The Goliad Ghosts

The Presidio in Goliad

After the fall of the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas in 1836, the victorious Mexican forces continued to march east toward the Presidio in Goliad where Colonel James Fannin commanded 400 Texas men. The Texans were ordered to move to Victoria, a more defendable position on the other side of the Guadalupe River. During the move though they ran into the main body of the Mexican troops while crossing an open prairie. 

After fending off four separate attacks on the first day, the Texans spent that night digging trenches. In the morning, however, they found they were now totally surrounded by the enemy. Almost out of ammunition, Fannin asked for a parley to prevent his troops from being massacred. General Urrea, commander of the Mexican forces, promised the Texans would be treated as prisoners of war and given clemency. 

Upon surrender, the Texans were marched back to the Presidio at Goliad and placed under the watchful eyes of Nicolas de la Portilla and his detachment of men while Urrea and his remaining troops continued their march south. However, Santa Anna, the president of Mexico, was determined to fight a war of extermination and ordered Portilla to execute the prisoners. Having conflicting orders from General Urrea and General Santa Anna, Portilla chose to follow Santa Anna's orders.

Inside the walls of the Presidio where the
wounded were killed

On March 27, the prisoners were divided into quarters. While the sick and wounded remained in the chapel, the other three groups were escorted on different roads out of town. The three groups were told they were on missions to gather wood, drive cattle or sail to safety in New Orleans. When they were ordered to halt a half-mile from the fort, however, the Texans realized their fates. The Mexican guards opened fire as some of the men began running for their lives. Those not killed by gunshots were slaughtered with bayonets.

Back at the presidio, the Mexicans stood the wounded against the chapel wall and executed them. The wounded who couldn't stand were shot in their beds. Fannin, who had been shot in the thigh during the original engagement, was the last to be killed. His three dying wishes were to be shot in the chest, given a Christian burial, and have his watch sent to his family. Instead, Portilla shot Fannin in the face, burned his body with the others, and kept the timepiece as a war prize. In all, nearly 350 men were killed at Goliad.

Today, almost 185 years later, the old presidio and its adjacent Chapel of our Lady of Loreto still stand. Given the horrific events that happened within and around the site, is it any wonder the walls sometimes echo with the mournful sounds of spirits returning from that troubled and turbulent time? 

Visitors often report feeling "cold spots" and uneasy feelings as they walk around the grounds where Fannin and his men were executed. In 1992, a man named Jim reported strange goings-on. As a former deputy sheriff and a security guard for a number of years, Jim was not a man easily frightened or prone to make up wild stories. Hired for a few nights to watch over some equipment at the presidio that was to be used for the Cattle Baron's Ball, he expected quiet routine nights. On his first night though, just before midnight, the silence was broken by the "eerie, shrill cries of nearly a dozen terrified infants." He swore the sounds indicated "pain and suffering." Although understandably frightened, he tried to find where the sounds were coming from. After several long minutes, he finally determined they were coming from one of the dozen or so unmarked graves that are located near the Chapel of Our Lady of Loreto.

As he shined his flashlight on the spot, the cries abruptly stopped but were immediately replaced by the singing of a women's choir. It sounded like it was coming from the back wall of the old fort, but the beam of his flashlight revealed nothing there. After two or three minutes, the singing stopped and silence returned for the rest of the night. When Jim reported his experience, he was teased by his co-workers, but he is convinced what he saw and heard was real and besides, he is not the only person to report strange things in and around the presidio.

The chapel

Numerous people have reported seeing a strange, 4-foot-tall friar who suddenly appears by the double doors leading into the chapel. His robes are black, tied around his waist with a rope and his face is concealed with a hood. He then walks barefooted to each corner of the church and seems to bless it before walking to the center of the quadrangle and begins to pray in Latin. 

A woman in a white dress has been reported kneeling and crying by the graves of the children. When seen, she then turns and looks directly at the person before gliding over to a wall and vanishing. A beautiful soprano voice is often heard emanating from one particular room, but upon investigation, there is nobody in the small space. Visitors who stay late often come back from the fort and comment to the staff about the historical reenactors even though there are no reenactors on the property that day. 

