The Dangerous Book of Heroes (24 page)

News also arrived that General Urrea had defeated Colonel Johnson at the battle of San Patricio. Unless a Texian army could reach the Alamo, there would shortly be a second defeat. Travis sent out another urgent request for reinforcements.

Yet for Sam Houston to march his small army to relieve the Alamo is exactly what Santa Anna wanted. Outnumbered by about seven to one, they likely would have been defeated, and Texas secured for Mexico. Houston knew that. He had twice ordered a withdrawal from the mission. There was nothing further he could do.

Inside the Alamo, Travis drew a line in the earth of the compound with his sword. On one side of the line were the assembled defenders; on the other stood Travis. He told his men that there was no escape for them, and asked those who would stand beside him and fight to the death to cross the line. Every man but one stepped across. That man was Louis Rose, who then left the mission and also evaded the Mexicans. He was known forever after as “the yellow Rose of Texas.”

That part of the story was not written down until 1873, thirty-seven years later, by which time the story's source—Rose himself—was dead. Survivors Susanna Dickinson and Enrique Esparza both mentioned the incident later, although their details differed. It is now a part of the legend of the Alamo, as is Bowie's role. He asked his men to carry his cot over the line, as he was too weak to walk.

That evening, Travis sent out Davy Crockett and two others to search for the expected reinforcements from Goliad. Crockett found them at midnight, at Cibolo Creek, and led them through the Mexican lines before dawn on the fourth. A second group were driven off, the skirmish recorded in a Mexican journal.

In San Antonio, Santa Anna summoned his senior officers. He proposed ending the siege with a massive assault. Some officers demurred, suggesting he wait until two heavy cannon arrived on the seventh. He
postponed his decision. That evening Travis sent out James Allen with personal letters. They were the last messages from the Alamo.

 

On March 5, 1836, Santa Anna made his decision. The assault would take place in darkness, immediately before dawn, on Sunday the sixth. At 10
P.M
. he ordered the cannon to cease firing. For the first time in eleven days there was peace in the Alamo mission and the tired defenders slept well—as Santa Anna had planned.

In the blackness of a cloudy night, Santa Anna deployed some thirteen hundred of his infantry into four separate columns and quietly moved them forward, to about six hundred feet from the mission. The columns were ringed by a screen of cavalry to prevent any Texian escape. Despite the cold, the men were ordered not to wear their greatcoats, which might have impeded easy movement. At 5:30
A.M
. the infantry advanced in silence.

The three Texian sentries posted outside the walls had fallen asleep and were killed before they could raise the alarm. With cries
of “Viva Santa Anna!” and “Viva Mexico!” along with stirring bugle calls the Mexican soldiers charged the Alamo from every side—but they had shouted too soon.

Copyright © 2009 by Matt Haley

The defenders rushed to the walls. Travis called to them: “Come on, boys, the Mexicans are upon us and we'll give them hell!” Crockett found time for a brief prayer in the chapel. Supported by accurate rifle and musket fire, the nineteen cannons preloaded with canister repulsed the attack, with heavy casualties. “More than forty men fell around me in a few moments,” a Mexican soldier recorded. “It seemed every cannon ball or pistol shot of the enemy embedded itself in the breast of our men.”

Standing behind Travis on the north bastion, slave Joe continually reloaded rifles and passed them forward. The muzzle flashes from the cannons lit the blue coats of the soldiers below the walls.

An immediate second Mexican charge was also repulsed with more heavy casualties, soldiers shot and clubbed down even as they reached the top of the walls on their scaling ladders. Yet the Alamo perimeter was 1,320 feet long—a quarter of a mile—and it could be only a matter of time.

Three of the Mexican columns converged opposite the northern wall. Santa Anna sent in four hundred reserves. Just fifteen minutes after the first charge, a third attack breached the twelve-foot northern wall. It was there that William Travis fell, shot through the forehead. Lieutenant Colonel de la Peña described Travis's death: “He would take a few steps [forward] and stop, turning his proud face toward us to discharge his shots; he fought like a true soldier. Finally he died, but he died after having traded his life very dearly. None of his men died with greater heroism, and they all died.”

Following their officers, the Mexican soldiers clambered over the northern wall. General Amador dropped down to open the postern gate below, and infantrymen poured through into the Alamo. The Texians retreated, fighting a rear-guard action across the broad earthen compound to the barracks. Those on the south wall turned their cannons around and fired into the enemy within, but then the south wall was breached behind them.

The east wall was breached next, more infantry surging in through the cattle pen. Some Texians escaped via the horse corral but were hunted down outside by the waiting Mexican cavalry. From the wall above, Almaron Dickinson and his team fired their cannons into the cavalry.

At the west wall another group of perhaps fifty Texians was cut off by the Mexicans inside the compound. These fifty retreated westward toward the San Antonio River, pursued by more cavalry. They made a last stand in a ditch, and died where they stood.

The majority of defenders inside the Alamo retreated from the walls as planned, across the compound to either the long barrack block or the mission chapel. Dickinson survived that dangerous journey and called to his wife in the chapel: “Great God, Sue, the Mexicans are inside our walls! If they spare you, save our child.”

