The Runaway Scrape
Terror, Mud, and the Flight for Life, 190 Years On Imagine the panic sweeping across Texas settlements in late March and early April 1836. News of the Alamo’s fall and the Goliad Massacre traveled faster than any courier. “Santa Anna is coming — he will show no mercy!” Families abandoned homes in haste, loading wagons with whatever they could carry while burning crops and cabins to deny supplies to the enemy. Rain turned roads into rivers of mud. Children cried. Women drove oxen through flooded crossings. Disease stalked every camp. This was the Runaway Scrape — the desperate eastward exodus of…