The Dangerous Book of Heroes (23 page)

All the women agents of SOE enlisted as volunteers in the FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry), the first-ever women's military force, raised in London in 1907. In consequence, they were not prevented by the Geneva Convention from fighting and they served around the world. Fifty-two FANY were killed during World War II, thirteen in the French section of SOE. They are all our mothers and sisters.

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FANY Memorial, Saint Paul's Church, Knightsbridge, London

W
ithin fifty years of the siege of the Alamo, it had become an emotional—even spiritual—milestone in the creation of the United States of America. The cry “Remember the Alamo!” was heard on many subsequent U.S. battlefields.

Like all good legends, the siege of the Alamo has its dead heroes—Colonel Travis, Jim Bowie, and Davy Crockett; its live heroes—General Houston, Susanna Dickinson, and Joe the slave; and its villains—General Santa Anna and the Mexican army. No true event is ever that simple though. The full details of what happened are still not known, and today, remembering the Alamo is to step back almost two hundred years, to 1835.

North America was then a vastly different continent than it is today. The United States was a fledgling nation of just twenty-six states. In the north, Canada was British. In the northwest, present-day Oregon and Washington were joint U.S.-British colonies, while in the west and south, Mexico was a large, newly independent nation. North of the Rio Grande, Mexico included most of present-day California, Nevada, Utah, Kansas, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma—and Texas.

Mexicans had fought for and gained their independence from Spain in 1821 under General Iturbide. In 1823 he was ousted as emperor by General Victoria, who was himself ousted by General Antonio López de Santa Anna in 1824.

The United States wanted to expand its territory, but there were only two alternatives. North lay Canada, which it had invaded twice in the War of 1812 and had there been defeated by Britain. Mexico, on the other hand, was weak from many internal problems. Their common
western border had been agreed to in 1819; it lay along the Sabine River, the Red River, the Arkansas River, and north to Oregon. To the east of the border were the U.S. lands of the Louisiana Purchase; to the west were the lands of Mexico. At that time, Mexican land cost one-tenth the cost of land in the United States. Mexico allowed immigration, and so American settlers flocked across the border into Texas. Slavery in Mexico had been abolished in 1824, but as long as the immigrants obeyed the rest of the constitution, the authorities turned a blind eye to the African slaves imported by Americans.

Some Americans, like Moses Austin and his son Stephen, cooperated with the Mexican government, so that by 1830 some five thousand Americans had emigrated peacefully to their Austin settlements. Others were not so cooperative, and there had been several invasions of Texas.

As early as 1812 an American group marched in from Louisiana, captured the town of San Antonio de Béxar (San Antonio), murdered the Spanish governor and his officers after they'd surrendered, and declared what they called the state of Texas. Spanish forces, of which one was Lieutenant Santa Anna's, wiped them out. Bonapartist exiles from France invaded near Corpus Christi in 1818 and declared a republic, and in 1819 more Americans invaded and declared a state. After 1821, independent Mexico reestablished its authority, but those who wished to were allowed to remain in Texas.

Spain attempted to reconquer Mexico but was defeated in 1829 by General Santa Anna. In 1830 Mexico called a halt to immigration, levied customs duties on imports, and organized its province of Texas into three departments, each with its own garrison and forts. One of those forts was the former 1724 Franciscan mission of San Antonio de Valero, on open ground immediately outside San Antonio. Because of the cottonwoods that grew there, it came to be called the Alamo, after the Spanish name for the tree.

 

At that point, American immigrants and their slaves made up 75 percent of the thirty thousand people of Texas and were becoming
dissatisfied with their Mexican government. In 1832, Santa Anna took complete control of the Mexican government and suspended the constitution. From then on, Texas was a powder keg waiting to explode.

Things came to a head in 1835 when American immigrants, calling themselves “Texians,” rebelled at Zacatecas. Unrest spread across the province until in October the Texian rebels joined together in an armed insurrection. A rebel Army of the People was raised. One of its generals was immigrant and former governor of Tennessee Sam Houston. The Texas Revolution had begun.

Across Texas, one after the other, the Mexican garrisons were defeated by Texan forces. The Mexican soldiers retreated farther into Mexico, south and west over the Rio Grande. The last garrison to fall was the Alamo, on December 9. Twenty-one Mexican cannons, including one eighteen-pounder, were captured.

The rebels declared their support for the previous constitution. Most of the Texans with property and businesses then returned to their homes. As far as they were concerned, the Mexicans were defeated. The small Texian army was left to the control of a provisional government.

Meanwhile, south of the Rio Grande, President and General Santa Anna had not been asleep. He quickly raised an army of conscripts, raw recruits, and convicts preferring to serve an army than a prison sentence. In response to the armed Americans still flocking into Texas, the Mexican congress passed a resolution: “Foreigners landing on the coast of the Republic or invading its territory by land, armed, and with the intent of attacking our country, will be deemed pirates and dealt with as such, being citizens of no nation presently at war with the Republic and fighting under no recognized flag.”

