Kentucky Mustangs

5,010 Views | 3 Replies | Last: 15 yr ago by WildcatAg
DevilYack
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AG
I am just back from a trip to Kentucky for a business conference. While we were there, La Patrona and I stopped in a little town called Bardstown because she thought it was cute and wanted to go shopping. After a bit of wandering around town, we stumbled upon a park that has a bunch of frontier buildings found in Kentucky.



Being a history nut, I made her look around with me and we found this monument to the Kentucky Mustangs, a ‘regiment’ of volunteers for the Texas Revolution who were executed at Goliad.



I thought it was interesting that you can’t get away from Texas even in Kentucky.

The Kentucky Mustangs
A volunteer company, the nucleus of which originated in Bardstown, Nelson County, Kentucky, took a heroic but tragic part in the Texas War of Independence--a part which such Kentucky historians as Richard and Lewis Collins seem to have overlooked completely. The volunteers left Bardstown in the fall of 1835, and by March found themselves at Goliad, on the San Antonio River about eighty-five miles southeast of the city of San Antonio. They could not know that the place name of Goliad would join with two others in Texas history as the great names associated with Texas independence---the Fall of the Alamo, the Battle of San Jacinto, and the Massacre of Goliad.

Shortly after the fall of the Alamo, 6 Mar 1836, Col. Fannin began withdrawing his Texas forces. They left Goliad and retreated about ten miles to the east, where, after some sniper fire, the Texas forces was attacked by a Mexican force with artillery. At a parlay, the Mexicans offered terms of capitulation which the American understood as providing that they were to be treated as prisoners of war according to the usages of civilized nations and eventually paroled and returned to the United States.

Col. Fannin conferred with his officers and decided to accept the terms, over the objections of Capt. Burr Duval, who supposedly cried out, "Sir! you have not only signed your death warrant, but the death warrants of all of us." Nevertheless, Fannin signed the capitulation, the Texans stacked arms, and were marched back to Goliad under guard. During their captivity, John C. Duval and Richard Brashear, the first sergeant of the company, recognized a Mexican lieutenant as A. Martinez, their former classmate from St. Joseph's College in Bardstown. Martinez, who won honors for English rhetoric at St. Joseph's in 1832, had been a roommate and particular friend of Brashear. During the week of their captivity the prisoners had a number of chats and shared reminiscences of old times with Martinez. Duval said that the last time they saw their Mexican friend, on the morning of Palm Sunday, he had 'an apparent affectionate smile on his countenance' and walked off laughing.

Kentuckians in Texas: Captain Burr H. Duval's Company at Goliad by John B. Thomas Jr.



Captain Duval's Company
(Kentucky Mustangs--First Regiment Volunteers from Bardstown)

Captured and Executed 27 March

Captain Burr H. Duval

Lieutenants Samuel Wilson, William Jefferson Merrifield

Sergeants George Washington Daniel, James S. Bagby, Enoch P. Gaines Chisum, William P. Dickerman

Corporals Norborne B. Hawkins, Abner B. Williams, A. H. Lynd, Richard G. Brashear
James Moss Adams, James S. Batts, Fred J. Bellows, William S. Carlson, Thomas T. Churchill, William H. Cole, John Donohoo, H. M. Downman, George Dyer, Charles Ready Haskell, Edward J. Johnson, James P. Kemp, Adams G. Lamond, James A. McDonald, William Mayer, Harvey Martin, Robert Smith Owings, Robert R. Rainey, Samuel Smith Sanders, Lawson S. Simpson, Lewis Tilson, B. W. Tolover, J. Q. Volckner, William Waggoner

Escaped during massacre 27 March
Thomas G. Allen, John Crittenden Duval, John C. Holliday, William Mason, Charles B. Shain, Augustus V. Sharpe

Spared execution by intercession 27 March
John Van Bibber (ill); Sidney Van Bibber, Ulrich Wuthrich

Spared execution for absence or illness 14-27 March
Dr. William H. Magee


(information from http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/goliadmenframe.htm)
thach
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AG
Thanks for the find!

My great, great (don't know how many) uncle (I believe, could be grandfater--not gonna pull out the family lineage tonight!) was Ulrich Wuthrich. I had no idea what unit he was in, so I'm really appreciative of the find! I also appreciate the link to the A&M site.

Not that anyone cares, but here's a few things about him:

http://www.tshaonline.org/supsites/fannin/hd_470.html

and

http://library.thinkquest.org/J001272F/history/letter.htm.

Somewhere I've got a better translation of the letter, and another letter, where he talks about "the wild ones" along the Colorado in what is now downtown Austin.

I wish I knew where is nine square miles (if I calc'd it right) of land he was awarded for his service to the republic was, and I wish I had some of it!

I don't know where the confusion comes in on his death date, but I think it was realy 1841 in Bastrop.

Some of our relatives later helped settle Pflugerville.
WildcatAg
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AG
Thanks for sharing! Pretty embarassing that I grew up in Kentucky and now live in Texas and I've never heard that story. I knew about the Kentuckians at the Alamo but had never heard of the Mustangs.

Since you were in Bardstown, did you make it to My Old Kentucky Home? Or, even worse, did the Mrs. drag you to The Stephen Foster Musical?
DevilYack
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AG
No, I missed both of those "attractions". Personally, I've never heard of My Old Kentucky Home until I got to Kentucky. I'm still not sure what it is - somebody's house? The musical was not to La Patrona's taste, so I dodged that one as well.

I did go to the state capitols (old and new) in Frankfort, the Talbott Inn in Kentucky, the distilleries of Heaven Hill, Maker's Mark, and Woodford Reserve, and downtown Lexington.

It was a fun trip. Kentucky is a pretty place.
WildcatAg
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AG
quote:
I'm still not sure what it is - somebody's house?

It's the house that supposedly inspired Stephen Foster to write the song My Old Kentucky Home. Folks within the state know it as the state song but folks from out of state would best know it from being sung before the Kentucky Derby. Many folks don't know that at some point in the not too distant past the lyrics were changed to make the song more PC.

I lived in downtown Lexington for 3 years so I'm glad you had a good time. I always took Kentucky's beauty for granted until I moved away. The Mrs. and I hope to move back someday.
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