Authors: James Donovan
Tags: #History / Military - General, #History / United States - 19th Century
John W. Smith’s March 7 departure with a group of twenty-five to fifty men is mentioned in several sources, the earliest being Smith’s letter of March 7, 1836, to the president of the convention, which is cited in Yoakum,
History of Texas,
vol. 2, p. 104, though the original copy of this letter is not known to exist, and Yoakum only summarizes its contents in a footnote (“It is proper to state that Captain John W. Smith, after conducting the thirty-two Texans from Gonzales to the Alamo, returned on the 4
th
of March and started again on the 7
th
with fifty more from the same point; but it was too late.—Smith to the President of the Convention, March 7, 1836”). This letter of Smith’s was the likely origin of a brief note in the March 12, 1836,
Telegraph and Texas Register
: “We also learn by letter, that John W. Smith, who had previously conducted 30 men into the Alamo, would be entrusted with the hazardous enterprise of conducting 50 more.” Further, a letter from Captain Moseley Baker to Jones, Gray, and Pettus, dated March 8, 1836, corroborates the claim that Smith left Gonzales on March 7 with fifty men: “On day before yesterday I arrived here…. I found about one hundred sixty men here, which, with our force, made about two hundred and seventy, fifty of which started on yesterday for the Alamo” (reprinted in Chariton,
100 Days in Texas,
p. 346). However, some twenty-four years after the battle, John Sutherland wrote that Smith left on Sunday, March 6, with twenty-five men as well as Captains Desauque and Chenoweth (Hansen, pp. 157, 180), and Houston, in a letter to James Collinsworth written on March 13, 1836, mentioned “the repulse of a party of twenty-eight men, the other day, within eighteen miles of Bexar” (Hansen, p. 516)—almost certainly a misdated reference to Smith’s reinforcement that left Gonzales on Monday, March 7, 1836. Finally, in a letter published in the 1872 edition of the
Texas Almanac,
in an article entitled “Survivors of the Texas Revolution,” a volunteer named Connell O’Donnell Kelly claimed that he “went to Gonzales, where volunteers were called for to go to the assistance of Travis, and volunteered as one to go; went to Leon, where we saw about one thousand Mexican camp fires; when they, the Mexicans, opened fire on us, and our party being too small, retreated to the Cibolo, under Capt. W. Smith, where we remained but a short time, and returned to Gonzales, where Gen. Sam Houston had just arrived from Washington, Texas, when our captain informed him that the Alamo had fallen.” In another letter written by Kelly, published in the
San Francisco Examiner
(the clipping is undated, but the letter must have been written sometime in the late nineteenth century), he stated: “I first joined the ‘Mobile Greys,’ under the command of Captain Burke and two other Companies commanded by Captain Moseley Baker and John W. Smith, and upon the call for volunteers at Gonzales to go to the assistance of Travis, Bowie and Crockett, I was one of the twenty-five who responded.” And in a letter written on December 28, 1883, to Texas governor Ireland, he wrote: “We started for Gonzales and arrived there at the time that Captain W. Smith was calling for Volunteers to go that evening to the assistance of General Travers [Travis] Boya [Bowie] and Crockett. And I was the only man out of Capt Mosley Bakers Company along with 25 others who volunteered to go we went as far as the Saylow [Salado]. There the Mexican troops saluted us with grape and canister and run us to the Sea willow [Cibolo]. We remained there a few minutes to hear our cannon but no response came then we retreated to Gonzalas. General Sam Houston just arrived from Washington Texas to Gonzalas and took command of the few little companies and ordered a retreat to Judge McClure ranch on Peach Creek” (Louis Wiltz Kemp Papers, BCAH). Thus I have opted to go with the lower number of twenty-eight, though the possibility exists that as many as fifty men left with Smith on March 7.
Houston’s address to the men in Gonzales is related in Jenkins,
Recollections of Early Texas,
p. 37, and in Houston,
Texas Independence,
p. 153.
The March 11, 1836, letter relating the news from Vergara and Barcena is reprinted in Hansen, pp. 509–10. Both of these men’s names were misspelled by Anglos unfamiliar with Spanish spelling when their accounts were written down upon their arrival in Gonzales. Anselmo Vergara’s name was initially recorded as “Ansolma Bergara,” and later writers such as John Linn and Reuben Potter, who also talked to him, recorded it as Anselmo Borgara. In his memoirs, published in 1858, Juan Seguín used the correct spelling. Andres Barcena’s name was originally spelled as “Andrew Barsena,” and is likewise spelled correctly by Seguín.
The description of the grieving widows and children is from John Sharpe’s account, reprinted in Foote,
Texas and the Texans,
vol. 2, p. 268.
