It is not generally known that the first Declaration of Independence from Mexico was drawn and signed on the altar of Our Lady of Loreto Chapel at Presidio La Bahia. To celebrate the signing, Capt. Phillip Dimmitt’s volunteers made this flag as Nicholas Fagan cut a sycamore pole staff. They raised the flag and as it unfurled for the first time it was immediately pierced with a gunshot from the streets outside the wall. Three months later, Col. James Fannin and approximately 400 Texian volunteers found themselves imprisoned at Goliad after being beaten and captured nine miles away by General Urrea. On the morning of March 27, 1836, the Captured Texians were divided into three groups. Some were told they were going home and some that they were going out to gather firewood. After they were marched outside, Mexican officers gave a signal and they were executed. 342 unarmed men were massacred, their bodies piled up, set ablaze, and left to rot. Col. Fannin and other Texian wounded were then shot inside the walls at Goliad. Fannin’s body was left in a drainage ditch. The 342 Texians laid in piles from March 27 to June 3, 1836. General Rusk and company found the bodies and buried them one block behind the Presidio.
