A Time to Stand (6 page)

It was nothing new. He had always shoved on when things went against him. He did it as a 12-year-old, when he ran away after four days of school. Again, after the flash flood wrecked his little mill in 1817. Other times too. Nor was family a problem to this most casual of men. As he later explained to a shocked lady in Big Prairie, “I have set them free—set them free—they must shift for themselves.”

It was all the more important, for time was running out. Crockett was nearly fifty now. His face was flushed; his 190 pounds were no longer distributed the way they used to be. This might be his last chance—his last great opportunity-nothing must interfere.

Starting down the Mississippi on November 1, Crockett felt truly content for probably the first time in years. By his side, significantly, was “Betsey”—the rifle he used in the old days—not “pretty Betsey,” the fancy gun he got from the Whigs. Around him were long-time friends—none of those scheming Washington lackeys.

They caroused all night in Memphis—Crockett delivering his “go-to-hell” speech at the Union Hotel bar, again on a
flatboat just below the Gayoso Hotel. More drinking and parties at every place the steamboat touched along the Mississippi. Then west on the Arkansas River, arriving finally at Little Rock on November 12. By now the group had increased to eight or ten; Crockett always seemed to pick up new companions on a trip like this.

When a committee of Little Rock citizens waited upon Crockett, they found him skinning a deer in the back yard of the City Hotel. They suggested a shooting match and Crockett was delighted—legend says he gaily put an extra bullet in the hole made by his first shot, to insure himself a second bull’s-eye. Then to the banquet table, and past disappointments must have seemed far away indeed as the fife and drum burst into “Hail, the Conquering Hero Comes.”

On through the thickets to the Red River country. At Fulton he accumulated still more followers. At Clarksville, Mrs. Isabelle Clark, a magnificent pioneer woman, galloped after the party, shouting a timely warning of hostile Indians. At Lost Prairie, Crockett found himself running out of money, worked out a swap with Isaac Jones. In exchange for Jones’ silver watch and thirty dollars, Crockett handed over the magnificent gold watch given him by the Whigs in Philadelphia—to hell with that too.

Now south, across the Sabine, and Texas at last. The good news had gone ahead, and when Crockett reached Nacogdoches on January 5, the town’s cannon banged out a salute. More cheers, more limelight. Another banquet, another chance to describe how he told them back home to go to hell. Another standing ovation.

Crockett was walking on air. Only a few months ago he felt crushed by political defeat; now “I had rather be in my present situation than to be elected to a seat in Congress for life.” Last autumn he never expected to run again for anything; now “I have but little doubt of being elected a member
to form a constitution for this province.” In November, he wasn’t remotely interested in Texas revolutions; now he was about to enroll as a volunteer and plunge into the fighting.

Liberty? He outdid them all. When Judge John Forbes administered the oath of allegiance, Crockett dramatically stopped the proceedings. He noticed that he was required to uphold “any future government” that might be established. That could mean a dictatorship. He refused to sign until the wording was changed to “any future
republican
government.” The judge obligingly inserted the change and the ceremony continued.

The volunteers drifting around Nacogdoches were enchanted. The idealist Daniel Cloud and his lawyer friends yearned to join this magnetic man. John Purdy Reynolds, the crusading Pennsylvania doctor, and his old friend William McDowell couldn’t wait either. Crockett told them to come along—there was always room for a good companion. The “Tennessee Company of Mounted Volunteers” was born and immediately prepared to head for San Antonio.

But first, a brief diversion. A quick trip to St. Augustine for another big welcome. More saluting cannon … a gala ball … then back to Nacogdoches for the long ride to the army. Just before leaving St. Augustine, Crockett found time for one of his rare letters to his children. It was a happy letter, bursting with enthusiasm and closed with the assuring words: “Do not be uneasy about me. I am among friends.”

By now these “friends” also included James M. Rose and Micajah Autry, still relishing his new virile life. But there were times when even the most exuberant felt a twinge of sadness, a faint longing for things left behind. Standing guard under the January moon one crystal night, Autry’s mind drifted to home and Martha. “With what pleasure did I contemplate that lovely orb,” he wistfully wrote her, “chiefly because I recollected how often you and I had taken pleasure
in standing in the door and contemplating her together. Indeed I imagined that you might be looking at her at the same time… .”