The results of John W. Smith’s March 7, 1836, reinforcement attempt is related in John Sutherland’s unpublished narrative (Hansen, p. 157); John Sutherland’s draft account (Hansen, pp. 180–81); and a letter from Sam Houston to James Collinsworth dated March 13, 1836 (Hansen, p. 516). Sutherland wrote that Smith was on the Cibolo, twenty-four miles from Béxar, and sent an eight-man scouting party toward town. “They had only gone about six miles, when they met the advance of the enemy”—putting them eighteen miles from Béxar, matching Houston’s report of “the repulse of a party of twenty-eight men, the other day, within eighteen miles of Béxar.”
Francis Desauque’s identity as the bearer of Houston’s letter to Fannin is mentioned in Niles,
History of South America and Mexico,
p. 332, and also in Johnson,
A History of Texas and Texans,
vol. 1, p. 428. Desauque was executed at Goliad.
Houston’s March 11, 1836, letter to James Fannin is reprinted in Hansen, p. 513; his lack of confidence in Fannin is noted in his March 13, 1836, letter to James Collinsworth, reprinted in Hansen, p. 515. He wrote of his decision to fall back from Gonzales in his March 15, 1836, letter to James Collinsworth, reprinted in Chariton,
100 Days in Texas,
pp. 369–70.
The scene of Susanna Dickinson at Stephen “James” Tumlinson’s house is related by Mrs. Annie E. Cardwell, a stepdaughter of Tumlinson, in a story in the Gonzales
Daily Inquirer
of June 7, 1911, and in a story in the
San Antonio Light
of August 18, 1912. Mrs. Cardwell was eleven at the time.
The scene of Houston reading Santa Anna’s letter is found in Alexander Horton’s memoir of October 18, 1891, reprinted in the section entitled “Short Memoirs and Sketches from Old Texians,” located on the “Sons of DeWitt Colony Texas” website,
http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/dewitt.htm
(accessed July 15, 2010). Creed Taylor, the cocky fifteen-year-old, is quoted in Haley,
Sam Houston,
p. 125.
The quoted description of the burning of Gonzales is from John Sharpe’s account, reprinted in Foote,
Texas and the Texans,
vol. 2, p. 268.
The sale of the Texians’ supplies and goods is mentioned by Ramón Caro in his account, reprinted in Castañeda,
The Mexican Side of the Texan Revolution,
p. 107, and by de la Peña in
With Santa Anna in Texas,
p. 62.
The diary quotes describing the reaction to the early news of the Alamo’s fall, and the panic that seized the residents of Washington, are from William Fairfax Gray’s diary, quoted in Chariton,
100 Days in Texas,
pp. 368, 374–75.
The doctor’s quote regarding the cheered men at Goliad is in Joseph Barnard’s account, “Fannin at Goliad,” in Wooten,
Comprehensive History of Texas
, vol. 1, p. 626.
The message from Urrea to de la Portilla, and de la Portilla’s admission that he, too, was charmed by Fannin, is related in “Extract from the Diary of Lieutenant Colonel Portilla,”
The United States Magazine and Democratic Review
3, no. 10 (October 1838), p. 144.
E
IGHTEEN
: “T
HE
M
ARROW
B
ONE OF
T
EXAS
”
The chapter title phrase is in a May 17, 1836, letter from soldier Moses Lapham to Amos Lapham: “Our number was somewhere about 700…. It consisted in part of the marrow bone of Texas” (Louis Wiltz Kemp Papers, BCAH). The epigraph is from Urrea’s April 22, 1836, letter to Ramírez y Sesma, reprinted in PTR 6, p. 21.
This summary of Houston’s march across Texas and the San Jacinto campaign derives chiefly from Stephen L. Moore’s superbly researched
Eighteen Minutes
.
Houston’s address to his men on March 26, 1836, is quoted in Haley,
Sam Houston,
p. 131.
Gaines’s statement to U.S. secretary of war Lewis Cass of his intent to move into Texas if provoked is quoted in Haley,
Passionate Nation,
p. 178.
Houston’s March 29, 1836, letter to Thomas Rusk, noting his reluctance to seek the counsel of others, is reprinted in PTR 5, pp. 234–35. David Burnet’s April 7, 1836, letter to Houston insisting that he fight is quoted in Hardin,
Texian Iliad,
p. 189.
The incident of the army’s turn toward Harrisburg is detailed in Moore,
Eighteen Minutes,
pp. 222–27, and in Haley,
Sam Houston,
pp. 139–42. Houston’s April 19, 1836, letter to Henry Raguet, in which he notes the army’s readiness to fight Santa Anna, is reprinted in PTR 5, p. 504.
The scene of the Texian army roaring its battle cry is quoted in Hardin,
Texian Iliad,
p. 200. The soldier’s remembrance of reaching the San Jacinto bivouac is quoted in Moore,
Eighteen Minutes
, p. 255.