It seems there are many restless spirits here. Who are the crying babies? Are they the little lost souls of pioneer infants killed by Indians in a raid or was there an epidemic that took their too-short lives. The woman in white - is her own child buried in one of the unmarked graves? Why does the short friar keep returning? Is his soul in turmoil over so many brave men who were brutally executed? Whose souls are eternally singing beautiful hymns in a choir, unable to leave this chapel? Caught in a timeless web, so many lost souls searching, sorrowing, singing, praying, unable to let go of the life they briefly lived in a little town named Goliad.

Sounds In The Dark Woods

In the northeast corner of Georgia is Rabun County, one of the most rugged and isolated regions in the Appalachian mountains. Remember the movie "Deliverance" from the early 1970's? That will give you an idea - remote, untamed - a wilderness where if you have the nerve, you can go and not hear the sound of another human voice until you find your way back out - if you ever do. 

There are a few modern highways through the area, towns where condominiums and vacation homes and shopping malls have been built for the tourists and retirees who have started arriving with their demands for fast food and convenient 10-Minute oil changes. In spite of this recent invasion, there are still places in Rabun County where the wilderness prevails; places uncharted and unvisited for hundreds of years. There are still backwoods trails that lead toward remote ridges and caves, trails that simply disappear as you go deeper into the smoky mists of the  dark woods.

Old Indian legends tell that fire-breathing devils dwelt in these lonely hills and woods; that "little demons" stood guard over sacred caves and strange stone cairns hidden in the forest. They said the area was haunted by powerful spirits and even the bravest warriors refused to venture into certain regions. For hundreds of years, there have been outsiders who scoffed at these old legends; outsiders who went hiking into the woods where they simply disappeared with no trace of them or their bodies ever being found.

Longtime residents living in the back hollows and deep among the mountain ridges of Rabun County are familiar with strange sounds coming from the woods. Over the years it has become known as "music of the bald." These self-sufficient folks say the sound is less like music than like trees falling or large boulders crashing deep in the woods. A few have said it sounds like cannon firing. They swear the sounds are always proceeded by screeching or noises like babies crying. It is most often heard in the dark of night, but every now and then it is heard in broad daylight.

Although it is told the "music of the bald" has been heard for hundreds of years, the first written account was in an issue of the Monthly Weather Review that was published in 1897.  Two "reliable men" were camping one night on top of Rabun Bald, the highest peak in the county, when they were awakened by "eerie, haunting melodies" coming from the woods. After some time, the melodies were replaced by sounds which reminded them of cannons being discharged in the distance. These noises went on for several minutes and then began getting closer and closer to them. Finally, the sounds seemed to be coming from deep in the ground right beneath their feet! The men later said they weren't afraid, but they were very deeply perplexed. The sounds traveled on into the distance over the next few minutes and they were able to hear it for most of the night. The men reported this strange phenomena the next day to the sheriff who told them it was probably caused by bears rolling small boulders off the mountainsides while searching for worms and insects to eat. The boulders would sometimes roll downhill or off cliffs which would create the explosive sounds. The men were unconvinced as this explanation didn't account for the eerie melodies or the way the noises traveled through the woods and it certainly didn't explain how the sounds came from under the ground beneath their feet. The same sounds continue to be heard today, long after nearly all of the bears have been killed or driven away.

Scientist have been called in to investigate the noises. After many studies, they in general attribute them to settling within the ground or boulders shifting on their own accord and the haunting screams and eerie melodies dismissed as screech owls or other wild birds and animals. These explanations sound reasonable, unless you just happen to be one of the many hikers or hunters who have given frightened reports of hearing the sounds and then feeling the hot breath of "something evil and strange" on the back of their necks. All reported they had to run as fast as they could through the woods to escape a powerful presence that did not appreciate them being there and had come for them.

Answers, comforting and acceptable answers anyway, are no closer today than they were when the Indians roamed through these mountains and woods. Screams echoing across the lonely mountains and hollows, eerie, haunting melodies coming out of the woods, unexplained rumblings coming from beneath the ground - probably just more of the sometimes disturbing phenomena in nature's mysteries. Or could it be something else entirely?