Notes from an Unfinished Study of Fannin and His Men

The collective American mind sometimes excuses failure, but never condones it. Fannin and his men failed; Texas and Texans dealt generously with the survivors and with the heirs of the fallen, but otherwise have preferred to remember the glorious immolation of the Alamo and the satisfying triumphs of San Jacinto, rather than the useless though heroic sacrifices of Refugio, Victoria, and Goliad.

Historical interest awakened in Texas, this Centennial year affords, perhaps, a last opportunity to restore to Texan memories the debt of gratitude Texas owes to Fannin's brave boys. As an aid to at least its partial accomplishment, the writer thus makes available the product of ten or twelve years' earnest study of Fannin and his men. These notes are not at all what he at one time hoped, expected, and intended to publish. They are merely the best that he has been able to do. If anything thus said and done brings to Texans of today even a fleeting impression of the nineteenth Century knights errant who were Fannin's men, the years of labor which these notes represent have not been in vain.