by Julia Hayden

Goliad - The Other Alamo

The Texas war for independence from Mexico kicked off 175 years ago - but that it barely lasted six months, and crammed the most spectacular events into a period of about seven weeks means that the commemorative events are similarly crammed. The first weekend in March took me to the Alamo . . . and the last weekend will take me to the Goliad, or La Bahia del Espiritu Santo. Of all those places the Texas revolution happened, La Bahia is the only one which still looks much like it did in 1836.

In the matter of retaking Texas, Santa Anna had detached General Don Jose Urrea, with a force of about a thousand soldiers to guard his eastern flank and to mop up the Anglo-Texan resistance along the coastal plains. Colonel James Fannin with 500 men - the largest portion of what military the Texian rebels possessed - were at Goliad, which commanded the strategic route from the coastal port at Copano. Meanwhile, spurred by the knowledge that they must either fight or go under, a convention of Texian settlers at Washington-on-the-Brazos declared independence on March 2. In double quick-time, they had drafted a constitution, elected an interim government, and commissioned Sam Houston as commander of what army was left. Houston went to rally the settlers' militia at Gonzales, intending to relieve the Alamo; on the day of his arrival news came that the Alamo had fallen.

Houston sent a message to Fannin, ordering him to fall back towards the east, but Fannin had sent out a small force to protect Anglo-Texan settlers nearby, and refused to leave until he heard from them. When he did finally move out, Urrea's column had already made contact. Fannin and his force were caught in the open a little short of Coleto Creek. They fought in a classic hollow square, three ranks deep for a day and a night, tormented by lack of water. Finally, Urrea brought up field guns, and raked the square with grapeshot. Fannin surrendered, believing that he did so under honorable terms.

The survivors were brought back to Goliad and held for a week. They all assumed they would be disarmed, paroled and sent back to the United States. Urreas' officers had assumed the same, and were appalled when Santa Anna ordered that the prisoners be executed. Urrea had asked for leniency and the commander left in charge of Goliad was personally horrified, but the orders were obeyed. On Palm Sunday, 1863, those of Fannin's garrison able to walk - about three hundred of them - were divided into three groups, and marched out of town in three different directions, before being shot down by their guards.

Forty wounded were dragged into the courtyard in front of the chapel doors and executed as they lay on the ground. Fannin himself was shot last of all, knowing what had happened to his men. Many bodies were dumped into a trench and burnt, although most were left where they lay. A handful of Texians survived by escaping into the brush during all the confusion, and another handful were kept out of the fatal march - concealed by sympathetic Mexican officers or rescued by Francita Alavez, the Angel of Goliad.

There will be a reenactor's encampment within the walls of the presidio this weekend, March 26 and 27, 2011 and a number of scheduled events, in addition to a memorial service on Sunday. More is at the linked website.

Presidio La Bahía is located one mile south of Goliad, Texas on U.S. Highway 183 (77A). Presidio La Bahia was established at this location in 1749, with Mission Espíritu Santo

26th ANNUAL GOLIAD MASSACRE LIVING HISTORY PROGRAM

SCHEDULE FOR THE EVENT - 2011

SATURDAY, March 26th

9:00 GATES OPEN
10:00 1ST SKIRMISH
10:30 LIVING HISTORY AT CAMPSITES
10:30 CAVALRY PRESENTATION AT AMPHITHEATER
11:00 LECTURE IN CHAPEL
12:00 SHOWING OF VIDEO "PRESIDIO LA BAHIA AND ITS PLACE IN THE
HISTORY OF TEXAS" IN CHAPEL
12:30 Concert by K.R. Wood and the Gone to Texas Band in chapel.
1:30 2ND SKIRMISH
2:00 LIVING HISTORY AT CAMPSITES
2:15 LECTURE IN CHAPEL
3:00 BATTLE OF COLETO CREEK
3:30 LIVING HISTORY AT CAMPSITES
5:00 GATES CLOSE
7:00-9:00 CANDLELIGHT TOUR - ENTER AT SOUTH GATE

SUNDAY, March 27th

9:00 GATES OPEN
9:30 ISAAC HAMILTON - A PRISONER BY DENNIS REIDESEL
10:00 DEATH MARCH FROM CHAPEL TO ACTUAL MASSACRE SITE

Followed by ISAAC HAMILTON - A SURVIVOR BY DENNIS REIDESEL

Followed by EXECUTION OF FANNIN AND THE WOUNDED TEXIANS

Followed by MEMORIAL SERVICE STARTS IN CHAPEL FOLLOWED BY A
PROCESSION TO THE FANNIN MONUMENT FOR THE CONCLUSION
OF THE MEMORIAL SERVICE.

