“Among the extraordinary events of history none can surpass, in point of thrilling interest, those of the Texas war for independ­ence, and especially that portion which relates to the massacre of Col. Fannin and his men at Goliad, by order of General Santa Anna. Learning that one of the survivors of that bloody butchery resided in Nelson County, Ky., a representative of the COURIER JOURNAL, securing a horse and buggy wended his way along the pike, through Jefferson, Bullitt, and Nelson counties to Fairfield, the home of Judge Richard Constantine, a gallant veteran of the Mexican war, who kindly consented to guide and introduce the scribe to the ob­ject of his search.

After a pleasant drive of four miles over a smooth macadamized road that would put to shame the best streets of Louisville, upon the outskirts of the rapidly growing village of Bloomfield, he halted in front of a comfortable, home-like residence shaded by English elms, and was fortunate in finding the hero of this sketch, Col. James Wood, at home.

In answer to the interrogation of the reporter, the Colonel said: I enlisted at Tuscaloosa, Ala. and went thence to New Orleans, and took passage across the Gulf on a sailing vessel, and landed at Capola, Texas, March 17, 1836. Our company consisted of about seventy men under the command of Capt. Wm. P. Miller. A portion of us disembarked and rendezvoused in the chaparral bordering upon the bay, when a large detachment of Mexicans under General Urrea swept down upon us and we fell an easy prey to overwhelming numbers. A detachment was sent to capture the vessel, and succeeded without difficulty, and we were all placed under strong guard and marched to Fort Goliad without anything to eat on the march except raw beef. We were captured on the 20th and arrived at Goliad on the 24th. Here we met Col. Fannin's command, which had been captured about the same time. On the first day we were allowed to mingle freely with Fannin's men, but that night we were separated from them, and told "that they were to be shot, and that we might share the same fate, but it was as yet undecided. I had conversed freely with Col. Fannin's officers and men, and learned from them many incidents connected with their retreat, fight, capture and treatment, which I have never seen in print. In January 1836, Col. Fan­nin arrived at the Mission Refugio on Mission river, where a detach­ment of men under Col. Grant, awaited him. Col. Fannin assumed command, of the joint forces, and being advised of the advance of a large Mexican army he retreated to Fort Goliad. The Mexicans, flashed with repeated victories, having overcome the immortal he­roes. Crocket, Bowie, Milam and others at the Alamo, advanced rapidly upon him in overwhelming numbers, and on the morning of the 19th of March, their cavalry appeared in sight and engaged in a skirmish with Col. Horton, of the Texas cavalry, and compelled him to retire into the fort. On the morning of the 19th, Col. Fan­nin, having determined to fall back toward Gen. Houston's army, succeeded in crossing the San Antonio river, and had advanced about eight miles towards the Coleto river, when his cavalry scouts gave notice of the immediate presence of the enemy, estimating their force at two thousand men, the Texas forces numbering four hundred men. Col. Fannin made every effort to reach a knoll in the prairie, covered by oak timber, about two miles directly in front of him, but found from the unevenness of the ground and the slow movements of the oxen drawing the artillery that he must aban­don his cannon in order to reach the timber. He decided to give battle in the open prairie, and accordingly formed his men into a hollow square, placing his baggage and ammunition trains in the center. By this time the brave band were surrounded and the Mexicans opened fire, and rushed forward impetuously, with their cavalry on the south and their infantry on the three other sides, as if determined upon annihilating the devoted little band at one onset. A terrible fire, delivered at short range by the Texans, turned them back with heavy loss. The Mexicans again and again charged the position, and each time were driven back, until night closed upon the unequal conflict, Three hundred Mexicans lay dead upon the battlefield, with about three hundred and fifty wounded. The Texans lost six killed and fifty wounded. During the night Col. Fannin strengthened his position by slight intrenchment in preparation for the morrow's conflict.  At daylight on the morning of the 20th the roar of artillery announced the fact that the Mexicans had received heavy reenforcement during the night, bringing with them fifteen pieces of cannon.  The Texan cannon had been silenced by the absence of water to swab the guns, and the ammunition was about exhausted.    At this critical moment the Mexicans raised a flag of truce and a parley was held.  Col. Fannin despairing of cutting his way out, agreed to surrender to Gen. Urrea on condition that his men be allowed to keep their side-arms and be paroled or exchanged.  Several of the Mexican officers who were present were educated at St. Joseph's  College, Bardstown, Ky., and were known to some of Fannin's men, and hence, when the terms of capitulation were accepted they had no doubt but that they would be carried out in good faith.

