Col William Cooke

Today in Texas History On the trail to Texas independence. Feb 07, 1836 – Colonel James Fannin is elected colonel of the volunteer troops who will gather around Goliad. Fannin receives information of a Mexican advance upon Texas and an awaiting ambush at Matamoros. He learns through Plácido Benavides (The Paul Revere of Texas) that Gonzales's force was "entirely dispersed," that the Centralist garrison at Matamoros now numbered a thousand or more, and that Santa Anna was moving to invade Texas and suppress the rebellion at Goliad and San Antonio while using Matamoros as a trap to defeat the Texas expedition, of which he had knowledge. Benavides's warning came from the alcalde of Matamoros and was enclosed in a communication to Fannin by Robert C. Morris of New Orleans, to whom Benavides gave the information before joining James Grant, who was still out with Frank Johnson. In the meantime Rodríguez and his men, whom Morris had paroled, were able to escape. The warning caused Fannin to abandon the Matamoros Expedition, send reinforcements under Colonel William Cooke to aid Morris, and begin to remove his headquarters to Goliad. Nevertheless, the provisional government, to whom Fannin had chosen to acknowledge his allegiance, still stressed to its agent as late as February 15 that he should proceed toward the Matamoros campaign and avoid any retrograde movements. But Cooke reported from San Patricio, "we found that Morris had been misinformed." Portraits: Col. James Fannin, Placido Benavides, Col. William Cooke, and Gen Antonio López de Santa Anna.