By the Rivers' Edge

The rivers that run through Texas were not historically reliable enough to facilitate heavy transport in the way that the Mississippi and its various tributaries were and still are. The various rivers - Rio Grande, Nueces, Guadalupe, San Antonio, Sabine, Brazos and Trinity - were at times and in places navigable by shallow-draft boats and steamships - it all rather depended on how recently it had rained. They were slightly more useful at providing small-scale power for mills, at those points where they could be built. But the most important use for Texas rivers though, especially the western-most of them - was simply that they were there, providing water in an otherwise arid land.

San Antonio was located where it was because of the generous sources of sweet, cold water - springs of which came out like fountains because of the aquifer, buried deep under the limestone hills to the north. Travelers and memoirists alike noted the importance of water and the river to San Antonio, even in the early days. By mid-19th century, it was noted that the very best houses in town backed on the river, with bath-houses and pavilions built along the banks, and in the heat of summer, practically everyone found relief from it by soaking in the water. After the Alamo, San Antonio's premier tourist attraction is - of course - the Riverwalk. Out of the spotlight, there are a number of projects to extend various existing parks and construct new recreational greenways along the banks of urban rivers and creeks - but that's a year round and on-going project. The major summertime enjoyment of other local rivers is just about to be launched, with a large and refreshing splash.

For San Antonio residents, the nearest place to indulge in that kind of recreation would be on the Comal River (at three miles long is about the shortest river in Texas), which runs through New Braunfels, and a twenty-mile long stretch of the Guadalupe between Canyon Lake Dam and New Braunfels. Those reaches of river are marvelously scenic, with unlimited opportunities for sightseeing, dining and shopping at every bend, no matter if you are kayaking, canoeing or just doing it on a rubber inner-tube. My daughter claims that Texas river tubing is absolutely the most relaxing way to do it; no cellphone, no internet, no city traffic - other than other tubers - just drifting along in the current, keeping cool and watching the riverbank go past. There are some deep places, and some rapids here and there; the river reaches are patrolled fairly rigorously for under-aged drinkers, and for those who carelessly bring glass or Styrofoam out onto the river - but for sheer total relaxation very possibly the only way to beat tubing, is probably a full body-massage at a day spa. A lot of the river outfitters have already opened in mid-March, although it won't really kick into high gear until it gets warmer. By Memorial Day weekend, there'll be so many tubers out there on weekends that you could probably cross the Guadalupe, by hopping from tube to tube.

Dinner Salad - Salade Nicoise

This is one of our favorite full-meal salads - being that it's three out of the four food groups in one, and in fairly generous quantities: there's your meat, potatoes, and several kinds of veggies. Throw in some nice crusty French bread, and there you go. (The other favorite dinner salad being a concoction of leftover chicken, bean-thread noodles, toasted sesame seeds and a vinaigrette dressing made with a dash of soy sauce).

It is also something that my mother used to fix fairly often, especially when it was too hot to spend very much time in the kitchen in the heat of the day. It's one of those handy dishes which may also be prepped in advance, and the quantity may expanded or contracted to suit any number of diners; one big platter in the center, or scaled down to individual servings. The name comes from the town of Nice, on the French Mediterranean coast - oddly enough, Kiet, the Vietnamese teenage refugee who lived with us for a year in the mid 90s recognized it and liked it very well, also. Kiet pronounced it as "Salad Nuc - Wha" and liked his with a little spritz of Vietnamese fish sauce.

