Exodus From the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth (41 page)

Knowing that his fate was sealed as much by his own actions and decisions as anything else, Travis had already made his peace with God well before the Alamo’s fall. He had already completed his will the previous year. And at the Alamo, as if obeying a dark portent and seemingly knowing his final fate was near, Travis had also taken off his beautiful black cat’s eye ring, placed it on a string, and tied it in a loop to place around the neck of 15-month-old Angelina Arabella, the daughter of Pennsylvania-born Captain Dickinson and Susanna WilkinsonDickinson, both of whom had migrated to Texas in 1831. Travis seemed to know that he was about to meet his Maker.
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What could no longer be denied at the north wall was that nothing could now stop the raging tide of Mexican soldiers, nor now save the garrison or the Alamo. Consequently Travis very likely became convinced that only one option was left for him by this time, especially if surrounded and trapped on the gun platform of Fort Terán with most defenders either dead, wounded, or having abandoned the exposed position. With suicide, he would at least achieve a partial personal victory— like the defiant Jewish rebels at ancient Masada—in denying the victorious enemy his capture, with its consequent humiliation, torture, and inevitable execution. When about to be overwhelmed, and knowing that the Alamo was already doomed, Colonel Travis, ever-impulsive and melodramatic to the end, instead very likely committed suicide by pulling a flintlock pistol out of his belt and shooting himself in the head, “to escape the cruelties of the enemy,” as shortly reported in the
Commercial Bulletin
.

This suicide scenario was affirmed by numerous contemporary accounts that Travis killed himself either with a shot to the head or by stabbing himself. However, according to the best evidence, Travis most likely shot himself in the manner of most firearm suicides of the 19th century, with a pistol shot to the forehead. Indeed, Francisco Antonio Ruiz, the alcade of San Antonio, would later personally view Travis’ body, and wrote how he had been “shot only in the forehead.” An account in the March 28, 1836
New Orleans Post and Union—
one of the earliest primary documents to describe Travis’ suicide—by Andrew Briscoe, a 24-year-old Mississippian and member of the War Party who owned a store in Anáhuac, Texas, held that “Travis, to prevent his falling into the hands of the enemy, shot himself.”
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The most likely scenario that prompted Travis’ suicide was that he fell wounded, lay virtually helpless in or around Fortin de Terán, and knew capture was inevitable with soldados now all around him. Additionally, if wounded, Travis might well have believed the common rumor that the copper balls used by Mexican troops were poisonous, leading to a slow, agonizing death. In this scenario, Travis would have unknowingly followed the example of a respected German captain of Napoleon’s Grande Armée, when a small rearguard force was making a stand against the pursuing Russian tide in a redoubt outside Vilna during the retreat from Moscow. When a Russian cannonball cut off both his legs, this capable young officer then calmly took out a pistol in front of his men and “blew his brains out.” Other Napoleonic-era commanders likewise committed suicide by flintlock pistol shots in the head to avoid capture and to deny the enemy the triumph of killing them.
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What has been overlooked is the fact that Travis’ suicide—if it indeed occurred—was completely understandable under the circumstances and fully accepted at the time. E.N. Grey wrote from Gonzáles on March 11, 1836 how “Travis killed himself.”
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Even General Houston more than once emphasized that Travis committed suicide. He had first learned as much from two Tejano rancheros—Anselmo Bergara and Andrés Barcenas—from present-day Floresville, Texas, who reached Gonzáles from San Antonio not long after the Alamo’s fall. They had gathered as much intelligence in San Antonio as they possibly could from Mexican soldiers and civilians. At Goliad on March 11, as learned by Grey, Houston and others, what these two Tejanos presented was a “surprisingly accurate report” to Houston, in the words of historian Richard G. Santos. However, modern historians have casually dismissed this initial report of Travis’ suicide, and all of those that followed, regardless of the source.

Having been in and around San Antonio at the time of the struggle for the Alamo, at least one of these men had learned of Travis’ fate from a Mexican soldado, or civilian survivors, who had witnessed his suicide, and from viewing Travis’ body which was later identified by Joe. Everyone, including Houston, fully believed without question, or even surprise for that matter, the report of Travis’ suicide. Clearly, they evidently knew him and his general disposition and temperament well enough so that there existed relatively little surprise or skepticism when they learned of his suicide.
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This final coup-de-grace was very likely a neat, clean shot, administered by a small-caliber pistol that Travis carried in his leather belt. No doubt like other doomed defenders, Travis had prepared for such a tragic eventuality, and had made his plans accordingly.

