The next morning (14th) Captain King with his men left the fort on a scouting expedition. About three miles from the mission they were surprised by a large body of Mexicans, to whom they surrendered. A few hours later they were stripped of their clothing by their captors and shot. Their unburied bodies were left to decay on the open prairie. The same morning, about ten o’clock, fifteen of Ward’s men were sent from the mission to the river about a hundred yards away to get water. They had filled two barrels and placed them on a cart drawn by a couple of oxen, and were about returning to the fort when some bullets sang over their heads. A glance showed them the Mexican army on the other side of the river, not half a mile distant. They hurried on as fast as they could, and reached the mission in safety with a good part of the water. One barrel was emptied of about half of its contents through a hole made by a shot from the advancing enemy. Urrea attacked the barricaded church. The battle lasted nearly all day, but late in the afternoon he drew off his beaten and discouraged force; he had two hundred killed and wounded. Ward’s loss was three wounded. But the ammunition of the besieged was nearly exhausted, and that night, after supplying the three wounded men with water, Colonel Ward and his men stole quietly out of the church and slipped unseen past the Mexican sentinels. On the 21st, after weary marches through swamp and thicket and constant skirmishes with the enemy, they surrendered on honorable terms to Urrea, and were taken back to Goliad. 4. PALM SUNDAY. Fannin turned away from General Houston’s messenger on the morning of the 13th (March) with an anxious and gloomy face. The messenger, Captain Desauque, had just come in from Gonzales, leaving woe and despair behind him. He brought the black tidings of the fall of the Alamo, and he bore orders from the commander-in-chief for Fannin to blow up the fort, bury or throw into the river such of the cannon as he could not bring away, and retreat to Victoria on the Guadalupe River. There was scant time in which to mourn the fall of the Alamo, but the dark looks on the men’s faces, as they buried the guns and demolished the fortifications, told of what they were thinking. Fannin sent a courier to Ward and King, ordering them to return at once from Refugio; this courier, as well as others sent later, was captured by Mexican scouts. Fannin waited five days in great suspense, loth to abandon these officers and the women and children whom they had been sent to protect. At length came the news of Ward’s retreat from Refugio. The remaining works of Fort Defiance were destroyed, the buildings were set on fire, artillery and ammunition were loaded on wagons; the drums called the men from their ruined quarters. Mrs. Cash, the only woman left in Goliad, was placed in their midst, and, with a last glance at Fort Defiance, Fannin began his fatal retreat.