Every man knew these moments of loneliness—and other hardships as well. The banquets and toasts were always remembered longest, but in between were days of toil and drudgery … slogging hundreds of miles through rain, mud and racing streams.

There was sickness too—especially smallpox. It was all very well for Micajah Autry to say he feared the tavern bill more, but he was traveling with Crockett. Hundreds of others weren’t so lucky: lower tavern bills, but miserable days of chill and fever. Falling by the wayside, they had little care except that provided by rough, kindly “doctors,” whose chief medical qualification seemed to be an inventive mind. “A good receipt for a cough alcoholic,” Dr. J. H. Barnard noted in his ledger: “Tincture Cannabis India three ounces; Extract of Calabria Liquorice half pound; salts of tartar one-eighth pound; warm water one gallon.” Under such ministrations, it took a deep love of liberty indeed to march to the rescue of Texas.

Many preferred to come by sea. They had their hardships too—rolling in the coastal swells, thirsty under the hot Gulf sun, bumping over the off-shore sand bars—but at least no fever or mud or aching feet. The New Orleans shipping notices ticked them off—the second company of Greys on the schooner
Columbus
… 62 men on the steamboat
Quachita
… 15 more on the schooner
Santiago.

The little group that boarded the
Santiago
on December 7 was typical. Impressed by Captain Lentner’s glowing notice of his “splendid accommodations,” they took passage-strangers from ten different states. Richard W. Ballentine was a 21-year-old country boy, fresh from a big family of brothers and sisters in Marengo County, Alabama; Cleland K. Simmons
was a tidewater aristocrat from Charleston, South Carolina.

A couple of days out, they all jammed into the
Santiago’s
cramped little cabin (they never found the “splendid accommodations”) and put their feelings on record: “We hereby declare that we have left every endearment at our respective places of abode in the United States of America to maintain and defend our brethren, at the peril of our lives, liberties and fortunes.”

Noble words but hard to prove. For as the new arrivals converged on San Antonio, they found little going on. By November 1, Cós was bottled up in town and the nearby Alamo, while the Texans surrounded him in a loose, sprawling circle. No one knew what to do next.

Leadership had all but disappeared. Stephen Austin left to rally support in the United States. General Edward Burleson, who replaced him, seemed to have no heart for fighting. Jim Bowie, although devoted to the cause, showed only flashes of his old fire. In October he led a force that routed the Mexicans at Concepción; on the other hand, he twice tried to resign.

Travis dashed about … scouting, burning grass, capturing Mexican horses. But these weren’t the deeds of a Famous Man, and on November 6, he too tried to resign. He explained vaguely that he could no longer be useful “without complaints being made”—odd excuse for a Byronic hero. He was briefly mollified, but later in the month he did pull out. Riding to San Felipe, he joined the General Consultation that was setting up the Provisional Government of Texas.

The siege dragged on, with little to do. The inactive troops grew restless and quarrelsome. One damp November day a man named Conway killed Sherod Dover of Captain Coleman’s Company. The men hung Conway from a pecan tree, and the incident would have been forgotten—except that
Dover’s name was later enshrined in another, mistaken connection.

Then the camp snapped to life on December 2. Two of San Antonio’s American residents, Sam Maverick and John W. Smith, escaped from town; reported that the Mexicans were starving, dispirited, low in ammunition. The newcomers urged immediate attack and offered a plan, backed by maps that Maverick had smuggled out.

For two days Burleson hesitated, still unwilling to fight. Then a leathery plainsman named Ben Milam finally lost patience, emerged from the General’s tent shouting, “Boys, who will come with old Ben Milam into San Antonio?” A roar of approval, and 240 men joined up.

Shortly before dawn on December 5, they advanced on the town. For four days they fought house to house, hand to hand. It was slow, dangerous work—Ben Milam himself was shot by a sniper, fell dead in Sam Maverick’s arms. But the Texans moved steadily forward, and one by one the strong points fell—the Navarro house, the Zambrano row, the priest’s house.

At 6:30
A.M.
on December 9 General Cós had enough. Surrender negotiations began, and by 2 o’clock the following morning the terms were set. Cós agreed to retire beyond the Rio Grande under parole; he and his officers would “not in any way oppose the re-establishment of the Federal Constitution of 1824.”

