Authors: James Donovan
Tags: #History / Military - General, #History / United States - 19th Century
Another volunteer company was being raised, this one solely for the relief of the Alamo. Its elected leader, Irishman Thomas Jackson of Gonzales, was busy mustering in men. His brother-in-law Wash Cottle, the fiddler at the long-ago party at Miller’s inn, signed up, along with a few others. Major Robert Williamson had arrived from Bastrop and was busy helping to organize the two companies. Men continued to ride into town from homesteads in the area. Jacob Darst, one of the Old Eighteen, who had started the revolution by refusing to give up their cannon, signed on. Years before he had fought Indians with the Virginia militia; now he was a freighter whose young son David had recently begun to accompany him on his hauls. He would not allow the fifteen-year-old to ride to Béxar, but a couple of other teenage boys insisted on coming along and had no fathers to prevent them. Sixteen-year-old Galba Fuqua’s mother had died when he was eight, and his father two years before. His friend, seventeen-year-old Johnny Gaston, whose mother was a widow, was also determined to go. So was his stepfather, George Washington Davis, and forty-six-year-old John King, the patriarch of the large King family up on the mill road, northwest of town. And Johnny Kellogg had decided to go, despite the fact that his wife, Sidney, was pregnant.
The next day, February 27, as a cold north wind blew through the streets of Gonzales, the men made final preparations. George Kimble bought fifty-two pounds of coffee from Stephen Smith’s store—if an army at war needed anything, it was coffee, and the Alamo garrison was low on that staple. Every man carried as many extra supplies as possible. Between them the two companies comprised about twenty-five volunteers, most of them DeWitt colonists.
As the two small companies prepared to leave that afternoon, every man, woman, and child in the town gathered to see the men off. Many of their loved ones, especially the mothers and wives, wept. John W. Smith volunteered to guide them into the Alamo—he knew the area well, and now that he had found his family safe in Gonzales, he felt able to go. They came up with a plan to bypass the regiment of lancers stationed to the east of the compound. To avoid the Mexican mounted patrols, the volunteers would take the mill road, which led up to Joseph Martin’s cotton gin and mill and then veered west to Béxar. It was not as well marked or well traveled as Byrd Lockhart’s lower road, but it approached Béxar above the town, near the river, which was the least-patrolled area when Albert Martin had left. With any luck, they could sneak down the river to the Alamo.
At two o’clock in the afternoon, they rode out of Gonzales, crossed the San Marcos River, and followed the Guadalupe River west past Green DeWitt’s land and the old mill that had been abandoned after Indian trouble a few years back. When they reached the King homestead, a dozen or so miles out of town, sixteen-year-old William King was there to meet them. He persuaded Lieutenant Kimble to let him take his father’s place so John King could look after his wife and eight other children, a few of whom were ill. The elder King objected at first, but finally gave in. John and his wife, Parmelia, watched as their son and his comrades disappeared from sight.
O
N
F
EBRUARY
27, as the Gonzales party was making its way to Béxar, Mexican reinforcements were struggling to reach the same destination. Two days after leaving Béxar, His Excellency’s courier found General Gaona’s First Infantry Brigade 120 miles down El Camino Real, at Peña Creek—“no more than a big puddle of water,” remembered one officer. When the courier delivered the orders, and Gaona revealed which units were to force-march to Béxar, “many of the officers in the Aldama, Toluca, and the Zapadores battalions were filled with joy and congratulated each other when they were ordered to hasten their march, for they knew that they were about to engage in combat,” wrote de la Peña, attached to the Zapadores. The bulk of the army might have been less than overjoyed at the grueling expedition into Texas, but the elite troops of the Zapadores were eager to fight the ungrateful colonists.
De la Peña’s own enthusiasm had been severely tempered by the sorry state of the column. It was in poor shape as a marching unit when he arrived, and over the next few days things got even worse. Almost all the civilian mule drivers had disappeared, their places taken by untrained soldiers. De la Peña was saddened to see how badly they were treating the oxen pulling the carts. The animals received almost no water during the day, and were not pastured properly at night. Like the soldiers in the other brigades, the impatient drivers would stab them with their bayonets or sabers—that is, those oxen that had not drowned crossing the Rio Grande on February 25, and whose carts had to be abandoned. On the twenty-sixth, the powder stores of the Aldama battalion caught fire. The day after that, February 27, they lost more oxen, and the last of the drivers deserted. The brigade looked close to grinding to an ignominious halt. So later that day, when the courier rode into camp with His Excellency’s orders, de la Peña and his fellow officers were elated.
