Dawson Massacre The Dawson Massacre , also called the Dawson Expedition , was an incident in which 36 Texan militia men were killed by Mexican artillery fire on September 17 , 1842 near San Antonio de Bexar ( now the U . S . city of San Antonio , Texas ) . The event occurred during the Battle of Salado Creek , which ended with a Texan victory . Background . On April 21 , 1836 , the independence of the Republic of Texas was secured by a decisive victory over the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacinto . Texas claimed the Rio Grande as its southern border but had sufficient military power to control only land north of the Nueces River . Although Antonio López de Santa Anna , the ruler of Mexico , signed the Treaties of Velasco ceding Texas territory from Mexican control , the treaty was never ratified by the Mexican Government and Santa Anna repudiated the treaty once he was released from Texan custody . Therefore , Mexican forces and Cherokee guerillas under Vicente Cordova and Chicken Trotter continued to resist Texan attempts to occupy the area between the Rio Grande and Nueces River . For the Cherokees it was a war of vengeance following the massacre of Cherokee and Delaware Indians by Texas Army regulars in the summer of 1839 . For the Mexicans it was to prove they could return to Texas at will . On September 11 , 1842 , a Mexican force of 1 , 600 entered San Antonio and took control of the city , with minimal resistance from the Texans . When the news of the fall of San Antonio reached Gonzales , Mathew Caldwell formed a militia of 210 men and marched toward San Antonio . Caldwell ' s troops made camp about twenty miles ( 30 km ) east of San Antonio near Salado Creek and planned their attack on the Mexicans . Massacre . On September 17 , Caldwell sent a small band of rangers to draw the Mexicans toward the battlefield he had chosen . At least 1 , 000 Mexican soldiers moved out of San Antonio to attack the Texans . A separate company of 53 Texans , mostly from Fayette County , under the command of Nicholas Mosby Dawson , arrived at the battlefield and began advancing on the rear of the Mexican Army . The Mexican commander , General Adrián Woll , afraid of being surrounded , sent 500 of his cavalry soldiers and two cannons to attack the group . The Texans were able to hold their own against the Mexican rifles , but once the cannons got within range , the Texan fatalities mounted quickly . Dawson realized the situation was hopeless and raised a white flag of surrender . In the fog of war , both sides continued to fire and Dawson was killed . The battle was over after a little more than one hour . It ended with 36 Texans dead , fifteen captured and two escaped . At the front , Caldwell ' s men had repelled the Mexican attacks and inflicted heavy casualties . Woll was forced to retreat back to San Antonio and then towards the border . The next morning Caldwell ' s troops located the Dawson Battleground and buried the dead Texans in shallow graves . The dead Mexicans were not buried . Caldwell then unsuccessfully pursued Woll ' s forces south as they retreated from San Antonio . Caldwell returned to San Antonio , after the Mexicans successfully recrossed the Rio Grande . Legacy . In late summer of 1848 , a group of La Grange citizens retrieved the remains of the men killed in the Dawson Massacre from their burial site near Salado Creek . These remains and the remains of the men killed in the failed Mier Expedition were reinterred in a common tomb in a cement vault on a bluff one mile south of La Grange . The grave site is now part of the Monument Hill and Kreische Brewery State Historic Sites .