A Time to Stand (23 page)

“Y
OU KNOW,” THE OLD
Texan gently admonished, “legend is often truer than history and always more lasting.” And yet the haunting questions remain—did Travis
really
draw the line, did Crockett
really
fall fighting, and so on.

The answers come hard, even when someone wants to know the facts. Traces of the frontier are few today in terms of towns, wild game, Indians, lawlessness, almost everything—except research. Here the frontier is still very much alive, for the pioneer’s impatience with dates, spelling and record-keeping lingers on to plague anyone digging into the past.

Dates alone are a nightmare in the story of the Alamo. Ramón Caro had an exasperating way of saying things happened on February 30. Juan Seguin gave at least four different dates as the day he left the fort—February 26 (letter to W. W. Fontaine, 1890); the 28th
(Memoirs,
1858); the 29th (talk with R. M. Potter, about 1878); March 2 (affidavit on behalf of Andreas Nava, about 1860). Actually, it appears he left on February 25. Seguin was almost certainly the man who carried Travis’ message of the 25th to Houston, and was seen at Gonzales on the morning of the 28th by Dr. John Sutherland.

Under frontier conditions, dates could also get mixed up
in putting them down. Foote’s 1841 history of Texas contains a letter from Colonel Fannin describing his abortive march to relieve the Alamo. Because the letter is dated February 29 and Fannin speaks of marching “yesterday,” readers have understandably assumed he started out on the 28th.

Yet Fannin’s letter is either misdated, miscopied or misprinted. At least seven other letters conclusively show that he actually marched February 26, and the letter in Foote should be dated the 27th. But because Foote is widely read, the error lingers on and Fannin becomes even slower than he was.

Names are another problem. Fannin ended his signature with such a fancy rubric that early historians often spelled his name “Fanning.” In early documents Almeron Dickinson’s name was sometimes spelled “Dickerson,” and through the years a debate of medievalist proportions developed over which version was correct. At the time, of course, people didn’t care as long as they knew who was meant. This book follows the spelling in his marriage certificate and application for headlight land—but he would not have minded the other.

Place names are almost as complicated. People rarely saw a map and used the names they picked up from others, who perhaps used some personal description or association. Hence the same general spot on the Brazos is variously called Thompson’s Ferry, Orozimbo, Old Fort and Fort Bend. In a later, better-organized day it became the town of Richmond.

Finally, so little was written down at all. Texas was acutely aware of the Alamo’s importance, yet nobody had time to make a serious study until twenty-four years later, when Captain Reuben M. Potter issued his first little pamphlet in 1860. Potter, incidentally, was the first to add a fall to Bowie’s various ailments. Later he changed his mind, wrote Henry Arthur McCardle in 1874 that Bowie had not been
injured. But the story was now launched and still sails on, even though denied by the person who started it.

It is, then, a rash man indeed who claims he has the final answer to everything that happened in the Alamo. The best that can be done is to offer some careful conclusions—always subject to correction—that might throw new light on a few of the many intriguing riddles… .

He later said he did, but his critics (of whom there were many) always maintained that this was just another example of Houston taking credit where no credit was due.

Actually, the evidence indicates that Houston did indeed try to avert the siege by ordering the Alamo destroyed and the garrison withdrawn. His orders to Bowie of January 16 have not been preserved, but a letter of the 17th to Governor Smith says, “I have ordered the fortifications in the town of Bexar to be destroyed, and if you think well of it, I will remove all the cannon, and other munitions of war to Gonzales and Copano, blow up the Alamo, and abandon the place… .”

While final action was apparently contingent on the Governor’s approval, other evidence suggests that Houston—feeling sure of his grounds—had already given the necessary orders to Bowie. The Provisional Council certainly thought so and on January 30 angrily complained that Houston had ordered the destruction of all defenses at Bexar and the abandonment of the post.