The recipe is infinitely flexible; you may make your own marinade/dressing or use any bottled oil-and-vinegar dressing instead, or adorn with cold cooked shrimp instead of the canned tuna. I once had Salade Nicoise in a very upscale restaurant where they had chunks of seared ahi tuna steak - which was very good - but they also served it with lightly boiled blue potatoes, marinated wax beans and yellow tomatoes, which had me blinking at the plate and wondering if my eyes had suddenly gone bad.

Anyway - this version serves four:

Combine and shake vigorously until emulsified: ¾ cup olive oil, ¼ cup red wine vinegar, a dash of salt and pepper, 2 tbsp each of chopped chives and chopped parsley, and ½ tsp whole-grain mustard.

Meanwhile, boil 4 large unpeeled boiling potatoes in salted water for 15-20 minutes until just tender. (You can also use whole baby red potatoes, too.) Cool immediately under cold water, peel and slice, and pour over just enough of the dressing to thinly coat slices. Cover and refrigerate for at least two hours.

Blanch 1 ½ pounds fresh trimmed green beans in boiling water. Drain well, and moisten with salad dressing. Cover and refrigerate for at least two hours.

Line a large, deep platter or four dinner plates with fresh lettuce or spinach greens, and arrange a mound of the cooked potato slices in the middle. Top with 1 7-oz can solid pack white albacore tuna, drained. Arrange the green beans on either side of the potatoes, and ring the platter with 2-3 hardboiled eggs, halved, and 2 medium tomatoes, cut in wedges. Adorn the salad with any or all of the following: 10-12 anchovy filets, 6-8 marinated artichoke hearts, a handful of ripe olives, a tbsp of whole capers. My daughter likes marinated baby ears of corn. Sprinkle the whole thing with a little more of the salad dressing/marinade. It can be served at once, or covered in plastic wrap and allowed to sit for a little while.

Open Air History - The Alamo

I'm not alone in this mad love of history, in being so besotted by events and eras to the point of studying certain aspects down to the sub-atomic level. I only write about it, which is the traditional venue for those like Miniver Cheevy, who wistfully believe they were born too late. There have been writers who have done very well by antiquarian enthusiasms; Sir Walter Scott almost single handedly popularizing the sport of jousting in mid-19th century England and America, as well as a passion for plaid. Indeed, the 19th century went on a Gothic bender for decades. Anyway, this kind of enthusiasm is not confined any more to scribblers of genre fiction; now there are thousands of dedicated amateurs - who actually go out and make an effort to live in the time of their passion. I am pretty sure this started with the Society for Creative Anachronism, or possibly with enterprises like the various Renaissance Pleasure Fairs which I vaguely remember hearing about or attending early in the 1970s.

I've loved going to reenactor events and displays, even more since I got taken up with the writing bug. There is just only so much one can get from a book, or from a display in a museum, or from a TV documentary - sometimes it just helps to have someone demonstrate something to you, or even let you try it out yourself. A couple of years ago, I went to a Mountain Man rendezvous, at a reconstructed log fort in Ogden, Utah. One of the lucky experiences there was to watch a family erect a tall canvas-covered tee-pee. So, however did several people maneuver a series of long poles, which were too heavy for someone to lift, yet lift and lean them together? Twenty minutes of watching - and now I know. And I also know how the teepees and tents appear at twilight, with lanterns burning inside and out, the mist rising from the lakeside just as the sun sets . . . and there's a lovely tableau set for me to write a description of . . . when the opportunity rises, of course.

I had another experience, of learning to load and break down for cleaning, an authentic Colt Paterson revolver, so that I could write about that believably in one of my books. Another friend, a black-powder shooting enthusiast, let us go shooting at the range he has out in back of his house. (Which is waaaaaay out in the country, FYI.) Useful information for me, since the experience of shooting with a black-powder period revolver is as different from the modern Beretta that I had to learn to use in the Air Force. Out in California, I hung out in the weavers' barn at a little local museum, just picking up general knowledge about that process. And just this last weekend, out to Alamo Plaza to watch the San Antonio Living History Association events to commemorate the siege of 1836. I think the useful thing for me there was the clothes and accessories; all the difference in the world to eye-ball them close-up and in real time, rather than just look at pictures. Long live open-air historians; they are teaching other people besides me what the past looked like, felt like, and sounded like.

