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170, if any were actually granted by General Urrea, were ignored by the commander-in-chief, General Santa Anna; and on Sunday, March 27th, the prisoners, who had been sent to Goliad, were marched out of the fort and shot.

Santa Anna in a letter of May 23, 1836, to the executive of Texas denies that the Mexican force hoisted a flag of truce, or that its commander gave any assurance of quarter by accepting a capitulation. Urrea in his report to Santa Anna declared that he had refused to grant terms of capitulation, as indeed he was prevented from doing by the law of December 30, 1835. According to Lieutenant-Colonel Holzinger, who was present at Fannin's surrender, Urrca gave no warrant that the prisoners' lives would be spared; but his commissioners assured Fannin that the Mexican government had in no instance taken the life of a prisoner that appealed to its clemency. Fannin was not satisfied with the assurance, but concluded to surrender and trust to the generosity of the Mexican government. Urrea seems to have promised that he would ask mercy for them. Holzinger blames Urrea for want of frankness in his reports to Santa Anna in not informing him that he had promised clemency to the prisoners. On the other side, Ramon Martinez de Caro, Santa Anna's military secretary, says that Urrea strongly recommended merciful