Nor was this a case where Houston gained his foresight long after the event. Writing James Collinsworth on March 15—only two days after Mrs. Dickinson reached Gonzales— the General declared: “Our forces must not be shut up in forts,
where they can neither be supplied with men nor provisions. Long aware of this fact, I directed, on the 16th of January last, that the artillery should be removed, and the Alamo blown up. …”

Ever since William Zuber launched the story in 1873, historians have pondered over his tale of Colonel Travis’ last appeal to his garrison. Did Travis really draw a line on the ground with his sword, ask all who were with him to cross, and give any others the chance to escape? Did Louis Rose really hang back—the only man in the Alamo who preferred to live? Did he really vault the wall and escape?

There were so many things wrong with the account, few scholars took it seriously for years. At best it was secondhand hearsay: Rose was illiterate and Zuber’s parents, who heard him tell the story, never wrote it down. William Zuber himself was an incorrigible raconteur—another of his tales had a Mexican tearing Jim Bowie’s tongue out.

Worst of all, the story just didn’t fit the known facts: (1) Only one Rose was listed in the Alamo, and that was generally understood to be James M. Rose, ex-President Madison’s nephew and an impeccable hero. (2) Travis had not lost all hope on March 3—his letters that day were full of high spirits and detailed instructions on what the relief force should bring. (3) John W. Smith, who left the Alamo later that night, never mentioned the speech or the line.

Nor, in fact, did any of the survivors, until long after the Zuber story was published. Then, versions by Enrique Esparza and Mrs. Dickinson began to appear … but obviously with heavy and not very skillful editorial assistance. In 1881, for instance, Mrs. Dickinson had the story backward—the line
was to be crossed by anyone who wanted to leave. Far worse, she had it all happening on the first day of the siege.

Then in 1939 came a thunderbolt. R. B. Blake, a conscientious office worker long interested in the Zuber story, uncovered some amazing evidence in the Nacogdoches County Courthouse. It showed convincingly that there was indeed a Louis Rose, that he had been in the Alamo during the siege, and that his testimony was accepted by the local Board of Land Commissioners in deciding claims filed on behalf of six different Alamo victims. On Claim No. 254 by the heirs of John Blair, for instance, Rose testified, “Left him in the Alamo 3 March 1836.”

So Rose was there. But did he leave under the dramatic circumstances described by Zuber? Freshly uncovered information suggests that he did. This consists of a formal statement, never published, given by Mrs. Dickinson to the State Adjutant General, who was trying to develop a more definitive list of Alamo defenders. Dated September 23, 1876, part of her statement declares:

On the evening previous to the massacre, Colonel Travis asked the command that if any desired to escape, now was the time, to let it be known, and to step out of the ranks. But one stepped out. His name to the best of my recollection was Ross. The next morning he was missing.

Of course, she did say “Ross,” not “Rose.” But letters and spelling meant nothing to Mrs. Dickinson, who couldn’t read or write. At this distance, her statement looks good enough—especially since there was no “Ross” in the Alamo. Nor does it seem damaging that her statement postdated the Zuber story by three years. It doesn’t have the ring of a coached remark; and Mrs. Dickinson, who was exasperatingly
uninterested in her historic role, didn’t have it in her to take off all alone on a flight of fancy.

But the statement does throw great light on another point raised by Zuber’s critics: How could Travis have drawn the line on March 3, when his letters were still so hopeful and John W. Smith never mentioned it at all? The answer: It didn’t happen on March 3—it happened, as Mrs. Dickinson testified, on the evening of March 5. By then the picture had entirely changed. Moreover, the later date would fit perfectly with the course of battle on March 5, when Mexican fire did taper off around sunset.

All that’s needed is to allow Rose the same leeway on dates as everyone else in the Alamo story. In the true frontier spirit, none of them cared very much—who ever saw a calendar? Ramón Caro said Santa Anna arrived on February 26; Seguin said February 22. Travis himself gave two different dates for the arrival of the Gonzales men.

So Rose was there and Rose fled—but still, did Travis draw the line? In her statement to the Adjutant General, Mrs. Dickinson didn’t mention it. Now a recently uncovered Zuber letter casts further doubt on the story. He too was writing the Adjutant General about this time, apparently because his account had come under such heavy fire. In a letter dated September 14, 1877, Zuber acknowledged that he had made up Travis’ speech completely, although it was based on information supplied by Rose. Moreover, Zuber admitted that he invented one paragraph which did not come from Rose at all: “I found a deficiency in the material of the speech, which from my knowledge of the man, I thought I could supply. I accordingly threw in one paragraph which I firmly believe to be characteristic of Travis, and without which the speech would have been incomplete.”