More romantic accounts of Travis’ death, in the heroic last stand tradition, have maintained that he was shot in the head while firing his double-barreled shotgun over the north wall at Mexicans clustered at the wall’s base, and that a volley erupting from below ended his life. This is not implausible, since despite the darkness and the poor marksmanship of the average Mexican soldado, there were certainly a lot of bullets flying around and one by chance could have caught Travis in the head. However, the type of wound caused by a Brown Bess musket at close range would have caused massive damage and been far more disfiguring than a pistol shot, and this sort of wound was not described by those who viewed Travis’ body.

The first contemporary account that placed Travis at Fortin Terán was from Joe, who very likely had remained hidden in some building. After seeing Travis’ body at the north wall, he and others merely assumed that Travis was killed by the enemy in combat. But Joe’s testimony was embellished as he wanted to praise his former master and win favor from white interviewers. After all, he was a slave. For instance, barely a month after the battle, Joe even concocted a story of how after having been shot, Travis killed a Mexican general who was attempting to “behead him” with his saber. However, no general was killed at the Alamo. But most important, Joe indicated that Travis had been wounded, which adds plausibility to the scenario that the Alamo’s commander, at the very end, lost all hope and decided to end his own life.

No single suggestion more disputes the Alamo’s core mythology than that of suicides among the garrison, despite the fact that considerable primary evidence indicates that suicide was the fate of a number of defenders, including their commander. On March 11, 1836 less than a week after the Alamo’s fall, and based upon the firsthand reports from Bergaras and Barcenas, Sam Houston wrote a letter from Gonzáles to his friend, Henry Raguet, which revealed a truth that seemed to surprise no one: “Our friend Bowie, as is now understood, unable to get out of bed, shot himself, as the soldiers approached [and 24-year old, Louisiana-born Charles] Despal[l]ier, [Christopher Adams] Parker [age 22], and others, when all hope was lossed [sic] followed his example,” while “Travis, tis said, rather than fall into the hands of the enemy, stabbed himself.”
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Then, on March 15, 1836, Benjamin B. Goodrich, a member of the Washington-on-the-Brazos Convention, wrote to his brother John Camp Goodrich from Washington-on-the-Brazos, reporting how, “Col. Travis, the commander of the fortress, sooner than fall into the hands of the enemy, stabbed himself to the heart and instantly died.”
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Another early testament of Travis’ suicide appeared in an April 16, 1836 issue of
The New Yorker
with the publication of a letter by Andrew Briscoe: “The brave and gallant Travis, to prevent his falling into the hands of the enemy, shot himself.”
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And the
Louisiana Advertiser
also told its readers of Travis’ suicide, after he, and for good reason, decided that he would not suffer the dismal fate of “falling into the hands” of Santa Anna.
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On March 28, 1836, the
New Orleans Post and Union
likewise ran the story of the suicide of the Alamo’s young commander, who, from all contemporary evidence, went down like a sea captain with his ship in a long-revered tradition, especially among military commanders.
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In addition, the April 16, 1836 issue of the
Western Courier and Piqua Enquirer
of Piqua, Ohio, reported the news that was far more believable to Americans at the time than today: “We stop the Press to announce the fall of Béxar, and the slaughter of 187 brave fellows, principally Americans . . . The gallant commander, Col. Travis, before he would suffer himself to be taken alive, drew a pistol from his belt and put an end to his existence by lodging its contents in his own head.”
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What is especially interesting about this account and others is that they reveal none of today’s negative social stigma, but a matter-of-fact acceptance, if not appreciation, of the concept of suicide under no-win circumstances that did nothing to damage the heroic reputation of the doomed yet gallant Alamo commander.

With Colonel Travis dead, what little cohesion that remained among the confused, dazed, and half-asleep band of defenders, especially among the volunteers, now evaporated completely in the noise, panic, and darkness. After all, the garrison was never really a command in any sense of the word, with in-fighting as much among themselves as among Texas’ notoriously quarrelsome politicians in San Felipe de Austin. Even more, the garrison—a truly multi-ethnic and multi-racial command in which barely half a dozen men were native Texians and even less were from San Antonio—was even not united by nationality, or state or community ties. Especially in such a disastrous situation, collapse of cohesion, and therefore organized resistance, was all but inevitable.

