Soldiers – including one from Houston County – finally get a memorial

“We were told to line up and a rapid drum beat played until every man was in line with his belongings. We were marched out in three groups along a big road that was barely 10 feet wide. The Mexican troops lined up directly across the road with rifles, swords and lances in the ready position. Just a short distance from the mission, we were told to stop, turn, and face away from the troops.

“At that moment, we knew we were going to be massacred and we were never going home again. Men started crying and praying to God for salvation. One man shouted, ‘Boys, they’re going to kill us. Turn and face them and die like men.’ Two other young men raised their caps and said, ‘Hooray for Texas.’

“At that moment, order of the fire was given, and our Georgia battalion of prisoners and others were shot down in a display of complete savagery with blood, everywhere, and streams of terror, peak misery, and utter pain.”

Those were the words of Samuel Brown, a survivor of the massacre described above and as portrayed by Dave Seagle Saturday at the Knoxville, Georgia Courthouse (the city only about a hundred yards east of Roberta) at a dedication ceremony.

The event was a bit of righting a wrong, wrote Houston County’s John Trussell in an email. He is the publicity chairman for the Georgia Society, Sons of the American Revolution and was also the organizer and master of ceremonies. “There is a monument in Knoxville to Joanna Troutman,” he wrote – she made what became the Texas flag, “but nothing for these brave volunteer soldiers, even though commitments were made many years ago and never fulfilled.”

As the story went, Trussel said, the year being 1836, a group of 120 volunteer soldiers from middle Georgia – Drury Minor of Houston County was among them – marched to Texas, to help them fight for independence. They carried Troutman’s flag with them.

“After fighting solar battles after the Alamo,” he said during the ceremony, “they were forced to surrender, being told that they would be sent back home.”

They were instead massacred, as already mentioned.

“I think this is a very appropriate celebration of the sacrifice that these men made a long time ago and were honored to make it,” said Houston County Commission Chairman Dan Perdue. He was just one of a good number of those who spoke; mayors, commissioners, councilmen.

“As I ran off,” Brown spoke through Seagle, “I saw several poor fellows could have been wounded, tried to hide in clumps of weeds of grass, but were pursued by the Mexican troops with fixed bayonets, slashing swords, and showed no mercy for the wounded.

“Soon after I made my escape, I was joined by John Duvall and a man named Holliday from the Kentucky Volunteers. We ran frantically across the prairie and swam across the Santa Clarina River about a half mile from the bush.

“On the horizon, we saw Mexican troops on horseback running down other fleeing men and killing them with gunfire, latches, and we started crawling through the thick underbrush to avoid detection. For five days, we had nothing to eat except wild onions, which abound in that country. When we reached the Guadalupe River, we found a nest of young pigs, and those lasted us for several days.

“In the course of a few days, wandering randomly in the open country we saw fresh signs of cavalry, and soon we were captured again. I was taken to Dolar en where I remained for five days. I saw the places where the four divisions of the prisoners had been butchered. Some of the carcasses remained. Many were burned, others mangled. They were so disfigured I could recognize no one … During the time for the officers to die, Colonel Ward was ordered to kneel, which he refused to do. He was told that if he would kneel, his life might be spared. His reply was, ‘You have killed all my men in cold blood. I have no desire to live. Colonel Fanning … sat on a chair with a handkerchief tied across his eyes and requested that he not be shot in the head and that the officer should stand far enough off that the powder would not burn him. He was shot in the face and thrown on the funeral pyre with all the other men.

“I was transferred to a prison in Mexico City, where I spent five months in terrible conditions, living on spoils in the rock peak.”

Seagle: “May God bless the 400 massacred soldiers and their families, and that they know what their sacrifice led to.”

Now, thanks to the monument they, along with many others, have a reminder.