Authors: T.R. Fehrenbach
Houston in one way was not entirely unsuccessful. Most of Grant's men departed with him, leaving the doctor only about 150 all told, most of whom were the remnants of the New Orleans Grays. The Grant-Johnson expedition moved a few miles south to San Patricio. While waiting here, many of the men took up mustanging, or catching wild horses on the coastal plain.
Fannin's larger force camped at Goliad, making preparations for the march south. Fannin wanted to go by sea, but could not find the ships.
At about this time, Governor Smith ordered one of the few men he could rely on to obey orders, Lieutenant Colonel Travis, to cease recruiting duties for the regular army at San Felipe, and to proceed to the Alamo in support of Colonel Neill. Travis thought this meant he was to command that fortress, and he hastened south with all the men he could raise, some thirty.
At San Antonio, Bowie found Neill had only 104 men. They had weapons and a few cannon, but were short of supplies and powder. None of these 104 was Texan, except nine ethnic Mexicans who had joined the Revolution. Two-thirds were men born somewhere below the Mason-Dixon Line, the largest group from Tennessee, but there were men born in almost every American state, and a sizable contingent from the British Isles. In many ways the point of origin was misleading. At this time most frontiersmen were actually born in the East, but nurtured in the West. Almost all these men, including the six from Continental Europe, had spent some time on the American frontier. Between them, Travis and Bowie brought in about fifty more, and these were mostly "Texians."
Perhaps oddly, very few of this Alamo garrison of 150-odd were farmers. The larger part were hunter-trappers by past profession, and the rest professional men, doctors and lawyers. Why the original one hundred remained at the Alamo with Neill is not known. Some planned to return to the United States; some merely lacked inclination to march to Mexico. None had received promised pay for service.
Shortly afterward, David Crockett of Tennessee arrived at San Antonio with an entourage of twelve rifles.
Bowie came to a careful decision. He estimated that the Alamo fortress required a thousand men to be secure. But apparently, he never seriously considered giving it up. The brooding walls of the old mission seemed to cast a spell over every North American who came under them. On February 2, 1836, Bowie wrote Governor Smith:
The salvation of Texas depends in great measure on keeping Béxar out of the hands of the enemy. It stands on the frontier picquet guard, and if it was in the possession of Santa Anna, there is no stronghold from which to repel him in his march to the Sabine. Colonel Neill and myself have come to the solemn resolution that we will rather die in these ditches than give them up. . . .
Meanwhile, General Santa Anna, the Napoleon of the West, had been stung into an enormous rage by the defeat and surrender of his brother-in-law at Béxar. Showing energy that no Texan gave him credit for, he rode clattering into Saltillo on or about January 20, 1836. He had an army in northern Mexico now of 6,019 men. Santa Anna, never more cheerful or energetic than when on campaign, issued staccato orders: the 1,500-man brigade under Ramírez y Sesma, form the vanguard and advance to San Antonio; the 1,600 men and six guns of Gaona, at Saltillo, the 1,800 men and six guns of Tolsa at Monclova, and Andrade's 437-man cavalry brigade, form the main body and prepare to march; General Don José Urrea, with 300 infantry, 301 lances, and one four-pounder, proceed to Matamoros, join with the battalion en route from Campeche, and cross the Bravo. Santa Anna had excellent intelligence supplied by Mexican
rancheros
in the south. Urrea was to find the Matamoros Expedition, destroy it, then roll up the Texan flank at Goliad, while President Santa Anna himself led the main force on a direct assault through San Antonio.
These plans had been made as early as the previous summer. The disgraceful conduct of Cós at San Antonio, which Santa Anna felt reflected upon his own honor, triggered him into quicker action than any Texan thought possible. Santa Anna did not wait for the end of the winter rains or the coming of the green spring forage grass. He was a professional soldier, not a Comanche.
