HistoricSiteMarkers
Early Republic

The Dawson Massacre

San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas

Marker Inscription

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

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

In September 1842, as Mexican forces under General Woll occupied San Antonio, Captain Nicholas Dawson led 53 volunteers from La Grange to reinforce Texan troops fighting at Salado Creek. Cut off and surrounded by cavalry and artillery, Dawson's company was overwhelmed: 36 men were killed, 15 captured, and only 3 escaped. The bloody episode became known as the Dawson Massacre.

Why it matters

It marks the violent instability of the young Republic of Texas, whose border with Mexico remained a war zone years after independence.

The story behind this marker

AI context

The era

In the autumn of 1842, the Republic of Texas was barely six years old and far from secure. Independence had been declared in 1836, but Mexico had never accepted the loss, and the border remained less a settled line than an open wound. Raids and incursions flared along the frontier, and San Antonio — close to the contested ground and thinly defended — was especially exposed.

That September, a Mexican military force under General Adrián Woll marched north and briefly occupied San Antonio itself, a shock that sent alarm through the young republic's settlements. Texan volunteers, the ad hoc militia of a nation too poor and too new to field a standing army of any size, hurried toward the town to respond.

This was the reality of life in the early Republic: security depended on ordinary men grabbing their weapons and riding toward danger. The fighting that erupted around Salado Creek grew directly out of that occupation, and the tragedy this marker records unfolded on its edges.

People & events

As Texan forces gathered to confront the Mexican army near Salado Creek, word went out for reinforcements. From the town of La Grange, Captain Nicholas Mosby Dawson answered the call, leading a company of 53 men toward the fighting. Their goal was simple and urgent: link up with Captain Mathew Caldwell — known by the nickname "Old Paint" — and his company of Texas volunteers, and add their strength to the battle.

They never made it. Before Dawson's men could join Caldwell, they were spotted and surrounded by Mexican forces in the open. Cut off from the main body of Texans and badly outmatched, the company found itself encircled with no way through.

The result was catastrophe. Of Dawson's 53 men, 36 were killed. Fifteen were taken prisoner and carried off into captivity. Only three managed to escape and carry word of what had happened. The episode was swift, one-sided, and devastating for the small community that had sent its men north — and it entered Texas memory as the Dawson Massacre.

Its place in the American story

The Dawson Massacre is a sharp reminder that Texas independence in 1836 did not bring peace. For most Americans, the story of Texas jumps from the Alamo to statehood, but the years between were dangerous and unresolved. Mexico's refusal to recognize the republic meant the border stayed hot, and events like this one show how fragile the young nation's survival really was.

That unresolved conflict had national consequences. The tensions along this contested frontier fed directly into the larger crisis that would draw the United States into war with Mexico later in the decade, once Texas joined the Union. The blood spilled by volunteer companies in the early 1840s was part of a long, grinding dispute over where one country ended and another began.

The episode also captures something enduring about how frontier communities went to war — not with professional soldiers but with neighbors, riding out together and, too often, falling together. A single afternoon could take a large share of a town's young men. That intimate, local scale of loss is part of what makes these early Texas battles so haunting.

If you visit

This is a battlefield marker, and battlefields ask something particular of a visitor: imagination. There is no fortress here, no obvious ruin — just ground, and the knowledge of what happened on it. Give yourself a moment to look at the surrounding landscape and picture how open country could become a trap for men caught in it.

Read the marker slowly and let the numbers land. Fifty-three men set out; three came home. Those are not abstractions — they were a specific company from a specific town, and the marker exists so their fate is not forgotten. Standing here is a quiet way to honor that.

If you're exploring San Antonio's deep layers of history, this stop pairs naturally with the city's other sites from the Republic and revolutionary eras. Together they tell a fuller, harder story than any single famous site can — one of a young nation whose freedom was contested for years, at close range, by ordinary people.

Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.

Plan your visit

Nearby

Make a day of it — museums, food, and places to stay near this marker.

Museums & culture

Attractions

Food & drink

Places to stay

Places data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Hours and details change — call ahead.

Own a business near here? Add it to the map.

Related people

  • · Nicholas Mosby Dawson
  • · Mathew Caldwell

Related events

  • · Battle of Salado Creek

Themes & tags

Military & WartimeBattlefield

Nearby & related markers

The Battle of the Salado

San Antonio, TX

On September 18, 1842, Texas volunteers under Mathew Caldwell and John Coffee Hays met General Adrián Woll's Mexican force outside San Antonio, which the Mexican army had just seized. Fighting from a shaded creek bank, the outnumbered Texans held their ground and turned back what proved to be the last Mexican invasion to reach that far into the young Republic of Texas. Their stand shielded the capital at Austin and helped steady a nation still only six years removed from independence.

Military & Wartime

Zambrano House

San Antonio, TX

This eighteenth-century rammed-earth home was built by early landowner Macario Zambrano in Spanish colonial San Antonio. His sons carried the family into the turbulent politics of a changing frontier: Juan Manuel helped put down the 1811 Casas revolt and fought at the 1813 Battle of Medina, while others served as alcalde and as a priest at San Fernando Cathedral during the Texas fight for independence. The house is a rare survivor of the region's Spanish-era building traditions.

Military & Wartime

The Bullis House

San Antonio, TX

This Neo-Classical Revival residence was completed in 1909 for Gen. John Lapham Bullis, a New Yorker who spent much of his career on the Southwestern frontier. In 1873 Bullis took command of a company of Seminole Scouts whose skill at tracking raiders on the Texas border drew national attention. He lived in the house, designed by San Antonio architect Harvey Page, until his death in 1911; nearby Camp Bullis bears his name.

Military & WartimeWestward Expansion

Coker Cemetery

San Antonio, TX

South Carolinian John "Jack" Coker came to Texas in 1834 and fought at the Battle of San Jacinto, earning a large land grant along Salado Creek north of San Antonio, where he summoned his brothers to help settle. The cemetery began in 1857 with the burial of a six-year-old killed by a rattlesnake, his limestone headstone still the most prominent stone on the knoll. In 1873 the family set aside three acres for a church, school, and graveyard, and the church still stands beside the cemetery today.

Military & WartimeWestward Expansion