Exodus From the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth (37 page)

Evidently stationed in an observatory position atop the roof of the high, two-storied Long Barracks, where some light, make-shift defenses had been constructed, Baugh was not at a good vantage point—too far from the north wall where the main attack would be directed—to serve as the Alamo’s main lookout at this time. And on this night that was as dark as it was cold, therefore, he could see nothing out in the prairies to the east because Colonel Romero’s attack column on the east had yet to strike. No sound of clattering accouterments, which were not worn by the attackers, could be heard in that direction.

At this time, of course, Baugh had no way of knowing that the pickets, who perhaps he himself had stationed outside the Alamo, were already dead. Baugh never knew that these blood-splattered soldiers, upon whom the garrison had placed so much faith to give early warning, were now lying lifeless at the bottom of cold, muddy ditches. Symbolically, the opening phase of the struggle had opened with a slaughter of garrison members outside the fort and would eventually end with a much greater slaughter on the same open plain.
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William Barret Travis, weighed down by command responsibilities, had retired more than two hours earlier to his headquarters, located in the building near the west wall’s center, seeking relief from exhaustion and the winter weather. Captain Baugh, if not asleep by 5:30 a.m. when the assault began, after more than two hours on watch, was not sufficiently vigilant—like everyone else—to ascertain that a general assault was underway until it was already too late.

Clearly, indicating their inexperience, both Travis and Baugh had placed far too much confidence in the pickets and sentries–without officer supervision—outside the Alamo’s walls. But with the noise emitting from pounding feet, ladders slapped up against the north wall, and Mexican officers now shouting orders to their men, Captain Baugh, very likely just awakened, at last finally recognized the onslaught against the north wall. He now heard the tumult of Mexican soldiers pouring forward by the hundreds. By this time, after reaching the north wall, Dúque’s soldados were yelling and shouting, as if celebrating so easily gaining their objective.

Now alert to the threat’s magnitude, a desperate Captain Baugh made a belated attempt to arouse the sleeping garrison in the practically sound-proof rooms of the Long Barracks. He very likely also tried to awake soldiers in the other sleeping quarters, especially the artillerymen who slept in the adobe building just to the north, and adjacent to, the Long Barracks. However, it was already too late to organize a solid defense along the Alamo’s expansive perimeter, which spanned nearly a quarter of a mile, especially after the Mexicans had already gained the north wall. Not panicking but keeping his head, and in accordance to military protocol as he was the fort’s executive officer, the Virginia captain dashed for Travis’ sleeping quarters, located next to the artillery command headquarters situated near the center of the west wall. The assault was so stealthy and swift that the thoroughly exhausted Travis was still asleep at the decisive moment, since no attack had yet been directed at the nearby lunette.
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Unfortunately for the Alamo garrison, both artillerymen and infantrymen had been literally caught napping, while the Mexicans had already made significant tactical gains—especially in gaining the north wall without meeting serious resistance. By this time, dark, swirling masses of Dúque’s troops “had their ladders against the [north] wall before the Garrison were aroused.”
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An account taken from Joe, Travis’ slave from Monroe County, Alabama, summarized on April 11, 1836 the totality of the success of Santa Anna’s stealthy tactics that had gained a permanent tactical advantage that would never be relinquished: “It was dark, and the enemy were undiscovered until they were close to the walls, and before the sentinels had aroused the garrison, the enemy had gained possession of a part of the ramparts.”
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In another account that appeared in the
Commonwealth
of Frankfort, Kentucky, on May 25, 1836, Joe revealed how the attackers were already “under the guns, and had their ladders against the wall before the Garrison were aroused to resistance.”
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The slave’s view was accurate, because it later became widely known that the garrison was only “roused from their sleep by the cry that, ‘the enemy [is] on the walls’.” Consequently, the son of Gregorio Esparza, who was a member of Captain Benavides’ Tejano company of hardy rancheros, Enrique Esparza, a noncombatant because of his young age, explained how thoroughly Santa Anna’s tactical surprise had gained irreversible dividends to seal the defender’s fate: “The end came suddenly and almost unexpectedly and with a rush [and] It came at night and when all was dark . . . .”
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Consequently, the garrison members were suddenly “awakened to a nightmare” of almost unimaginable, surreal proportions in the blackness.
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The Mexican plan based on stealth and surprise had worked to perfection. In the process, Santa Anna had overcome the major dilemma faced by military commanders assaulting a fortified position, solving a vexing tactical challenge that had existed for centuries: how to catch an opponent by surprise and overwhelm a defensive strongpoint and a garrison with a minimum loss of life. Santa Anna had already negated the Alamo’s two principal defensive strengths in only a matter of minutes: its large number of artillery and the deadly Long Rifles.