The surrender was on Sunday morning, March 20.   They were taken back to Fort Goliad, and a system of cruel treatment was inaugurated that served to crush their spirits and debilitate their bodies in preparation for the bloody tragedy about to take place. The prisoners, although guaranteed to the contrary, were required to surrender their side arms, and were forced at the point of the bayonet to severe and incessant labor, without anything to eat except raw beef of inferior quality.    Saturday they were allowed nothing by way of sustenance. Saturday afternoon a courier arrived from Gen. Santa Anna, with instructions to shoot the prisoners at sunrise on the following morning.    That night a council was held by the Mexican officers as to whether Santa Anna meant to include our command in his order or not.   Upon a vote being taken a bare majority of one was in favor of awaiting further orders.    We told some of Fannin's men what we had heard, but they did not believe us, and felt secure in the promise that they were to be exchanged. Sunday morning the sun arose in a splen­dor of glory, and looked smiling down on the doomed victims of Mexican treachery and gave no token of the terrible butchery about to place.  At an early hour we were removed from our quarters and placed in a peach orchard, just outside the fort, which overlooked the surrounding country. White handkerchiefs were tied around our arms to distinguish us from Fannin's men, we were told.    At 9 o'clock Fannin's men were ordered to fall into line, and were drawn up in double files, extending across the yard of the fort from the gate to the opposite wall.  They were then divid­ed into three divisions, and being told that they were required to drive a large herd of cattle into town, the cowardly Mexicans, fear­ing them even in their weakness and without arms, were ordered to march.  The first division, as it filed out of the gate of the fort, was marched straight forward, and the second division made to wheel to the right, and the third division to the left on lines at right angles with the line of the first division.  The Mexican Infantry, with load­ed muskets, as each division came out, fell in on different sides of it in single file, and at the same time mounted cavalrymen, with drawn swords, fell in parallel with each line of infantry.  The prisoners by this time began to feel alarmed.  The Mexicans suddenly halted and began fixing bayonets, and just as some one shouted, “boys we are about to be shot!" a peal of firearms, followed by dismay­ed and terrific shrieks from the prisoners in the middle division, announced that the bloody butchery had begun, and the  most perfidous act in the annals of warfare was about to be consummated.  This opening fire was a preconcerted signal of the cowardly executioners, who, advancing within a few feet of the prisoners fired directly into their faces.  To describe the terrible scene would be impossible.  The agonizing shrieks of the wounded as the bloody bayonet met them at every turn, the dead and the dying, and the demoniac yells of the inhuman butchers, are beyond the power of mortal tongue to depict.  With that hope born of desperation and agonizing fear, about fifty men made a break and rushed instinct­ively toward the bank of the San Antonio, pursued by the infuri­ated soldiery, by whom many were   overtaken and killed.  About twenty-five men, who had divested themselves of their knapsacks and such articles of clothing as they could as they ran, succeeded in reaching the river and plunged in.  But few lived to reach the opposite shore, most of them being picked off in the water by mus­ket shots.  Some of them gained the opposite bank and concealed themselves in the bushes and timber skirting the river bank only to be hunted down and murdered by a company of Mexican cavalry, which had been posted across the river to intercept any one who might escape the slaughter of the fort.  A few succeeded in con­cealing themselves in such a manner as to evade detection by crawl­ing into the prairie away from the river.  The Mexicans thinking they had exterminated the entire band, passed on, and the surviv­ors, without hats or shoes, and no clothing except pants and shirts ran for miles into the prairie until they sank from utter exhaustion. They remained in that position the entire day, not daring to move or speak, and at night started on their uncertain journey, bewilder­ed half starved and nearly exhausted.    The hardships of these men, and their many hairbredth escapes, as was told me afterward by one of the few that ever reached home, would fill a book.  Aft­er the massacre we were taken back to our quarters, and in going to the fort saw Col. Fannin bound to a chair, where he was blindfolded and shot.  The bodies of the murdered soldiers were stripped naked and piled up in a large heap and burned by the in­human monsters.    Col. Fannin's body was also stripped and burned upon the same pile.”