When Joe was horrified to see his Alabama-born master, who had purchased him almost two years earlier to the day, killed, he possessed the good sense to immediately take off on the run. At age 23, this African American now proceeded to do what most white soldiers at the north wall were now doing. The idea that Joe served as a soldier—after all he was a slave with no military experience—to defend the Alamo against those who would liberate him and bestow freedom upon him makes little sense. Instead, he headed back across the plaza on the double. Seeking survival, he found refuge in one of the buildings along the southern perimeter.

Young Captain Baugh, only an adjutant, now became “the de facto” commander of the Alamo after Travis’ death. But like Travis, the captain could accomplish little, if anything. By this time, Baugh very likely realized that he would never see his Virginia family again. Without either the time or inclination to spring from the Long Barracks and other sleeping quarters to dash across the plaza’s lengthy stretch to defend the walls, an unknown number of soldiers remained behind in the temporary shelter of the Long Barracks or other buildings out of fear and shock. Therefore, some garrison members failed to make the dash to assigned defensive posts, because with the surprise so complete, they seemed to instinctively know that resistance would make little difference in the end.
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Such factors also explain why the vast majority of the Alamo’s cannon remained silent so long. Knowing the end was now near, a shocked 26-year-old Captain Dickinson, who commanded the cannon at the church’s rear, had only been awake for a few minutes when he revealed to his horrified bride Susanna, who was in the ill-lit sacristy, the truth of the situation: “Great God, Sue, the Mexicans are inside our walls!”
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The shock could not have been more complete. In the artillery barracks with his father, Enrique Esparza never forgot the moment when “We could hear the Mexican officers shouting to the men to jump over.”
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Incredibly, the foremost Mexican troops were inside the Alamo before most garrison members were fully awake, aroused, and on their way to defensive positions. Indeed, overrunning the north wall had been so relatively easy—ironically thanks in part to the artillery damage inflicted in this sector by Neill’s artillery during the 1835 siege of Santa Antonio—that Lieutenant Colonel José Juan Sánchez-Navarro described with some astonishment how, “Our jefes, officers, and troops, at the same time as if by magic, reached the top of the north wall [and] jumped within.”
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Revealing some relief that the task had not been more difficult, he said, “The four columns and the reserves as if by a charm at the same time climbed the enemy’s wall and threw themselves inside his enclosure.”
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Ironically, the attackers’ own numbers proved to be a greater impediment than defenders’ fire. After all, the soldados “had their ladders against the wall before the Garrison were aroused,” and had been scaling the north wall without encountering serious opposition. Young Lieutenant José María Torres of the Zapadores Battalion had already planted the Mexican tricolor on the north wall, proclaiming victory.
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All the while, larger numbers of Mexicans continued to pour over the walls and through the gate like a raging tide of humanity. Such a tactical achievement was one of Santa Anna’s proudest moments as a military commander. Even long after the Alamo’s capture, and as revealed in a previously unpublished letter, Santa Anna still glowed at the memory of when so many “Mexican soldiers scaled those stone walls climbing them with courage.”
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And it had all happened so quickly, less than fifteen minutes since the attack’s opening, giving garrison members a very narrow window of opportunity to wake up, strap on gear, and dash to assigned positions to mount a defense.

At this time, the plaza’s north end was filled with swarming soldados. Mexican targets, dark-skinned enlisted men of Indian and mixed heritage, and lighter-colored Creole officers, both wearing dark-blue colored uniforms, could not yet be seen clearly by the defenders in the night. Therefore, targets were not yet clear for Travis’s men, adding to the confusion and overall lack of resistance. What little, if any, hope of galvanizing a solid defense only continued to evaporate further in the confusion, the blackness, and the noise. As if this situation was insufficiently unnerving for the numbed garrison, soldiers yet emerging groggily from sleeping quarters to enter the plaza’s expanse now heard the spontaneous chant of the onrushing soldados, “Muerte a los Americanos,” or “Death to the Americans!”
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