The departure of Santa Anna’s carriage, carrying its scandalous passengers—undoubtedly the young “bride” of His Excellency, and probably her mother—is noted by Ramón Caro in his account, reprinted in Castañeda,
The Mexican Side of the Texan Revolution,
p. 108. He wrote: “The general-in-chief and his staff left on the 31
st
, and I accompanied the second in command in his carriage. On the second day’s journey, His Excellency ordered his carriage to return to Béxar from where it was to proceed to San Luis. It was to be used by some travelers to whom 2,000 pesos had been given by His Excellency, who in turn had received this sum from Colonel Ricardo Dromundo. From what funds this money was taken, I do not know.” In a footnote, Caro added: “Decency and respect for public morals do not permit further details to be given.”
Santa Anna’s April 8, 1836, letter to Filisola noting his orders to Ramírez y Sesma is quoted in Santos,
Santa Anna’s Campaign Against Texas,
p. 94. His understanding of the importance of capturing and executing David Burnet and his cabinet, written a year later, is in Castañeda,
The Mexican Side of the Texan Revolution,
p. 22.
Santa Anna’s procurement of a ship to await him at Copano is noted by Caro in his account, reprinted in Castañeda,
The Mexican Side of the Texan Revolution
, p. 111. His Excellency’s surprise at the restraint shown by the colonists during the April 20 cannonade is noted in his account in the same volume, p. 113. Tornel’s contempt for the Texian colonists is quoted in Hardin,
Texian Iliad,
p. 98.
The quote concerning the army’s eagerness to attack is in Nicholas Labadie’s “San Jacinto Campaign,” originally published in the 1859
Texas Almanac
and quoted in Moore,
Eighteen Minutes,
p. 286. Labadie is also the source for Houston’s orders to his men to eat first before fighting (see Moore,
Eighteen Minutes,
p. 309).
Several accounts make note of Mexican soldiers crying out “Me no Alamo!” I have found at least half a dozen, and there may be more: (1) “As we rushed over, they fell on their knees, and with uplifted hands, cried out: ‘Me no Alamo! Me no Alamo!’ ” (Mrs. Fannie A. D. Darden, “Extracts from the Manuscript of Moseley Baker,” in Stewart,
Gems from a Texas Quarry,
p. 287); (2) “The Mexicans would fall down on their knees, & say me no Alamo me no Laberde” (Hunter,
The Narrative of Robert Hancock Hunter,
p. 24 [Hunter was not at the battle, but arrived at the battlefield later that night]); (3) “The Mexicans cried for quarter, but it was long before they received any; the cry of the Texian was ‘Alamo’, ‘remember the Alamo’, and the Mexican soldier would cry ‘me no Alamo’ (Abram Marshall to Ann Marshall, May 15, 1836, box 1027, Lindley Papers, Southwestern Writers Collection, Texas State University); (4) “When the charge was sounded we rushed upon them; the cry of ‘The Alamo and La Bahía’ sounded throughout the lines…. The poor devils of Mexicans would hold up their hands, cross themselves and sing out: ‘Me no Alamo,’ but nothing could save them…” (
The Albion,
June 11, 1836, reprinting a letter from an unknown correspondent on Galveston Island, May 6, 1836, which was in turn reprinted in the
U.S. Telegraph
[based in Washington, D.C.] on June 14, 1836, under the heading “From the
New York Courier
” [folder 5, box 15, Nell Goodrich DeGolyer Papers, DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University]); (5) “Me no Alamo! Me no Goliad!” (Mary J. Briscoe, detailing the account of her husband, Andrew, regarding San Jacinto, is in the Louis Wiltz Kemp Papers, BCAH); (6) “As we overtook them, we felt compelled to kill them, and did so, on their knees crying for quarter, and saying, ‘Me no Alamo—me no Bahia’ ” (“Pursuit of Santa Anna and His Cavalry,” published in the 1868
Texas Almanac,
p. 43); (7) “They would dismount get on their knees begging for their lives denying at the same time that they were not connected with the two massacres Alamo or Goliad. They would exclaim in broken inglish me no Alamo me no labida” (“William S. Taylor’s Report or Account of the Battle,” in Henry Arthur McArdle,
The Battle of San Jacinto,
McArdle Notebooks, p. 238, TSLA); and (8) “In answer to our yell, ‘Remember the Alamo!’ ‘Remember Labadie’ the Mexicans would say, ‘Me no Alamo’ ‘Me no Labadie’ but the memory of those recent butcheries were too fresh in our minds and the excitement of the occasion was not such as to arouse our sympathy” (James Monroe Hill, published in an Austin, Texas, newspaper on June 22, 1894).