Zuber never said what the passage was, but the omission itself is significant. The line was the crux of the whole
speech—the center of all the controversy. If his concoction (“without which the speech would have been incomplete”) was not the line, it seems he would have said so, for this was the one thing everyone wanted to know.

Summing up his account of the speech, Zuber said all he was trying to do was show “That on the afternoon of the 3rd day of March 1836, Travis in a formal address explained to his command their real situation and offered to every man who might be disposed to accept it an opportunity to risk the chances of surrender or escape.”

Again, no mention of the line. But perhaps it was just as well. If Zuber was hiding a gentle fabrication, he was also protecting a shining legend—and what harm in a legend that only serves to perpetuate the memory of valor and sacrifice? As matters stand, there’s still room to speculate, and every good Texan can follow the advice of J. K. Beretta in the
Southwestern Historical Quarterly:
“Is there any proof that Travis didn’t draw the line? If not, then let us believe it.”

John W. Smith gets all the glory and deserves much of it, for he carried Travis’ last dispatch to the Convention on the night of March 3. But another messenger left later with a final appeal to Fannin. This man reached Goliad on March 8, and his arrival is noted in two different letters—Burr H. Duval to William P. Duval, March 9, 1836; and John Sowers Brooks to James Hagerty, same date.

The courier to Goliad evidently left the Alamo considerably after Smith, for his report is much more gloomy. On March 3 the walls were “generally proof against cannon balls”; now “every shot goes through, as the walls are weak.” Clearly
the later report was sent after the Mexicans erected their new battery on March 4 just to the north of the Alamo.

The evidence indicates that this last courier was 16-year-old James L. Allen and that he rode from the Alamo “after nightfall” on March 5. He left no written account, but through the years he told his story to others. At least three of these listeners have independently set down his story, and none seem to doubt his word. Allen himself was a responsible citizen-later tax assessor, justice of the peace, and Mayor of Indianola.

No, despite all the portraits. He had ordered one from McKinney & Williams, but judging from his letter of January 21, 1836 to Captain W. G. Hill, it wasn’t very far along. Since he left for the Alamo on the 23rd, there’s little chance it caught up with him before the siege. Sergeant Felix Nuñez, who appropriated Travis’ coat after the battle, said that it was of homemade Texas jeans.

A wide variety of sources give six different places. The favorites: a small room on the north side of the church; the second-floor room in the southwest corner of the long barracks; a small room in the low barracks. Of these choices, the best evidence points to the low barracks. Authorities: Mrs. Alsbury, who was Bowie’s sister-in-law; Captain Sánchez Navarro, Sergeant Loranca, and Sergeant Nuñez, all of the attacking force; Francisco Ruiz, who had the job of identifying Bowie’s remains for Santa Anna. On Sanchez Navarro’s plan of the Alamo, Bowie’s room is clearly marked in the low barracks, just to the east of the main gate.

According to Antonio Pérez, one of the first friendly Mexicans to reach Gonzales after the massacre, Travis stabbed himself to avoid capture. Houston believed the story, and it was widely circulated. But later and more reliable evidence indicates that the Colonel was killed by enemy gunfire.

This certainly is the opinion of those who were there. Travis’ slave Joe is emphatic on the point, and he was standing beside his master on the north battery. Captain Sánchez Navarro and Colonel José Enrique de la Peña, who wrote detailed firsthand accounts from the Mexican side, both agree that Travis fell fighting.

Much has been made of the report by Francisco Ruiz, who identified Travis’ body for Santa Anna. In her celebrated thesis on the Alamo, Miss Amelia Williams pointed out that Ruiz said Travis’ only wound was “a pistol shot through the forehead.” But Ruiz never mentioned a pistol, and to one observer at least, there seems nothing remarkable about a soldier being shot in the head during battle.