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Blue Star and South Town

So, after we scoped out the elaborate series of reenactor events on Alamo Plaza last weekend - uniforms and long rifles and cannon -oh-my! - we decided to venture into South Town and check out anything interesting going on at the Blue Star Arts Complex . . . which since it was the day after First Friday - not very much. It had been simply years since I had reason to go to the Blue Star. I don't recall what took me there that time; either responding to an advertisement for a job opening (possible) or trying to sell someone advertising space in a little arts publication that I was working for at the time (also possible).

Anyway, it's been a while, and the whole South Town and Blue Star scene is coming ever more close to being an art district. Think of it as a sort of Texas So-Ho/Tribeca, with repurposed industrial buildings and renovated cottages of a historical nature all mixed together along the banks of the lower San Antonio River in the shade of the Pioneer Flour Mill towers. After all, the area is wedged between historical downtown and equally historical King William, so why the heck not?

South Town looks to have gotten the right proportion in the mix - just enough gentrification and upper-crust establishments to be fairly safe, and enough shabby decrepitude to be cheap and interesting. And if you have an arty section of town, it has to be cheap enough that artists can afford to live there and freelance artists and writers are not (ahem) often generously remunerated for the exercise of their art.

Remember the guys in La Boheme? Four guys, sharing an attic in Paris, hocking their overcoats for food and burning their manuscripts to keep warm - but they had friendship and fun, so at least that kind of life looked to be sustainable. And San Antonio in winter is definitely warmer in winter than New York or Paris.

We walked around for a bit, looking at an exhibit of prints and another of very modern art - which seemed to consist of random squiggly shapes cast or cut out of metal and hung on the wall, adorned with this, that or the other. Not my cuppa - but as my mother used to say, it obviously keeps the artist busy and amused. I'm still wondering about a series of twenty identical cast-iron leaf shapes, each with an identical trapezoidal divot of opaque cast glass inset into one edge. Hooo-kay, and yeah, I'm a philistine when it comes to modern art, as I suspect that much of it is a huge practical joke played upon the public.

We better liked the folk art at San Angel Folk Art, at 110 Blue Star. Yay for folk art, which transmits more of a sense of energy, joy and sheer humor . . . plus, you don't have to guess what it actually is supposed to represent. It's usually pretty obvious: Ray Charles at the piano, a huge folk-art albino crocodile, a set of miniature Catrinas - all dressed and decorated for various holidays and events, and a very elaborate vase with a huge flower and humming-bird, all made of cleverly folded and cut paper. I couldn't take a picture of the piece I liked best - a very large round painted bowl, entirely covered in three-dimensional flowers and monarch butterflies; the butterflies mounted in short wires so that they seemed to float over the surface - I could almost see their wings trembling. Anyway, that was my Saturday afternoon; what was yours?

The Old Spanish Mission at the Edge of Town

And that's what it was - a hundred and seventy-five years ago this spring - when the Alamo achieved fame immortal, just before sunrise in the spring of 1836. Visitors are usually taken back to discover that it is so small. I was, the first time I visited it as an AF trainee on town-pass in 1978; a little Spanish colonial style chapel, in limestone weathered to the color of dark ivory.

The church and the ‘Long Barracks' are the only buildings remaining of Mission San Antonio de Valero; the northernmost of a linked chain of five missions complexes, threaded like baroque pearls on a green ribbon, and originally established to tend to the spiritual needs and the protection of local Christianized Indian tribes. The missions were secularized at the end of the 18th century; their chapels became local parish churches and the oldest of them all became a garrison.

I have a full-sized copy of a birds-eye view map of San Antonio in 1873, which shows a grove of trees in rows behind the apse of the old chapel. In that year those surviving buildings served as an Army supply depot, and the plaza a marshalling yard. Did the Army supply sergeants or the laborers unloading the wagons ever wonder about the building they worked in. What did they think, piling up crates, barrels and boxes where a handful of survivors had made their last stand against the tide of Santa Anna's soldiers flooding over the crumbling walls? Probably not much- whitewash covers a lot.

