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Goliad Campaign

1836 campaign of the Texas Revolution

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ865930
Source-derived summary

The Goliad Campaign was the failed 1836 Mexican offensive to retake the Texas Gulf Coast during the Texas Revolution. Mexican troops under the command of General José de Urrea ambushed Groups of Texians in the Mexican province of Texas, known as Mexican Texas, in a series of clashes in February and March.

When Mexico transitioned to a centralized government in 1835, supporters of federalism took up arms. Texians in Texas, primarily from the towns of Gonzales and Columbia, revolted in October 1835 and by the end of the year had expelled all Mexican troops from their province. With hostilities temporarily suspended, Frank W. Johnson and James Grant gathered volunteers for a planned invasion of the Mexican port town of Matamoros. James Fannin commanded troops stationed at Fort Defiance in Goliad.

Unbeknownst to the Texians, on February 18 Urrea led a large contingent of troops from Matamoros into Texas to neutralize the rebels gathered along the coast. His troops easily defeated Johnson's small force at the Battle of San Patricio on February 26. Several days later, informants revealed Grant's location, and on the morning of March 2, 150 Mexican troops ambushed Grant's men at the Battle of Agua Dulce. The Mexican army then turned northward, headed towards Goliad.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Goliad Campaign” is 1836 campaign of the Texas Revolution. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Goliad, Campaign and campaign, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1836, 1835—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Goliad, Campaign and campaign is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1836 campaign of the Texas Revolution” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q865930. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1836 and 1835.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Goliad Campaign”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Goliad Campaign primary sources, Goliad Campaign archive and Goliad research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Goliad Campaign”?
  2. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
  3. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Goliad Campaign” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.