The Alamo garrison had completely fallen for Santa Anna’s trap, lulled not only into complacency, but also a deep sleep. Day after day during the siege, Santa Anna had simply worn the Alamo garrison out both physically and mentally by the nearly two-week siege, sapping their spirit and fighting resolve in the process. Therefore, they had been asleep at the exact moment when they should have been ready for action. And the deadly Long Rifles, now stacked or lying useless beside their owners, were silent as the Mexicans set up their ladders and began to scale the north wall.

To negate such an assault, Colonel Travis or Bowie should have developed a sensible defensive plan in which half of the garrison slept while the other half manned the defenses. The failure to develop such a rotating defensive plan to counter a surprise attack, especially at night, doomed any chance for effective resistance. Or they could have emulated Napoleonic troops who were not allowed to take off equipment or even clothes to sleep when in the enemy’s presence and expecting an attack. But Travis was inexperienced in the art of war, and Bowie lacked knowledge in conventional warfare.

Clearly, such negligence was a fatal mistake that would ensure weak, almost token, resistance in defending the Alamo’s lengthy perimeter. Based on racial and cultural stereotypes, this situation had in part resulted from the average psychology of the Alamo defenders, who underestimated the intelligence and military skill of their opponents, from Santa Anna down to the lowest soldado private. Indeed, as late as February 12 and barely ten days before Santa Anna’s arrival outside San Antonio, Travis had assured Governor Smith “that with 200 men I believe this place can be maintained.” From beginning to end, garrison members never believed that the Mexicans would be so shrewd or tactically innovative as to do anything so enterprising as to attack in the darkness and catch them by surprise. After all, not even Indian warriors attacked Anglo-Celtic settlers at night or fought in blackness. Negative racial stereotypes about the Mexican character lulled the defenders, especially the leadership, into a state of lax complacency.

Even worse, the Mexican cannonade during the siege had conditioned the men to enjoy the comforting shelter of the Long Barracks and other buildings to escape the shelling.When the bombardment ceased on the previous afternoon, Travis had failed to make the necessary tactical adjustments to adapt to the changed situation. Perhaps the more experienced Bowie, had he not been sick, might have been sufficiently savvy to take such defensive precautions. Santa Anna, thanks to Tejano collaborators who had seemed to know almost everything about what was transpiring inside the Alamo, was aware that the garrison’s riflemen slept in the Long Barracks and other insulated—and hence quiet—quarters, with thick abode and limestone walls that made them nearly soundproof. And he knew that these quarters were located a good distance from the principal tactical target, the weakened north wall.

And few, if any, Alamo artillerymen rested at night beside their guns, while the riflemen slept in the barracks and other abode buildings, once so effective in stopping Apache and Comanche arrows. Therefore, when the Mexicans reached the north wall, began climbing their ladders, and even going over the top in the dark, they were not initially met by any massed or concentrated volleys of rifle-fire, because of the absence of both aroused defenders and the lack of firing positions— parapets, catwalks, portholes, or firing platforms—along the walls. For instance, even though a relatively short makeshift firing platform existed along the north wall, the lack of firing embrasures for riflemen meant that they would be exposed when rising up to fire. For the defenders, even if they reached their assigned places in time, the best firing positions were almost exclusively on building rooftops, a good distance from the north wall, at various points along the perimeter.

Almost before anyone among the comatose garrison realized it, the quickness of the Mexicans reaching the walls meant that almost all of the Alamo’s artillery remained unmanned and silent for some time, because the gunners, if roused at all, had no time to race north from the artillery barracks and across the plaza. In addition, even if manned, the pieces could not be sufficiently depressed once the Mexicans had reached the north wall. After all, these guns had been mounted to meet daytime attacks with long-range fire. This disadvantageous situation made the majority of the Alamo’s cannon almost useless when they were needed the most. Some historians have at least acknowledged that the Long Rifle had been largely negated, but not the majority of the Alamo’s cannon at the attack’s beginning.