“All has been lost save honor,” bemoaned Captain José Juan Sanchez Navarro, appointed by Cós to sign the surrender document.

“A child’s bargain,” snorted volunteer William R. Carey of Baltimore, mulling over the same agreement. “However, it’s done now and it’s too late to alter until we have another fight, which we expect shortly.”

Most of the Texans preferred Captain Sánchez’ view—Mexico had suffered a crushing defeat. The danger was over. General Burleson went home to his family. Creed Taylor of York’s Company returned to his cabin on the Guadalupe with enough trophies to pass for a Mexican—a sleek new horse, silver-mounted saddle, costly bridle, splendid silk sash, silver spurs. The scene was repeated everywhere as the colonists left the army to rejoin their families, celebrate Christmas and begin farming again.

Many of the American volunteers were equally anxious to leave San Antonio now that the fighting was over. Dr. James Grant, a shrewd Scot, sensed this and proposed an exciting project. Why not carry the war to Mexico itself? The country below the Rio Grande was full of liberals who would rally around. If the volunteers took the port of Matamoros, they would find plenty of friends—and magnificent booty too. Dr. Grant happened to be a large landowner in that area; he stood to gain immensely if his confiscated estates were liberated, but nobody bothered to look for a hidden motive. The idea sounded perfect. The men seethed with excitement; most could hardly wait to get going. Colonel Frank Johnson, now in command, was all for it too. He turned the post over to Colonel James C. Neill and dashed off to get the provisional government’s blessing.

Grant didn’t bother to wait. On December 30 he set out, taking 200 of the men with him. They marched off in a blaze of enthusiasm—their eyes on the loot of Matamoros, their hands on the loot of San Antonio. For they appropriated practically everything in sight—money, clothing, saddles, arms, food, blankets, medical supplies. Behind them they left only picked-over Mexican junk that nobody wanted—30 useless muskets … 2 trumpets, 1 large clarion … I5 carabines, out of order.

“It will be appalling to you to learn and see herewith our
alarming weakness,” Colonel Neill wrote the authorities in San Felipe on January 6, 1836. He had only 104 men. There was no food or clothing. Many of the volunteers were down to one shirt and one blanket. “If there has ever been a dollar here, I have no knowledge of it.”

A week later, conditions were even worse. On January 14 the men were to get their October pay, but nothing turned up. Next morning Neill was down to 80 effectives: a few hungry colonists and volunteers, a handful of shivering New Orleans Greys. Clearly he couldn’t hold both the town and the Alamo with a force like this. He ordered the men in Bexar back across the winding little San Antonio River and concentrated his whole strength in the rambling old mission just east of town.

“You can plainly see that the Alamo never was built by a military people for a fortress,” Green B. Jameson wrote Sam Houston on January 18. Jameson, the mechanically minded lawyer, had cast aside his San Felipe practice to become the Alamo “engineer.” He had no technical background, but it didn’t require professional training to see the fort’s many weak points.

The old mission, mostly built by 1750, was a large, sprawling compound of buildings taking up over three acres. Heart of this compound was a rough rectangle of bare ground, flatteringly called “the plaza.” It was about the size of a city block and was bordered by various walls and buildings.

On the south side of the plaza was a long, one-story building called the “low barracks”; it was pierced by the Alamo’s main entrance. Along the west side—which faced the town about 400 yards away—ran a haphazard line of adobe huts, linked and protected by a strong stone wall about twelve feet high. Across the north end ran a similar wall. The east side was banked by the so-called “long barracks.” This two-story building was extremely strong and got extra protection from
walls bordering a corral that lay in the rear. But the “long barracks” stopped considerably short of the southern side of the plaza, leaving the rectangle incomplete. The gap, however, was partly filled by the most eye-catching building of all—the Alamo church.

Through years of neglect, the church was now a ruin, but it still was the sturdiest building in the compound. Its walls were four feet thick, and although most of the roof was gone, the sacristy and several small rooms along one side were arched and well covered. The center was filled with debris-due mainly to Cós, who had ineffectually tried to fortify the place before surrendering in December. He built a platform at the eastern end, reached by a ramp of earth and timber that ran almost the whole length of the nave.