His Texas policy had already been ratified by his Congress. Every colonist who had taken part in the rebellion was to be executed or exiled. Those who had not were to be removed to the interior. Never again would any North American be permitted to enter Texas. Texas would pay for all expenses of the campaign, through the sequestration of lands, to be reallotted to the Santanista soldiery. Every foreigner found in arms in Texas, or who aided the revolt in any way, was to be treated as a pirate. The North American presence was thus to be extinguished.
This was perfectly in accord with internal and international law, if harsh; the province was in revolt. Armed Americans on Texas soil were devoid of legal rights. Historically, these measures made good strategic sense. A large minority allied by ethnic background with a powerful neighbor was a dangerous luxury on the Mexican frontier. Santa Anna intended to remove the Anglo-Saxon peril forever.
The President, in personal command, drove his brigade columns north without mercy. He arrived on the Rio Grande near Laredo in mid-February 1836; this was a remarkable pace, but he had paid a price. Hundreds of horses and some men had been lost; far more important, Santa Anna had been forced to abandon his heavy artillery to the muddy roads. The big guns followed far behind. When the Mexican columns came in sight of San Antonio, they dragged with them only two batteries of small six-pounders.
Santa Anna was surprised, though not alarmed, to find the Alamo fortress defended. The population of Béxar, which now flocked to his banner, gave him accurate information about the foreigners. They had only 150 men, and while there were more than a dozen cannon on the Alamo walls, the defenders had very little powder. This was important, since the long eighteen-pounder burned twelve pounds of gunpowder with each shot. Santa Anna was also told that the Anglos had stripped the town of all its corn, and driven thirty beeves within the walls.
He had in fact almost taken them by surprise; Bowie and Travis had barely got their men inside before the Mexican cavalry wheeled into San Antonio on February 23.
It is still a matter of controversy which flag, if any, the Texians hoisted over their walls. Official Texan accounts claim the national red, green, and white emblem of Mexico was flown, on which were superimposed the numerals 1 8 2 4, showing the rebels fought not against the Mexican nation, but for the liberal constitution. Other, contemporary accounts indicate this was not so. However, there is no dispute about Santa Anna's banner. Here the President made his first great historic mistake in Texas.
His decision to reduce the Alamo made military sense. But he ordered flown from the towers of San Fernando Church, the tallest building in Béxar, a long, flapping, blood-red banner which could easily be seen from the Alamo. This was a sign that no quarter was to be given. Now, with historic irony, the legitimate Mexican army went to battle on Mexican soil underneath the pirate flag.
Human folly is far easier to explain than human valor.
The Texan government at this time was gripped by chaos, dissension, and rivalry; the people of Anglo-Texas were still mostly concerned with their private affairs. The volunteers camped at Refugio and Goliad were dreaming of loot below the Rio Grande. Life east of the Colorado went on almost as before. No Texan really believed that Santa Anna was anywhere near Texas with an army, until Travis's couriers rode splashing winter mud and shouting alarm through the Colorado-Brazos country. Governor Smith, who held the title but actually governed nothing and no one, did try to raise a force for Travis. In the time remaining, he failed.
In all this, there was nothing new to history. The Texans seemed to be following an old and often-trod path to defeat and destruction.
But at the Alamo history was altered. It is not easy to explain exactly why. The complete details of the battle, like those of all the battles of the Texas Revolution, simply are not known, or agreed upon. Few wars of such eventual historic importance have been so poorly documented or reported. Myths have sprouted, and legend has embellished fact. The story has been well told; it needs no retelling. But certain perspectives of the battle are often ignored.
There is no question but that Travis and his conglomerate force of Texians, Americans, Scots, Englishmen, and Texas-Mexicans could have escaped from the Alamo had they chose. Long after the siege began, the Mexican net was not tight. Couriers came and went on horseback to the very end. Yet 150 men stayed on stubbornly to fight an army; no one ran away, unless the tale of the mercenary Rose is credited. No competent Texas historian really believes that Travis actually drew his line on the ground with his sword and invited his men to leave or stay. This was not Buck Travis's style. He intended to keep his command on the walls regardless of what the men wanted. He was consciously guarding the ramparts of Texas.
