History Friday – 1836 Timeline – Goliad
Posted by Sgt. Mom on March 14th, 2014 (All posts by Sgt. Mom)
(For today, another series of photos taken at a reenactment event; the Coleto Creek Fight and the mass execution of the Texians at Goliad; background here. This takes place every year at the La Bahia presidio, just outside the town of Goliad. (The chapel is original, the walls of the citadel a careful reconstruction. Of all the locations associated with the Texas war of independence, this is the only one which looks pretty much as it did in 1836. I’d posted some of these before at Chicagoboyz, but not all.)
Volunteers – Shackleton’s Red Rovers – they came from Alabama, and were outfitted with red canvas hunting coats
Texican cannon – their munitions were originally pulled by oxen or horses – but no one has brought a team of draft oxen to one of these reenactments … yet, anyway/
Texican volunteers with ammunition limber
Full battle rattle, 1836-style.
A reenactor playing the part of a volunteer from Kentucky.
The ‘hollow square’ at Coleto Creek
The Mexican army in full kit.
Mexican cavalry on patrol.
Cavalry charge, and …
… the clash of sabers!
(Someone told me that many of the soldiers reenacting the Mexican army were Boy Scouts from an Explorer troop from Mexico… don’t know if true or not – but there were a good few of them and very young.)
Returning after the Coleto fight.
Tenting tonight on the old campground… at night, the compound inside the old presidio is entirely lit by bonfires, candle and lamp-light.
Keeping watch from the walls.
The O-Club – 1836 style.
The First (and Last) Aid Table
March 14th, 2014 at 2:51 pm
Reenactors do have fun. The best part of “Last of the Mohicans” was that all the extras were reenactors. I read the story in a black powder magazine at the time. It was about the guy who taught Daniel Day Lewis how to reload a flintlock while running. Even the Indians in the movie were real Indian kids.
John Ford practically kept a tribe of Navajoes alive with jobs in his movies. The building where John Wayne had his cabin in “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” was the trading post building.
March 14th, 2014 at 4:46 pm
I had read that, Mike – and also that they recruited a lot of reenactors to do the big battle scenes for Gettysburg and other recent Civil War movies. Wouldn’t surprise me at all.
March 14th, 2014 at 10:34 pm
The reenactors are missing one element – dirty and stinky from weeks in the field ;-) But barring that – thank you for giving me a curiosity of Texas history, Sgt Mom.
A friend of mine is being transferred from San Diego to Dallas and I told him as soon as he is settled I will send him the first installment of your Trilogy series – I would have liked to have known Carl Becker & Jack Hays!
March 15th, 2014 at 5:12 pm
Well, yes – they would have been pretty cruddy, although the Goliad garrison had only been in the field properly for a couple of days.
Oh, yes – do send your friend some of the series – I am certain he will enjoy it, AND find it educational. I have always rather thought that Jack Hays was the Kevin Bacon of the Republic of Texas – everyone knew him, or was connected to him by about two or three jumps. Carl was originally based on a couple of guys I knew in the military; very quiet, self-effacing and soft-spoken family men … who had certain awards and decs which hinted at the fact that they were pretty fearsome when it came to the business end of the sharp pointy spear. The dichotomy was … interesting.
March 16th, 2014 at 8:23 am
Mom,
I’ve never seen any maps annotated showing the detailed movements of the course of events in the Texas Revolution? One of my interests is to have one and visit the chronology using the routes they took. By automobile of course. I have been to the four major sites, but not in any organized way.
Mike
March 16th, 2014 at 8:59 am
Mike, when I was writing Daughter of Texas, I found a site which followed Houston and the Texas Army from Gonzalez to San Jacinto, identifying all the places where they had camped. I think most of them are noted with historical markers. I’ll look through my bookmarks and see if I can pull it up again.
Later: Found it – has links to each site specifically – KLIK HIER
March 17th, 2014 at 7:10 am
Thanks, that is a great site.
Mike