Alamo Traces (52 page)
Authors: Thomas Ricks Lindley
John S. “Rip” Ford, early Alamo historian
Traditionally the Alamo flew a modified Mexican flag, but the best evidence indicates that was not the case.
The early Texan sources mention no specific flag, but in 1860 Captain R. M. Potter remedied the omission. In the first of several [two] accounts he did on the subject, Captain Potter declared that the Alamo flag was the regular Mexican tricolor, but with the date 1824 substituted for the usual golden eagle. This was based on no evidence but on Potter's theory that the Texans were fighting for the Mexican Constitution of 1824, until the Declaration of Independence was formally passed on March 2, 1836. Since the Alamo defenders knew nothing of this event, the theory ran, they went down still fighting for a liberal Mexico. The irony of Potter's theory was appealing; others backed it up and it lingers on.
But the theory does not jibe with the facts. Actually, Texas had stopped fighting for the Constitution of 1824 long before the Alamo.
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Lord concluded that the Alamo defenders, all supporters of independence, would not have maintained a banner that represented Mexican federalism. Therefore, since Colonel Juan N. Almonte's journal only mentions the capture of one flag, which appears to have been the New Orleans Greys banner, Lord decided that the Greys' azure blue standard was the Alamo flag.
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Lord was right about the Alamo defenders' feelings on independence. He was wrong about the Alamo flag. The Greys banner was nothing more than “a flag captured at the fall of the Alamo.” At that point the blue cloth only represented proof of the involvement of United States volunteers in the Texian struggle against the Mexican government. Therefore, about an hour and a half after the dawn attack, Santa Anna wrote his government: “The bearer takes with him one of the flags of the enemy's Battalions, captured today. The inspection of it will show plainly the true intentions of the treacherous colonist, and of their abettors, who came from parts of the United States of the North.” Santa Anna's statement proves that the Greys banner was a unit standard, not
the
Alamo flag. The story of the true Alamo flag starts with the siege and storming of Bexar in 1835.
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Francis W. Johnson, co-commander of the storming of Bexar, in answering a letter from writer Julia Lee Sinks, wrote: “Your note of the 6th inquiring âwhat kind of flag was used by the Texans, if any, at San Antonio.' I have to inform you that it was the Mexican flag â
Red, White and Green
. We at that time were contending for our rights as citizens of Mexico.” That flag was the Mexican tricolor that contained a golden eagle, with rattlesnake in mouth, perched on a cactus on the flag's middle white band. This was the Mexican national standard of the federal government of the constitution of 1824. After the surrender of the Mexican army on December 11, 1835, Herman Ehrenberg, a Greys private, confirmed Johnson's statement: “We still considered Texas and Mexico as one . . . three colors floated over the church.”
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The Mexican federalist flag has ever since been confused with a flag created by Philip Dimmitt at Goliad. On October 27, 1835, Dimmitt wrote Stephen F. Austin: “I have had a flag made â the colors, and their arrangement the same as the old one â with the words and figures, âConstitution of 1824,' displayed on the white, in the center.” Did Dimmitt's flag make it to San Antonio? Many believe it did, but there is little reliable evidence to indicate the flag joined Austin's army. On October 15, 1835, Dimmitt sent a company of Tejanos, under the command of Placido Benavides, to join Austin's force, which was on the road to San Antonio. Dimmitt, however, at that time, had yet to create his flag.
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If Dimmitt's flag had made it to Bexar, it would have joined the national federalist flag, the Gonzales “Come and Take It” cannon flag, the Greys banner, and Sarah Dodson's single starred red, white, and blue banner in the army's color guard that was commanded by Captain William Scott. After Scott's discharge on November 18, the color guard detail was assigned to Captain Peter J. Duncan's company. Future Alamo assistant quartermaster A. Anderson was a member of that unit.
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During the last days of December 1835, the forces at Bexar abandoned the federalist cause and the Mexican national flag. On December 30 Horatio H. Alsbury, translator for the garrison and future Alamo courier, wrote Sam Houston of the garrison's attitude toward independence and requested his opinion on the subject:
I take the privilege of addressing you this note flattering myself that you will be pleased to know our operations at this place, but I am actuated more by the uneasiness I feel about our Country from the declaration [of independence]
of Dimitt's party at La Bahia [Goliad], & the disposition of the troops remaining at this place to a second [of] that declaration. You will excuse me therefore when I beg of you to inform me by letter the disposition of the Council & Texas in general relative to a premature declaration of independence or an immediate declaration to that purport.
I will be truly grateful to you to give me
candidly
your own ideas on the subject of Independence. The army will leave this evening to the number of 300 men for Matamoros where from authentic information they will meet the enemy fifteen hundred in number.
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Houston's opinion was important to the American volunteers who planned to capture the Mexican port of Matamoros on the Rio Grande. On November 29, 1835, Robert C. Morris, a Greys captain, wrote Houston to reject an appointment in the Texian regular army: “There was no one [who] more ardently wished you as a leader in the Camp & your appearance there at any period previous to the taking of Bexar, would have given you the command of the army by eleven twelfths of the votes. . . . There are now here 225 men, nearly all from the U.S. Who on no consideration will enter into any service connected with the Regular Army, the name of which is a perfect Bugbear to them, & to them I promised to be one of those who lead them on the road to Matamoros & who declare in the most positive manner that should this not be undertaken they will return home direct from hence.”
