custom to carry
off their dead, and the Americans had seven wounded but not one
killed, [they must have been very much encumbered and made but
slow progress on their retreat packing their dead].
The Americans should have pursued but they may have been so
protected by their dead on their backs as to shield them from the
Americans' balls.
According to the engagements that I saw, the Americans must have
killed four or five hundred in the time stated. But I cannot assert
any thing from my own observation as I was not in this battle, he
then proceeds to describe another general engagement for a white
cow, which I saw. I walked down to the river to see the poor cow,
that was the innocent cause of so much destruction of human life,
she stood on the bank of the river, trembling in every limb, to see
the havoc she had caused. In this battle the enemy's loss was nearly
two hundred while the Americans lost but one killed and six wounded
-they did not carry off their dead this time.
This is about the proportion of their loss for the time in the battle
described above, lasting five hours, about five hundred men, which
they carried off.'" He then says that when Magee first took the town
5'Hall and Villars agree that Salcedo received a train of seven or eight pieces of
brass eight-pounders from San Antonio and that their fire had little effect on the
fort. In addition, Hall sets this action as on November 15 at 1o:oo A.M., and says
that heavy fire was returned from the fort with three eighteen-pounders, followed
by a sally by the garrison. McLane appears to have overreached himself in his
effort to criticize Hall as the name Goliad was given to the presidial settlement,
the fort and village, and not to the mission in 1829. The present town of Goliad
is near the old mission, on the north bank of the river. Hall. The Mexican War
of Independence in Texas, 1812-18, ibid., IV, Pt. 1, 278; Information derived from
John Villars, ibid., VI, 148; Castaneda, Catholic Heritage, VI, 325-326.
eOoGutierrez, writing to Shaler on November 25, said the enemy's strongest attack
to date had taken place on the day previous, that they had attacked on two points
with four cannon which fired about fifty-six shot, that the Americans had four
slightly wounded and of the enemy seven were killed, an officer and eight men were
wounded, and two Indian allies were also killed. Davenport gives the date of this
engagement as November 23, saying that several companies were ordered out to
prevent the enemy from taking the houses of the village. Gutierrez to Shaler, No-
vember 25, 1812, and Davenport to Shaler, both included with Shaler to Monroe,
December 25, 1812, Shaler Papers.
1exCarronade-a short light iron cannon, without trunnions, used on shore as a
howitzer.
e"'To a military man, this manner of estimating the enemy's casualties by the
time length of the engagement, it is a novel approach to the problem.572
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963, periodical, 1963; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101196/m1/612/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.