A useful, sturdy building is just that - useful. By the 1870s, those Regular Army NCOs were veterans of the Civil War, and perhaps haunted enough by their own war. The growing city had spread beyond those limits that William Travis, David Crocket and James Bowie would have seen, looking down from those very same walls.

In 1836 the old mission sat some distance from the outskirts of a little provincial town, out in the meadows by river fringed in rushes, willows, and cottonwood trees. Cottonwoods grow wherever there is water in plenty, their leaves trembling incessantly in the slightest breeze. Otherwise, it would have been open country, rolling meadows star-scattered with trees, and striped across by two roads; the Camino Real, the King's road, towards Nacogdoches in the east, and the road south towards the Rio Grande. It is a challenge to take away the tall glass buildings, the lawns and flowering shrubs, to ignore the sounds of traffic, the SATrans busses belching exhaust, and see it as it might have appeared, a hundred and seventy-five years ago

Those northern provinces of the nation of Mexico were in ferment in the 1830s, some of which might be chalked up to the presence of settlers who had come to Texas from the various United States looking for land. Many like Stephen Austin were honestly grateful for the free land and consideration from the Mexican authorities, and initially had no thought of trafficking in rebellion. But rebel they did; the old Alamo was strategic; but too large to be effectively defended.

The rebels and their leaders chose to stand fast in the old mission, for reasons that they perhaps didn't articulate very well to themselves, save for in William Travis's immortal letters. James Bowie was deathly ill and David Crockett was new-come to the country, in search of adventure more than glory. None of them perfect heroes by any standard, then or now... but of such rough clay are legends made.

Events to commemorate the 14-day long siege are scheduled for March 5th and 6th, to include displays and reenactments by the San Antonio Living History, to include their annual Dawn at the Alamo ceremony, at 6 AM, March 6th. Other events include performances of period folk music, a flyover of Air Force jets and the placement of 30,000 yellow roses on the lawn in front of the chapel.

Created Monday, 21 February 2011 19:31

Winter Doldrums

Now you may see in my own San Antonio home those aspects of winter which always made this part of the year - late winter, early spring - positively the dreariest of seasons in those places which ostentatiously boast the benefits of having four of them, and all distinct. That point where winter and spring meet - right at the very point where the snow has all melted long since, and it still isn't quite warm enough for things to start growing again - is enough to make you want to curl up under the comforter and hibernate for another couple of months. The gorgeous colors of autumn leaves and the harvest have long fled, the snow - once crisp and white and even - has turned to dirty grey shreds or melted entirely. The Christmas decorations have long been taken down, or if they have been left up by someone too lazy or addled to do so, they look grimy and dispirited. The trees are mostly bare, the lawns are brown and moderately crunchy . . . and the brutal cold snap has done a number on every kind of outdoor plant save the most evergreen and hardy. Everything green, tender and tropical has been killed right down to the ground, and even those ordinarily sturdy citrus trees have leaves which have wilted back to the stems.

I look out at my back and front yards - I assure you, it's a grim sight, indeed. I'd love to sign up for one of those television shows where they remake your entire front and back yard - landscape, hardscape, plantings, accessories and all. Starting all over by emptying all the pots and scraping everything else up with a bulldozer - including about six inches of topsoil - would feel pretty good to me at this point. There'd be something very satisfactory at starting all over again. Everything above the ground, and those potted plants that couldn't be sheltered in the house are as dry and crispy as the neighbor's lawns.

But - that's just a mad impulse, brought on by post-winter pre-spring depression. I know that a fair number of the plants will bounce back - they have before: the key lime is practically indestructible. And as long as all the spider-plant roots are sound, they will begin sending out little spears and tendrils with baby spider plantlets on the ends as soon as it has been warm for a good few weeks. The various esperanzas, the ruelias and that strange purple-orchid-flowering vine which fairly gallops up into the almond verbena - they will be back. In fact, the purple-orchid-vine routinely dies back to the ground every time it gets below 25° - which may be just as well, as otherwise it would have taken over half the neighborhood by now.