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During December's last days or the first week of January 1836, a flag appeared at Bexar that seems to have been designed to take advantage of Houston's popularity with the American filibusters. On January 6, 1836, Texas governor Henry Smith wrote: “I have anticipated them and ordered the commander-in-Chief forthwith to proceed to the frontier, take charge of the army, establish his headquarters at the most eligible point, and to immediately concentrate his troops, at the different points, so as to be in readiness for active operations, at the earliest possible day. A descent will be made on Matamoros, as soon as it can possibly be fitted out. . . . They have hoisted a flag at Bexar for independence, with Gen. Houston's name upon it! This I have learned to be the fact. I find it necessary, in order to circumvent them, to order Gen. Houston to immediately take charge.”
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Why would Smith, who supported independence and separation from Mexico, have been upset about a “Sam Houston for Independence” flag flying at San Antonio? After all, such a banner suggests loyalty and support for Houston as the commander-in-chief. The problem was that the flag did not represent the kind of separation from Mexico that Smith, Houston, and James Bowie were working to achieve. F. W. Johnson and James Grant appear to have created the Houston flag as a way to convince the U.S. volunteers that Houston supported the Johnson and Grant version of the Matamoros expedition.
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On January 7, in a letter to John Forbes of Nacogdoches, Houston answered Alsbury's question about independence and identified the problem with the Houston flag that Smith wanted him to solve.
You are aware that I have been opposed to a Declaration of Independence up to this time. I was so, because I thought it premature and that some policy demanded of us a fair experiment â I now feel confident that no further experiment need be made, to convince us that there is but one course left for Texas to pursue, and that is, an unequivocal Declaration of Independence, and the formation of a constitution, to be submitted to the people for their rejection or ratification.
It is the project of some interested in land matters, very largely, for Texas to unite with some three or four of the Eastern States of Mexico, and form a Republic â This I regard as worse, than our present, or even our former situation.
Their [the Mexican people of those states] wars would be our wars, and their revolutions: While our Revenues, our lands, and our lives would be expended to maintain their cause, and we could expect nothing in return; but prejudice, and if we relied on them disappointment. Let Texas now Declare her independence, and it will cost her less blood, and treasure to maintain it; than it would cost her to maintain her integral interest in such a confederacy; the preponderance, would be so decidedly against her, that she would have less influence if possible, than she has heretofore enjoyed in the Congress of Coahuila and Texas.
The citizens of Texas can never be happy, until they are confident in the certainty of their rights â so long as they
are subject to Mexican policy they never can be confident; Then if these are truths sanctioned by experience â Texas must be free, that her citizens may be happy.
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In early February 1836, Governor Smith stated his and Houston's political and military goals in a private letter. He wrote:
. . . The first of March will give the death blow to their main project, as I have no doubt the independence of Texas will be proclaimed to the world, and then a long farewell to all Mexican policy. . . .
“This country can never prosper until a few of that baneful faction are immolated on the alter of their own perfidy. The convention will, I hope, afford the grand corrective.
“Owing to their [James Grant and F. W. Johnson] base management, much confusion prevails among our volunteer troops on the frontier, but, by using much vigilance, I have now got Bexar secure. On the last advices the enemy were concentrating on our border in considerable numbers and every exertion used, and everything put in requisition for a formidable campaign against the colonies in the spring. Flying rumors have been sent in to delude us, by saying many of the Eastern States have declared in opposition to the dictator. In this, however, I have no confidence, believing it is intended to delude us.
“Copano has been assigned as our headquarters for the present, until we make a declaration and have a sufficient number of men and means to operate on, when we will immediately remove to the west, of which you will be informed from this department.
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Then on January 7 Houston responded to Smith's concern about the flag at Bexar and the political position it represented by departing for Goliad to seize control of the Matamoros expedition to stop Johnson and Grant from using it as their opening engagement in a campaign to create a new Mexican/Texian republic.
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In opposition to the Johnson and Grant design for a new nation, Bowie was already on the road to Goliad with orders from Houston to organize a volunteer force that could take Matamoros in the name of independence and secure the land all the way up the Rio Grande, which Smith and
Houston erroneously believed was Texas's southwestern border. On January 10, probably unaware that Houston was on the road, Bowie wrote the general: “Some dark scheme has been set on foot to disgrace our noble cause. I shall leave with Captain Blount in an hour, and shall reach Goliad by daylight, and put a stop to Grant's movements.” The Bowie, Houston, and Smith “noble cause” was simple. They wanted a Texas that was free of Mexican political dominance and influence that could be quickly annexed to the Untied States. Any successful Anglo-Celtic alliance with Mexican federalists, be it the Johnson and Grant project or the one advocated by Lt. Governor James W. Robinson and the Council, that defeated Santa Anna's centralist government would have prevented a union of Texas and the United States.
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Houston, after arriving at Goliad, received news from Lt. Colonel James C. Neill, the commander at San Antonio, reporting an expected attack on that city and the reinforcement of the Mexican garrison at Matamoros. A part of the letter, which has been overlooked by historians, mentions the Bexar flag: “You [Houston] will learn what sneaking and Gambling has been done, to operate against you by J [Johnson] & G [Grant]. You will hear all about the Houston flag, and the Houston House in Bexar, for fear you would be elected Commander of the Volunteer army, they never would let it come near an election, but shuffled it off, and threw all the army into confusion several times, and the responsibility on the heads of the several Captains.”
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