Historical Marker
The Dawson Massacre
San Antonio, Bexar County · Texas
Erected 1936
The stone does not name one of the dead. Griffin, enslaved by Samuel A. Maverick, fought on with the limb of a mesquite tree after his rifle was shattered, until he was killed. Dawson, badly wounded, tried to surrender, but the firing continued, and he died saying, "Let victory be purchased with blood." Two men, Alsey S. Miller and Henry Gonzalvo Woods, escaped. The prisoners were marched to Perote Prison in Mexico, and only nine of them lived to return. The dead lay in shallow graves in the thicket where they fell, where Fort Sam Houston now stands.
What the plaque says
The Dawson Massacre Occurred in this vicinity on September 18, 1842 when Captain Nicholas Mosby Dawson and 53 men from La Grange, in attempting to join Captain Mathew Caldwell (Old Paint) and his company of Texas Volunteers during the Battle of the Salado, were surrounded by Mexican Forces and 36 slain. 15 were taken prisoners, only 3 escaped. Erected by the State of Texas 1936
Where it stands
29.49956, -98.42268 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- The Alamo — 6.4 miMission San Antonio de Valero before it was a fort: a church its builders never finished, a thirteen-day siege in 1836, and the Army gable of 1850-52 that became its emblem.
- La Villita Historic Arts Village — 6.7 miThe little village across the river from the presidio, where Cos surrendered San Antonio in 1835, rebuilt by Depression-era youth crews as a working crafts village.
- San Antonio River Walk — 6.7 miA Depression-era park one level below downtown, built because San Antonio refused to pave its river after the 1921 flood, and designed by an architect the project later fired.
- San Fernando Cathedral — 6.7 miThe Canary Islanders' parish church on Main Plaza, where Bowie married and Santa Anna raised a red flag, rebuilt in Gothic Revival around the walls of the 1750s church.