The publication committee and the editors disclaim responsibility for views expressed
by contributors to THE QUARTERLY
THE MEN OF GOLIAD
DEDICATORY ADDRESS AT THE UNVEILING OF THE MONUMENT
ERECTED BY THE TEXAS CENTENNIAL COMMISSION
AT THE GRAVE OF FANNIN'S MEN
HARBERT DAVENPORT
1. REMEMBER GOLIAD!
It is proper and fitting, now that the people of Texas have at last
performed the sacred duty of marking the grave, and commemorating the
sacrifices, of that remarkable band of young knight-errants who were
Colonel Fannin's men, that their memorial should have been erected by
Texas, but paid for by the United States. They died as soldiers of Texas;
but their significance in history is not so much in that they died for
Texas, as in that they were slain as Texas Volunteers from the United
States, and that the memory of their wanton and needless slaughter was
for three-quarters of a century the controlling influence in
international relationships between the United States and our neighbor
to the south.
Though part of the Texan battlecry at San Jacinto was Remember
Goliad! (literally, perhaps, Remember Labadee!), Remember
the Alamo! was what the Texans really meant. Forget Goliad!
would have been a more correct expression of the mingled shame and pride
with which early Texans regarded Fannin's men. That anarchy in Texan
councils; incompetent Texan leadership and worse; and petty personal
prejudices, factional intrigues, and highhanded determination of minor
Texan leaders each to have his
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