Bowie and Travis, together, for a time in co-command, agreed to hold the Alamo. The reasons must have been a combination of strategy, stubbornness, and not to be overlooked, sheer exaltation. There was a core of barbarian hardihood, and barbarian Warlikeness, in each of these men, different as they were. At first, there were problems of command. Colonel Neill, called home on business in mid-February, scrupulously passed the command to Travis, the only regular field officer present. This angered Bowie's following. The Texans in the fort accepted Travis's commission, but the majority of the American and other volunteers claimed Bowie was the better man. They obeyed his orders only. Certainly, Bowie's reputation as a fighting man far exceeded Travis's.
Travis burned for the honor of commanding the most dangerous post in Texas. When some of the men looked to Bowie after every order, he almost resigned and returned to the Brazos. He did not, because William Barret Travis, on the surface a fiery, almost unstable rebel, was in his deepest soul a traditionalist. He was a regular Texas officer, and immensely proud of it. The Governor had ordered him to the Alamo. Honor, loyalty, and military dignity were important things to Travis; he stayed. He was surrounded by paladins, who insisted on fighting as paladins. The whole Revolution was marked and marred by commanders and men who fought with fierce independence, ignored orders, sulked in their tents, and with their coteries freely came and went. But Travis, according to his lights, was a soldier. He had been trained at an academy in the state of his birth, South Carolina; it was typical of the man that he was thrown out of school for inciting a student revolt but retained the values he had learned.
The greatest measure of his ability was not the bravery he had shown in inciting the Texan rebellion, or his citation under fire at San Antonio in December. It was revealed when Bowie's health failed as the Mexicans approached, and Travis took command of the men, and held them. Bowie, collapsing with pneumonia on February 23, passed his authority publicly to Travis. The true measure of this man, with his soldier's cap, his sword, his exalted ideas of honor, and his florid rhetoric, was that he captured these violent frontiersmen and bent them to his purpose.
His message to Smith and the world, on February 24, revealed Travis's exaltation at commanding the Alamo, the values in his heart and mind, and the grimness with which he would hold to them. Throughout the 19th century, this message was regarded as one of the great statements of defiance and courage in the English language.
Commandancy of the Alamo
Bexar, Feby 24th, 1836
To the People of Texas and All Americans in the World—
Fellow Citizens and Compatriots:
I am besieged with a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna. I have sustained a continual Bombardment and cannonade for 24 hours and have not lost a man. The enemy has demanded surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison is to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken. I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the wall. I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism, and everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid with all dispatch. The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily and will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due his honor and that of his country.
VICTORY OR DEATH.
William Barret Travis
LT. COL. COMD'T.
Buck Travis was one of those most fortunate of men; on the grim stone walls of the Alamo he had found his time and place. He was between twenty-five and twenty-seven years of age.
The characters of Travis, Bowie, and Davy Crockett, who arrived the day Neill left, seem to be increasingly puzzling to later Americans. They were widely disparate, but in some ways very similar men. All were tall—six feet or more—and all were fair. Bowie and Travis shared red hair. All had what the Mexicans came to call blue-gray killer's eyes. They were all highly intelligent men, and each was a creature of the American frontier.
Bowie, born somewhere in the South in the 1790s, was raised in a family that became wealthy in Louisiana early in the century. He roamed, running slaves with Jean Lafitte in contravention to what every Southerner felt was a stupid law, exploring Texas, fighting Indians. Bowie was remarkable in two respects. He fitted in easily with the best society of the Creole towns and vast plantations, and he had the enormous respect of the wildest and toughest men on the harshest of all American frontiers. He was a killer: he killed the son of Jean Lafitte, who crossed him, crippled "Bloody" Sturdivant, gutted Major Norris Wright and a verified number of others, in the most desperate "medleys" or duels. He made the great knife his brother Rezin forged for him a glittering legend; soon Bowie knives were manufactured in England for sale on the American frontier. Yet Bowie was simply not a killer in the modern, civilized sense. He lived in a violent society, and men of keen judgement and good breeding considered him quite sound. The respect tendered him far exceeded that of any duelist.