Rosalie Hart Priour Autobiography "Adventures of a Family of Emigrants" with notes and commentary by historian Frank Wagner (indicated in green).
Chapter 18
After innumerable hardships, we arrived at Victoria in the greatest destitution, but orders had been sent to Mr. [Nicholas] Lynch, then the quartermaster for the Texas volunteers, to procure houses for us and to furnish us with such things as were necessary for our comfort. After we were there five or six days, the younger [Dan James] of my stepbrothers was taken with cramps. My mother, fearing he would die, sent a courier to Laberdee for my stepfather. He obtained leave of absence and came home to see us, but could only stay one day and night.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - John James' furlough is unattested elsewhere. This chapter differs significantly from that assembled by Mary A. Mitchell, The First Flag of Texas Independence. Mitchell finds James took ayuntamiento archives (rather than dispatches) to La Bahia for safekeeping, but was intercepted by Captain Carlos de la Garza's men or some Karankawa levies, and the archives were scattered over the prairie. James was taken before Jose Urrea, and placed with the other prisoners.
Some important references to the Fannin massacre are:
Huson, Hobart
Captain Phillip Dimmitt's Commandancy of Goliad 1835-1836: An Episode of the Mexican Federalist War in Texas Usually referred to as the Texas Revolution. Von Boeckmann-Jones Co., Austin, 1974. lHamilton, Lester.
Goliad Survivor: Isaac D. Hamilton. The Naylor Co., San Antonio, 1971.Dr. J. H. Barnard's Journal, December 1835-June, 1836. Edited by Hobart Huson, 1950. Another edition containing Dr. J. H. Barnard's Journal from December 1835 to March 27th, 1836 was published by Goliad Advance June 1912, reprinted 1965.
Castaneda, Carlos E.
The Mexican Side of the Texas Revolution. P.L. Turner Co., Dallas, 1928.Ehrenberg, Herman
With Milam and Fannin: Adventures of a German Boy in Texas' Revolution. Translated by Charlotte Churchill. Pemberton Press, Austin, 1968.Field, Dr. Joseph E.
Three years in Texas, including a View of the Texan Revolution. Abel Tompkins, Boston, 1836. (Reprinted by Steck, Austin, 1935)Filosola, General Vicente.
Evacuation of Texas. G & T. Borden, Columbia (Texas), 1837. Reprinted Texian Press, Waco, 1965.There is strong though not decisive evidence that Lt. Col. Jose Nicolas de la Portilla and Captain J. J. Holzinger contrived to save some prisoners from execution. Cf. Ruby Cumby Smith, ''James W. Fannin, Jr. in the Texas Revolution'', Southwestern Historical Quarterly, vol. XXIII (1919-1920) and Harbert Davenport, "Men of Goliad", Ibid. XLIII (1939-1940).
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - He wanted to take us all to the fort at Laberdee, but mother told him that she had promised father when dying never to take his children into bad company, and that she could not break a promise made to the dead. She said they were expecting a battle with ten thousand Mexicans and Indians and she could not take her children to a worse place than that at such a time.
Mr. James then said, "Well, Elisabeth, what will you do with my children if I am killed?"
"John, I will do all I can for your children. They are as dear to me as my own. I will work day and night to support them, and when I have no other resource, will take them all, both yours and mine to New Orleans, and put them in the orphan's asylum."
"Elisabeth -- before a child of mine shall go to an asylum, I will take them with me, and if I am killed they will be turned loose in the woods to do the best they can."
He took them with him, and stopped at Mr. [Edward] McDonough's on the other side of the river from Victoria, and in 1854 I saw Mr. McDonough in Corpus Christi, and he told me that the children were crying to go back to mama, and that my stepfather sat down on a log and cried He said a man by the name of Poland [Pollan] had advised him to lie my mother down in a wagon and take her to Laberdee and into the fort by force.
"O! Mr. McDonough", said my father, "I have been very foolish to listen to that man's advice, and separate my children from a mother as good and kind as their mother was to them, only I feel ashamed to do it, I would take them back." He took them to Mr. [Nicholas] Fagan's on the San Antonio river twelve miles from Victoria, intending to fulfill the promise he had made mama before leaving, of coming back and taking the family to a place of safety, as soon as his term would be up with the army, for which he had enlisted, and it would expire in two weeks. Before he would reenlist, he would place us in safety. He was the bearer of important dispatches to Fannin, and he hurried on to Laberdee accompanied by Mr. Fagan.
The Alamo had already fallen into the hands of the Mexicans, but, as communication was cut off we had not yet heard of the massacre of Davy Crockett and his men, yet the Mexican army had already attacked Laberdee and taken Fannin and his men prisoners. As soon as Mr. Fagan and my stepfather entered the town, they were both arrested and thrown into prison with Fannin's company. The fourth day after their arrest, the Mexicans killed a beef and gave one quarter to my stepfather and another to Mr. Fagan and told them to take them to a fort where they had some prisoners of war that they intended to send to New Orleans. While there, they heard some firing and asked the Mexicans what that was, they answered, "It is none of your business, remain where you are and you are safe."
My stepfather answered, "There is some treachery, and I must see what it is. Let Fannin's fate be what it will, I am ready to share it." No persuasion could keep him back, and he was shot with the rest of the company. Mr. Fagan was saved, because he was a good mechanic [blacksmith], and the Mexicans needed such men to work for them.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Nicholas Fagan was a first cousin of Sir Edward Michael Pakenham, who led the British forces invading Louisiana during the War of 1812. Sir Edward was killed on the foggy Chalmette meadow when a signal rocket fired off unexpectedly, 8 January, 1815. His son, Sir Hercules Rowley Pakenham, was a distinguished soldier, whose daughter Catherine Sarah Dorothea Pakenham married Arthur Wellesly, First Duke of Wellington. A more distant relative, Sir Richard Pakenham, also from Meath, was British minister to Mexico during the War with Mexico. -67
Chapter 17 - Chapter 19