page_title: Goliad massacre
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Goliad massacre / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Historical marker at Fannin Monument
context_page_description: The Goliad massacre was an event of the Texas Revolution that occurred on March 27, 1836, following the Battle of Coleto; 425–445 prisoners of war from the Texian Army of the Republic of Texas were killed by the Mexican Army in the town of Goliad, Texas. Among those killed was commander Colonel James Fannin. The killing was carried out under orders from General and President of Mexico Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Despite the appeals for clemency by General José de Urrea, the massacre was reluctantly carried out by Lt. Colonel José Nicolás de la Portilla.
context_section_description: The massive number of Texian prisoner-of-war casualties throughout the Goliad Campaign led to Goliad being called a "massacre" by Texian forces and fueled the frenzy of the Runaway Scrape.
  After the executions, the Texians' bodies were piled and burned. Their charred remains were left in the open, unburied, and exposed to vultures and coyotes. Nearly one month later, word reached La Bahia (Goliad) that Santa Anna had been defeated and surrendered while trying to flee at the Battle of San Jacinto.
  General Thomas J. Rusk found the remains of the massacre victims in June 1836 and gave orders for a formal military funeral. The remains were interred at the location southeast of the Presidio la Bahia where the Fannin Memorial Monument now stands. The whereabouts of the gravesite was forgotten until years later when human bone fragments were discovered by a group of boys.
  The massacre is commemorated in Walt Whitman's poem Song of Myself, section 34, which features in his collected poems titled Leaves of Grass. 
  In 1939, the Fannin Memorial Monument by Raoul Josset was erected at the gravesite. It features an art deco relief sculpture and the names of the men who were slain.
caption: Historical Marker at Fannin Memorial Monument – La Bahia, Texas
exif: {"Image Tag 0x000B": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image Software": "Windows Photo Editor 10.0.10011.16384", "Image DateTime": "2016:03:30 16:17:37", "Image ExifOffset": "2242", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "96", "Thumbnail YResolution": "96", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "4516", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10870", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:03:30 16:16:48", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2016:03:30 16:16:48", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}