The County was formed, or created, by act of congress of the Republic of Texas, in 1837, or early in 1838. The territory was ta­ken from Red River County, which was at that time a frontier county, and the western boundary of that county was fixed at the line which now divides Fannin and Lamar. Fannin is therefore an older county than Lamar, and was for many years a frontier county. Frequently, even to this date, letters are received by the recorder of deeds and mortgages at Bonham, from individuals in Cook, Grayson and other western counties, requesting copies of deeds, abstracts of surveys etc, which were recorded when all that vast territory belonged to Fannin County.

The County, since the detachment of Grayson on the west, and Hunt and other counties on the South, is about thirty miles square, although it does not lie in a square, the eastern boundary being about forty five miles long. It has never been sectionized, and if one talks to the native born of Fannin, about townships, ranges, sections and quarter sections, he only answers in wide-eyed aston­ishment. But he gets even with the stranger when he begins to dis­cuss land titles traced back through innumerable surveys made by Tom, Dick etc, and about a part of a league and labore of land situated on one of those surveys, less or plus so many varas of another survey.

Much litigation and legislation and prosecution have pretty well settled all the questions of title to land in this county, but the immigrant would do well to consult an attorney before he buys.

The climate of the county is that of all North Texas. While the seasons are clearly defined, the heat of summer is not oppressive, nor is the cold of winter felt to a great degree of discomfiture. The hot months begin about the middle of June, and continue till the first and middle of September. During this period, the intense heat peculiar to our latitude is greatly relieved by a brisk south wind that rises about nine o'clock in the morning and blows until late at night; thus obliviating the warm nights peculiar to tim­bered districts of the South. The breeze is said to reach us from the gulf, but the better theory seems to ho that it has its origin in the vast prairies south of us. In either event, it is one of the grand­est climatic advantages of which any country can boast. Winter commences the last of November, generally, and holds his own until March, frequently merging into that month. During the winter months, the changes are sudden and frequent. There are as many pleasant days as cold one's however, but no one knows when they will come or when they will go. The "new comer" sallies forth for the day, in clothing suited to a pleasant atmosphere., meets the "old timer" packed up with winter coverings, and is ready to ask what he means by loading himself down with extra overcoats and overall. But he is apt to be satisfactorially answered before a great while, with a sharp blizzard from the north. These "northers" vary in the length of time they last. If the change is a wave from many degrees north, it is apt to prevail several days, but if local, it is over in a short while, and the south breeze again prevails, bringing with it a congenial atmosphere. Much has been wrote and said about the "Texas Norther," but most of their severity and exceeding suddenness, is merely in the writer's or speaker's mind. The climate of this county in the months of April, May, September, October and a portion of June, November and March, is indeed delightful. What better evidence of a desireable climate is wanted, than the fact that produce peculiar to warmer and colder regions, is grown here with equal or better success than in its native climate. While winter wheat, in the wheat growing states, frequently fails, in this county, and other portions of Texas, it rarely ever fails. So with cotton, cane and tobacco. These products are essentially warm growths, yet they are successfully grown here and indeed with much more remunerative results than in many localities of the other southern states.

The older settlers remember the time when the rainfall in this portion of the state, during the year, was no greater than it now is, in the extreme western counties, and very uncertain and irregular. But gradually this objection to west and north Texas has been ab­rogated. For the past fifteen or twenty years, with perhaps a few exceptions, the rainfall has been sufficient and regular enough. These exceptions of dry years however, were not confined to this locality, but were general throughout the south. The theory that "natural irrigation follows cultivation," has established itself. The reported uncertainty of rainfall in north and west Texas has likely done more to retard its settlement and improvement, than any other cause, and of later years,  such  reports are  almost wholly without foundation.

The County was never so healthy that "a person had to be kill­ed to start a cemetery," but the remarkable small death rate is proof sufficient of Very little fatal sickness. On Red River an oc­casional case of malaria develops itself, but exclusive of the river swamps, there are but few cases. In the summer, the atmosphere is freely circulated by a healthy south breeze, and in the winter it is light and stiff. In towns where public and. individual cleanliness is observed, perfect health is almost certain. In the country there is little cause for local physicians.

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