Crockett and others fought off the infantry from a low wall in front of the chapel doors until they found themselves the last defenders in the open. When they no longer had time to reload their muzzle-loading rifles, they fought with knives and reversed their guns to use them as clubs. A Mexican musket volley cracked out, and a bayonet charge killed those who still lived.

On the roof five Mexicans soldiers were shot dead while replacing the Texian flag with the Mexican, their bodies silhouetted against the first light of dawn. From the walls Mexican soldiers turned the abandoned cannon onto the barrack block. One after the other the barricaded doors were blown in. A volley was fired into the darkness beyond, and a bayonet charge followed. As promised, there was no quarter given. Lieutenant Colonel José de la Peña recorded: “A horrible carnage took place, and some were trampled to death. The tumult was great, the disorder frightful; it seemed as if the furies had descended upon us.”

In one of those barrack rooms lay the sick Jim Bowie. Mexican accounts vary as to whether he had the strength to fight. Legend has it that from his cot he fired his two pistols at the entering soldiers and was bayoneted to death where he lay.

The chapel was defended by a sandbag barricade inside the doors,
with two twelve-pound cannons in the apse behind. One shot from the eighteen-pound cannon in the compound destroyed the barricade, and in the gray light the Mexican infantry charged through. Dickinson and his men fired their cannons, while others inside fired their muskets and rifles. Without time to reload, all were shot or bayoneted to death.

Robert Evans, in charge of ordnance, moved to fire the gunpowder magazine but was killed. Sheltering in the sacristy were women, children, and other noncombatants. Among them were Susanna Dickinson and her daughter, Travis's slave, Joe, and Bowie's freedman, Sam. If the magazine had been blown, they all would have died.

It was 6:30
A.M
. The sun had risen, the compound was hazy from gunpowder smoke, and the Alamo had fallen. Some four to six hundred soldiers of the Mexican army were killed or wounded, although the exact number is not known. Amazingly, seven defenders still lived. One of them was Davy Crockett.

Lieutenant Colonel Peña's account of the aftermath of the battle, supported by every other Mexican record, was accepted by both Texians and Americans. It contains the following report.

Copyright © 2009 by Matt Haley

It is only late-twentieth-century versions of the siege that claim that Crockett died during the battle.

Santa Anna ordered the Mexican dead to be buried and the Texian dead to be burned. An unnamed Mexican soldier wrote: “Poor things—no longer do they live—all of them died, and even now I am watching them burn.” The smoke from their bodies drifted above the Alamo to become their funeral pall.

The surviving thirty noncombatants were interviewed by Santa Anna the next day, and all were given their freedom. Also spared was a Mexican deserter who claimed he'd been taken prisoner. Susanna Dickinson saw the mutilated body of Crockett, and Joe the bullet-riddled body of Travis, but not until well after the battle. A former slave serving Santa Anna's army escorted Susanna, her daughter, and Joe through the Mexican lines to Gonzales.

There Susanna broke the news of the fall of the Alamo and delivered a message from Santa Anna: “Fighting is hopeless.”

General Houston arrived at Gonzales on March 11. After he'd interviewed Susanna, he advised the settlers to evacuate and ordered the four hundred Texian soldiers there to withdraw eastward.

The fall of the Alamo had the exact opposite effect from the one
Santa Anna had hoped for. Instead of being dispirited, Texians were swept by a flame of indignation and the desire to avenge the Alamo. Whatever borders Mexico might claim, the blood of men such as Travis, Crockett, Bowie, and Dickinson had surely made Texas theirs. Texians left their homes to rejoin Houston's army, but he resisted all entreaties to take up battle immediately. Before the advancing Mexican army he retreated far into eastern Texas, allowing his numbers to increase. The weather also improved.

Along the banks of the San Jacinto River, near Lynchburg Ferry, Houston found the battleground he wanted. On the afternoon of April 21 his scouts reported the Mexican army at siesta. He led his ragtag army through the warm spring grass to catch Santa Anna by surprise.

With the cry “Remember the Alamo!” Houston attacked. His men responded, calling “Remember the Alamo!” again and again. In only eighteen minutes, the battle of San Jacinto was won. The Mexican army was routed, scattered, and sent fleeing by the yelling Texians.

Santa Anna was captured the following day. He said of Sam Houston, “That man may consider himself born to no common destiny who has conquered the Bonaparte of the West.” Santa Anna had forgotten that Bonaparte was ultimately defeated by the Duke of Wellington.

Threatened with death, the Mexican general was forced to withdraw his entire army from Texas. As Mexican president, Santa Anna was forced to acknowledge the independence of Texas. It was formalized in the treaty of Velasco on May 14, 1836. The Alamo had been avenged.

Recommended

With Santa Anna in Texas
by José Enrique de la Peña

Alamo Sourcebook, 1836: A Comprehensive Guide to the Battle of the Alamo and the Texas Revolution
by Tim J. Todish and Terry S. Todish