Two men with similar names are connected to the massacre at Goliad. Edward Wingate (1780 – 1836) and Edward Taylor Wingate (1802 – 1868). From time to time they have been confused with one another, yet according to online genealogy records, they were two different individuals and were unrelated. Each man appears to have been married and had a family.
Edward Wingate was born around 1790 in Ireland. Prior to about 1812, he had married Isabella Frances McCall of Scotland. By 1820, the couple and at least two children were living in Alabama. Edward was a member of the Georgia volunteers who desired to support Texas in its effort to defeat Mexican forces in the Texas Revolution. Many years later Mrs. Wingate is said to have recounted that her husband had been a member of Captain William A. O. Wadsworth’s company.
Edward Taylor Wingate was a younger man, was born on December 18, 1802 in Brunswick County, North Carolina. His parents were Walter Robert Wingate and Mary Elizabeth Potter Wingate and he was one of about eleven children. An obituary for him noted that both his father and grandfather had both served in the American Revolution. Edward had come to Texas with a group of Georgia volunteers serving under Colonel William Ward.
William Ward and another individual named Dr. Robert Collins had organized three companies of volunteers in Georgia to come and serve in the Texas Revolution. Collins was a medical doctor and Ward was a local businessman. Together they roused support for the Texas Revolution. As far as we are aware, neither had a military background. Under Ward, the volunteers marched to New Orleans, picking up recruits along the way. Once in New Orleans, they chartered four ships and sailed to Velasco. There they were personally met by James W. Fannin, Jr. (also a Georgia native) a few days before Christmas, 1835. Up to this point, Ward had reportedly financed the effort out of his own funds.
After arriving in Texas, the Georgia companies were renamed the First Regiment, Texas Volunteers. The groups were involved in various battles and skirmishes including a defeat at Refugio on March 15, 1836. This was followed by yet another defeat near Victoria about a week later. After this battle, they surrendered and were marched to Goliad. A few days earlier, Colonel Fannin had also been defeated at Coleto after which these survivors were marched to Goliad as well.
Texas leadership was led to believe that they were to be treated as prisoners of war and presumably later released. The prisoners numbered about 350 combining Ward’s and Fannin’s forces. Fannin’s troops, Ward and most of the remaining Georgia volunteers including the elder Edward Wingate either died of wounds or were executed on March 27, 1836 by Mexican forces at the orders of Santa Anna. Estimates are that 340 were killed, though a handful were spared or escaped. The massacre occurred in the weeks between the fall of the Alamo and the Battle of San Jacinto. This amounted to the largest number of prisoners executed at one time during the Revolution and served to increase the resolve of the Texas forces.
Edward Taylor Wingate was living in North Carolina when the 1830 federal census was recorded. Around 1820 when he was about 18, he married Elizabeth Jane Smith and they had several children. There is no obvious record of how this union was dissolved. He married Eliza Jane Stepp after 1840 and the couple also had a number of children. His service in the Texas Revolution included being involved in several battles. Before Goliad, Wingate was wounded, having been shot in the hip. According to his family, he was recovering from his wounds at the time of the Battle of Goliad, and was not subject to the massacre. For a number of years, Wingate was believed to have been among a few individuals (physicians and mechanics) who were spared by the Mexican Army.
At least one descendant of the younger Edward Wingate, a Mrs. Ferguson from San Antonio, disputed the account adopted by the Texas Centennial Commission that he had died at Goliad. Mrs. Ferguson, a granddaughter of Wingate, had earlier encountered the name confusion when she tried to join the Daughters of the Republic of Texas only to be declined. Mrs. Ferguson was told that according to their records, Wingate had died at Goliad while a single man, and thus she could not have been his granddaughter. She later was accepted into the DRT under the records of another ancestor. Mrs. Ferguson was able to document that her grandfather had been seen alive at the time, away from the location of the massacre.
Edward Taylor Wingate married a second time in 1844 and resided in Texas for the remainder of his life. He served in the Mexican-American War as a private in the Second Texas Mounted Volunteers. Records show that he mustered into the U. S. Army in June of 1846 and mustered out in Monterey, Mexico in October 1848. In the 1850 federal census, he was living in Polk County, Texas working as a farmer. He died in 1868 and was interred in a non-cemetery burial. His granddaughter was able to find his burial place near Crockett. In 1960, on the strength of her years of genealogy research, Mrs. Ferguson was able to have his remains reinterred in San Antonio at the Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery. At that time, Wingate’s remains represented the earliest wartime service member interred there at the national cemetery.
Isabella Wingate, wife of the older Edward Wingate, moved to Houston County, Texas, residing there until her death in 1867. She is buried in Grapeland in a family cemetery named for her son in law’s family. Edward’s name is included on the Fannin Burial Monument in Goliad. As noted, Edward Taylor Wingate is buried in the National Cemetery in San Antonio. His widow, Eliza Jane Stepp Wingate, is buried in Brummett Cemetery in Frio County.
Historical markers or monuments referring to these individuals: The historical marker for Joanna Troutman in a marker entitled “Martyrs to Texas Independence at Goliad” lists an “E Wingate” under the subheading for individuals “Spared [on] account of being Physicians or Mechanics.” At Goliad State Park, the monument for James Walker Fannin’s Men lists “Wingate, Edward” among the casualties. In the Davis Cemetery near Grapeland, there is a marker for Mrs. Isabella Wingate which adds that she was the widow of Edward Wingate who fell with Col. James W. Fannin, Jr. at Goliad.
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