Ninety Texians Held a River Bend at Concepcion Against Cos’s Army

Three weeks after Gonzales, the Texian army got its first real fight with the Mexican army that held San Antonio. On the morning of October 28, 1835, about 90 volunteers under James Bowie and James W. Fannin Jr. held off a force three times their size in a wooded bend of the San Antonio River near Mission Concepcion, and drove it back in about 30 minutes.

The battle of Concepcion opened the siege of Bexar. By late October the Texian army under Stephen F. Austin had grown to about 400 men. Gen. Martin Perfecto de Cos had fortified the plazas of San Antonio and the Alamo mission across the river with a garrison that peaked at about 750.

Camped against orders

On October 27, Austin sent Bowie and Fannin with 90 men from Mission Espada to find a protected campsite closer to town. The four companies of Andrew Briscoe, Robert M. Coleman, Valentine Bennet and Michael Goheen scouted the missions, traded shots with Mexican scouts and reached Concepcion late in the day.

Austin had told them to come back to the main army. The officers decided to camp instead. They picked a bend in the river where an embankment gave cover, sent out pickets and waited. A few cannon shots from the town that evening hit no one.

Cos saw a detachment cut off from the main army and moved to destroy it. Before dawn he sent Col. Domingo de Ugartechea with 275 men and two cannons. Mexican cavalry drove in the Texian pickets in the morning fog and formed on the west side of the river, while Lt. Col. Jose Maria Mendoza led the infantry and artillery across to attack from the east.

Rifles in the fog

The first Mexican volleys went high, into the trees over the Texians’ heads. No one was hit until Bowie moved Coleman’s company to meet the advance, and one man fell mortally wounded. Then the Texians answered with aimed rifle fire from behind the embankment. They threw back three charges and killed or wounded most of the infantry and artillerymen. Then they left cover and captured one of the cannons. The Mexican cavalry covered the retreat of the survivors.

Austin heard the firing and hurried the main army to the field, but it arrived in time only to speed the withdrawal. The Handbook of Texas puts Mexican losses at 14 killed and 39 wounded, some of whom died later. The Texians lost one man killed and one wounded.

The first to die

The man killed was Richard Andrews, called Big Dick for his size and strength. He had taken a wound at Gonzales on October 2. At Concepcion he became the first man to die in the Texas Revolution. Andrews County was named for him in 1876, and so was the town of Andrews, its county seat.

Austin wanted to storm the town after the fight. Most of his officers judged San Antonio too well fortified, and the army settled in for a siege that lasted until December 9, when Cos asked for terms. Bowie died at the Alamo on March 6, 1836. Fannin was executed at Goliad on March 27.

At Concepcion, outnumbered volunteers chose their own ground, against orders, and held it.