Colonel Francisco Duque was put in command of the column, and the selected battalions immediately prepared to march. They would not take supply carts, only pack mules. All told, almost twelve hundred men moved out by two in the afternoon. The three battalions were veteran units commanded by experienced officers: Duque led the Toluca Activo battalion; Lieutenant Colonel Gregorio Uruñuela, a twenty-five-year veteran, helmed the Aldama Permanente battalion; and Colonel Agustín Amat—at fifty-five the oldest battalion commander, with forty years in the army—commanded the Zapadores.
Gaona would continue as best he could with the rest of the brigade. Despite his irritable and haughty character, he had been doing all he could to speed up the slow-moving column, even driving an oxcart. Before the three battalions left, Lieutenant de la Peña suggested bringing the two twelve-pounders along, pulled by good mule teams. Gaona rejected the idea; if Santa Anna had wanted them he would have said so. At San Luis Potosí, Gaona and Santa Anna had engaged in an argument so serious that another general had found it necessary to mediate. Gaona would take no chances this time that he would anger His Excellency further.
W
HEN DARKNESS FELL ON
F
EBRUARY
27, the men from Gonzales bivouacked for the night a few hours’ ride west of town. Early the next morning they continued to follow the crude trail on the north side of the Guadalupe, riding at an easy pace across the gently rolling prairie land and through occasional woods. Early flowers, such as the pink prairie primrose and the yellow huisache daisy, poked out here and there along the path. About forty miles from Gonzales, near the border of DeWitt’s colony, the river made a hard turn north. The men crossed and continued westward. By Monday, the twenty-ninth, they had reached the Cibolo, several miles above the place where Byrd Lockhart’s well-marked lower road crossed the creek. There they found seven more men who joined the group.
At sunset John Smith led them the last twenty miles to Béxar. By eleven p.m. the moon, almost full, was high above them. An hour after midnight found them in the low hills east of town, where they hid until almost three a.m.
A scout sent ahead came back with good news. The regiment of cavalry that had been bivouacked on the main Gonzales road near the old watchtower was no longer there; Santa Anna had sent it south just a few hours before. But their way was not entirely clear—an infantry battalion was camped to the east of the Alamo, just north of the road. Smith gave the signal and the men mounted their horses and pulled up their collars against the blustery wind. He guided them around the battalion and through the Mexican sentinels over to Powder House Hill. From there they could see the Alamo, and Béxar beyond. They carefully walked their mounts down toward the fort.
Out of the darkness a man on horseback rode up to them and asked in English, “Do you wish to go into the fort, gentlemen?”
“Yes,” someone said.
“Then follow me,” the rider said, then turned his horse and took the lead of the company.
John Smith sensed something wrong. “Boys, it’s time to be after shooting that fellow,” he said, but the man put spurs to his mount and galloped into a thicket and out of sight before anyone could train a gun on him. Smith sent a scout ahead, and the band proceeded silently, in single file, toward the old mission.
I
N THE THREE DAYS SINCE
T
HURSDAY
, February 25, when Travis had dispatched his last two couriers to Gonzales and Goliad, a curious monotony had set in. There were no further attacks on the scale of Thursday’s, though at dawn on Friday the Mexicans had made a charge on the east side of the fort, where the corral walls were low; fine sharpshooting and a blast of grapeshot repelled them without further problem. Over the next few days there was only the near-constant, but not particularly destructive, bombardment by the Mexican artillery—complemented by the occasional nocturnal serenade by the battalion bands, no doubt to prevent a good night’s sleep for the defenders—or a musket volley accompanied by enough shouting to simulate an attack. Travis ordered his gunners to respond to the enemy’s shelling only occasionally, to save ammunition. Every day he sent out parties in search of wood, though without much success—the Mexicans also had sharpshooters, and the parties dared not venture far from the Alamo walls.