In another three or four weeks, we'll be past the danger of frost here in South Texas. Maybe I will go out to some of my favorite plant nurseries then, and think about spring. I mean, by then it will be fairly obvious what is going to bounce back, and what has, metaphorically speaking, cashed in it's chips and gone to sing in the plant-choir invisible. Milburgers, of course. And the Antique Rose Emporium, most definitely - maybe even a road trip to the Wildseed Farms, out east of Fredericksburg.

Now I feel better - and meantime, enjoy the spring pictures for you to dream over!

Presidents Day Greeting!

Written by Randy Watson

Many Americans are enjoying having today off of work as we celebrate President\'s Day. Today is the day that we honor George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and all past Presidents of the United States. We look back to remember the courage and character of the great men who have preserved our nation and our freedom. Today is also a good day to think our Armed Forces Veterans.

Most US Government offices are closed today, including the US Post Office. However, it is up to Texas and your local governments to decide for themselves whether to honor the day with an day off or not.

Addition to the Catalog

If it's covered in fur or feathers, my daughter is immediately taken. She has one dog and a cat-a-log and by dint of saying "no!" in an increasingly firmer tone of voice I have kept the numbers down to a manageable level. Sammy, the three-legged, cross-eyed flame-point Siamese was full-grown, and belonged to some neighbors when he met and fell deeply in love with my daughter when she came home on leave. He took one look and fell in love, deeply, hopelessly, and abjectly in love. He parked himself in her lap, looked deep into her eyes, while purring like a distant motor-boat, and could hardly be pried away. When her leave ended, Sammy was heartbroken, although he kept returning to our back yard, looking for her. Some weeks later, he stopped appearing, and I finally heard that he had been struck by a car, as he was crossing the road. Sammy recovered, although one leg had nerve damage - he holds it up close to him and gimps around on three. The neighbors moved away, and we convinced them to leave Sammy to us - heck, he practically lived in our back yard anyway.

Princess the tortoise-shell, was acquired at a neighborhood yard sale. She wasn't among the inventory, but she was at that devastatingly cute kitten stage, and the spitting image of Patch-cat, whom we adopted when my daughter was a toddler. Patchie stayed until she died from old age - sixteen years, three houses and four PCS moves later. So, Princess came home from the yard-sale; she is the one who loves to play with the jingly-ball cat-toys, skating them across the floor as if she were playing football against herself. Tristan also came as a kitten, a tiny and undernourished one. The daughter of another neighbor rescued a litter from being drowned and poor Tris was the runt that no one else wanted . . . except my daughter. She brought him home (Me: Another kitten!? Are you out of your mind?) He was bottle-fed for a good few weeks, in the hopes of remedying his pathetic runtiness. Tris, white below and brindle above, with jade-green eyes, is the talkative one. He will meow loudly in answer when we talk to him.

Ffeiffer also came to us as a kitten; another neighbor found him under a shrub at a HEB gas station, wailing pathetically. Having walked through, or sat in some leaked gasoline - he was also chemically burned in places. Ffeiffer was only supposed to be fostered with us while the neighbor found him a more permanent home . . . but he turned out to be the most determined and persistent lap-sitter ever. Sit down for a short amount of time and Ffeiffer appears to stake out his claim. This is endearing . . . all talk of a permanent home with someone else went by the wayside, after about a month.

And finally - Molly-Moo. Not a pathetic kitten, but a pathetic older cat; ten years old, de-clawed and anti-social. She came from a home which recently acquired a dog. Molly-Moo didn't get along with the dog. To be candid, she didn't get along with anyone else, either, and the previous owner was going to deposit her in the animal shelter. Where her chance of adoption stood at nil and none . . . so, my daughter rescued her from a death sentence. She is mellowing at this point - moved from hiding on top of a tall shelf, to hiding among the bed-pillows. And by virtue of offering frequent cat-treats, she no longer tries to bite us when we scratch around her ears.

I swear - this is absolutely the last addition to the catalogue. Really.