Although the real battle had not yet actually begun, already it was too late for the diminutive band of garrison members to do anything but die. Travis’ slave Joe described how the fight was already over once hundreds of Santa Anna’s finest troops already gained the north wall, “before the Garrison [offered] resistance.”
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Meanwhile, the 33-year-old Captain Baugh raced westward across the wide expanse of the pitch-black plaza—in what must have seemed like an eternity for the Virginian—to reach Travis’ small room in a building near the center of the west wall. In desperation, an out-ofbreath Baugh opened the wooden door of the Alamo commander’s room and yelled, “Colonel Travis! The Mexicans are coming!”
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This startling pronouncement by the former New Orleans Greys’ member, who had helped capture the Alamo only last December, might well have been one of the greatest understatements in Texas history.
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Of course, the captain’s frantic words gave no hint of the no-win tactical situation. Indeed, by this time, the Mexicans were not only “coming” in force, they had already arrived at the north wall in overpowering numbers. When Captain Baugh reached Travis’ room, the foremost troops of Dúque’s column might well have already been over the wall and inside the fort.
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Even Kentucky-born Drum Major Joseph G. Washington, age 28, did not have time to beat his drum in a belated attempt to awake and rally the yet comatose garrison.
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Captain Baugh’s frantic words that awoke Travis were yelled before a single blast from one of the Alamo’s cannon that would have roused the Alamo’s commander and his men. But worst of all in the confused chaos that was fast descending on the old Spanish mission compound, neither Captain Baugh nor anyone else in the Alamo realized that the greatest Mexican effort to scale the walls was concentrated on the north wall. Therefore, in part because his headquarters room was located in an abode building at the center of the west wall and the Long Barracks was on the other side of the cavernous plaza yet draped in blackness, Travis would be unable to galvanize a solid defense at the most critical point, the north wall, because it was already too late to do so. Indeed, very likely few garrison members, including Travis, expected an attack on the north wall, which had been endlessly strengthened before Santa Anna’s eyes, because the weakest sector—the palisade and the main gate—were located on the compound’s opposite side, the south.

Long accepted by historians, traditional accounts of the battle have Travis gallantly rallying the Alamo garrison, with almost everyone rushing forth to defend the north wall to meet the attackers with fierce resistence, even repulsing not one but two attacks in that sector. But with the garrison fast asleep and with a high percentage of it either sick or injured in the hospital, this scenario of the mythical Alamo—where the garrison possessed plenty of time to rally and mount an organized defense along every wall—was simply not the case. Such a situation would have been impossible under the disadvantageous circumstance of being caught so completely by surprise. However, the mythology of the tenacious defense of the north wall provided the dramatic stage for the heroic death of Travis in defying the odds, while providing “evidence” of defenders inflicting a large number of casualties. But this traditional version is mere fantasy, as no Mexican attacks were repulsed because of defender fire, either from artillery or musketry that morning. General Filisola described, in regard to any defenders who might have reached the north wall, that they could not “use their rifles, thus because the parapet did not have a banquette on the inner-side.”
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Joe’s account was the first to have Travis meeting his death at the north wall, and this has been relied upon by many historians. Indicative of the attackers having penetrated farther than generally recognized, another version has it that “Travis fell on a stairway he was holding against a surging mob of Mexicans, shot through the head . . .” This well might have been the case, given the complete surprise of the attack and the Mexicans’ rapid advance that had them penetrating the Alamo before the garrison was aroused. And Mexican Sergeant Francisco Becerra reported having found Travis inside a room of a building either at the low barracks or near the south wall. In another account, as a sharp rebuttal to what he considered the defamation of his Alamo heroes, Reuben M. Potter was perhaps the first, in 1860, to emphasize in his
The Fall of the Alamo
pamphlet—considered definitive by historians for generations—that Travis and Crockett were killed “early on the outworks,” or north wall, expressly to dispel the circulating story and mounting evidence of Crockett’s surrender and execution after the fight.
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