The nights were cold, around forty degrees, and the strong wind made it worse. Green Jameson kept his crews working hard day and night on repairs to the walls, particularly the weak area on the north, and on the well in the main courtyard. There were not enough defenders to man the walls in shifts, so most of them slept at their stations, their guns by their sides, though between the Mexican serenading and the intermittent feints against the fort, their slumber was fitful and shallow.
Though the weather, the lack of sleep, the unrelieved diet of beef and cornbread, and the constant exhaustion were taking their toll, the men’s spirits were still high. They expected reinforcements any day, from Fannin and his four hundred men in Goliad or the Texian army that was surely gathering in Gonzales. Morale was surprisingly strong, and two natural leaders boosted it even further.
When Bowie had realized the extent of his illness, he insisted that he be moved away from the Alsbury sisters and the rest of the garrison before it spread to them. A couple of his men carried him to a room in the building adjacent to the main gate. As he left, he reassured Juana: “Sister, do not be afraid. I leave you with Colonel Travis, Colonel Crockett, and other friends. They are gentlemen, and will treat you kindly.” Anna Esparza and some of the other women staying in the church took over his care. Though Bowie was still in the throes of his sickness, he was occasionally lucid, and during those times he would have some of his men carry him to the long barracks, where he would talk to the people there and remind them that Travis was now their commander.
And Crockett, popular with everyone, encouraged the men constantly. Somewhere he had got hold of a fiddle, and during lulls in the fighting and bombardment he played tunes on it. A Scotsman named John McGregor had brought his bagpipes with him, and occasionally he and Crockett would engage in a musical contest, competing to see who could make the best music, or the most noise. McGregor always won so far as noise was concerned, remembered Captain Almeron Dickinson’s wife, Susanna.
On Monday, the weather changed, with a warmer wind blowing in from the west. Except for another Mexican battalion moving their bivouac to the fields east of the Alamo, a quarter mile away, there was little action. Some of the men took potshots at
soldados
in the distance when they approached rifle range, and killed one a couple of hours after sunset.
Around midnight the wind changed direction again, this time from the north. The rebels watched as the cavalry regiment to the east and one of the infantry battalions moved out, marching down the Goliad road—no doubt, those in the Alamo assumed, to intercept Fannin and his men.
A few hours later there was a shot from the walls that roused rebels from their blankets. A sentry had fired at a group of men approaching the fort. Moments later the wooden gate on the western side of the lunette swung open and the big redhead, John Smith, rode in followed by thirty-two men from Gonzales. The sentry’s shot had lodged in the foot of one of the riders, but the injury was a slight one. There was much rejoicing as friends and family greeted each other. It was only a reinforcement of thirty-two, but they were good men, many of them veterans of the battle of Béxar, and they told of more on their way, riding to Gonzales from all points. If those reinforcements arrived before the rest of the Mexican army, the rebels might have a fighting chance. Counting effectives and the hospitalized, there were about two hundred men in the garrison—and enough coffee to last them another week or so.
In this war you know that there are no prisoners.
G
ENERAL
S
ANTA
A
NNA
F
or years afterward,
bexareños
would claim that Crockett killed the first
soldado
of the siege, at a range of two hundred yards, and barely missed Santa Anna himself while he was surveying the Alamo in preparation for an attack. The Mexicans learned to keep at a good distance when a tall man in buckskin stepped up on the parapet or lay down on the roof of one of the buildings along the walls.
But the constant confinement, the growing fatigue, the lack of sleep, were taking their toll. There had been no major troop attacks by the Mexicans since the twenty-sixth, though the bombardment continued each day, from early morning until the light dimmed. Although they had not lost a man, the hospital was full—between the casualties from the battle of Béxar and assorted ailments, there were few empty cots, and the overflow had spread down to the first floor of the old
convento
. The thirty-two men from Gonzales had provided a fresh boost in morale. But soon reality set in. Thirty-two more guns were nowhere near the several hundred needed to make an effective defense. Where was Fannin? He and his three hundred should have arrived by now.