Importers of arms and ammunition were to be similarly treated, and Santa Anna sent a letter to President Andrew Jackson warning that any Americans found fighting in Mexico would be considered pirates. In 1835 pirates caught in the act were immediately executed.

Despite the winter weather, General Santa Anna moved his army
northward to Texas in late December, training his men as they marched. Some veterans and volunteers joined along the way until he crossed the Rio Grande on February 16, 1836, with between fifteen hundred and two thousand men. The winter was unusually bitter that year, with snowfalls in Texas of fifteen inches. As well as hypothermia, his army was thinned by dysentery, and by the attacks of Comanche Native Americans—who still considered Texas
their
land.

Santa Anna's determined march through the snow caught the Texans by surprise. The Mexican army reached San Antonio on the afternoon of the twenty-third, three weeks earlier than expected. The Texan garrison withdrew into the Alamo mission, while the residents of San Antonio fled into the surrounding countryside. A further six hundred Mexican troops arrived on February 24, and the mission was surrounded. The second siege of the Alamo had begun.

 

General Sam Houston, meanwhile, had ordered the small Texian force to demolish the Alamo fortifications. He saw no strategic importance in the location, and he knew the small force there could not fight the Mexican army. He planned to have the Texians retreat, to allow time for reinforcements to join them.

Colonel Neill, in charge at the Alamo, did not want to abandon or destroy the mission. Houston sent adventurer and knife fighter Jim Bowie—a colonel of the volunteer forces of the Texian army—to assist Neill's retreat. They were to remove the cannons and blow up the mission. Yet Bowie and Neill were of like mind. Both detested the idea of giving up land to an enemy. Instead, Bowie wrote directly to the provisional governor Henry Smith. He requested more “men, money, rifles, and cannon powder” to defend the Alamo, finishing with the plea: “Colonel Neill and myself have come to the solemn resolution that we will rather die in these ditches than give it up to the enemy.”

Overriding Houston, Governor Smith promised Neill and Bowie his support. He ordered twenty-six-year-old lieutenant colonel
William Travis of the regular army to raise a legion of cavalry to reinforce the Alamo. With the majority of Texians returned home, Travis could gather only twenty-seven men. With these, he rode into San Antonio on February 3 and reported to Colonel Neill. Five days later, more American adventurers arrived. It was a small group of riflemen from Tennessee, led by Davy Crockett.

Copyright © 2009 by Matt Haley

Crockett, a famous frontiersman, sharpshooter, bear hunter, and congressman from Tennessee, had suffered in the recent elections of 1835. Despite eight years in Congress, he had not had a single bill passed by the House, and his political popularity had waned. When asked what would happen if Tennesseans didn't reelect him, he'd replied famously: “You may all go to hell, and I will go to Texas.” They didn't reelect him, he did go to Texas, and by chance he rode into San Antonio on February 8.

With news of a severe illness in his family and due for leave, Neill departed. He placed Travis, the highest-ranking regular officer, in charge and on February 11 rode out. At this time, there was no knowledge of any imminent Mexican attack. Santa Anna's army crossed the Rio Grande five days later.

The experienced but increasingly ill Bowie did not get along with the younger Travis. Colonel Bowie's volunteers would not obey Lieutenant Colonel Travis, and Travis's regulars would not obey Bowie. It
was a dangerously divided command. A vote of the men was called, and Bowie won. He got drunk that night, caroused through San Antonio, and released the convicts from the town jail. In remorse, he agreed with Travis that each would command his own men as well as cosign the other's orders until Neill returned.

From a provisional-government convention at Washington-on-the-Brazos, General Houston again sent orders for Travis and Bowie to destroy the Alamo and withdraw. He had no doubt that with cannons, a Mexican army would defeat the outnumbered Texians. The mission was fortified but only against attacks from Native Americans, not from a modern army. It was not a regular fort.

Travis and Bowie disobeyed Houston and prepared to defend the Alamo. The mission had already been strengthened under the direction of engineer Green Jameson. Wooden firing gangways had been erected behind the nine-and twelve-foot-high walls, the captured Mexican cannons strategically positioned, wooden palisades reinforced, and a secondary defense of earthen breastworks dug inside the walls. There was little more they could do.

When Santa Anna arrived on the afternoon of February 23, he sent emissaries under a flag of truce. They and the Texians met on the bridge across the San Antonio River, between the Alamo and the town. The emissaries offered unconditional surrender. Travis replied with a shot from the eighteen-pound cannon. Santa Anna responded by ordering a red flag raised—the signal that no quarter would be given.

Bowie was angry that Travis had acted so defiantly and sent Jameson to meet the Mexican emissaries again. According to the journal of emissary Colonel Almonte, Jameson requested an honorable surrender. Almonte recorded: “I reply to you, according to the order of His Excellency [Santa Anna], that the Mexican army cannot come to terms under any conditions with rebellious foreigners to whom there is no recourse left, if they wish to save their lives, than to place themselves immediately at the disposal of the Supreme Government from whom alone they may expect clemency after some considerations.” The Texian reply was a second cannon shot.

The exact number defending the Alamo's rectangular three acres is not known; it lies somewhere between 189 and 257. This total includes Davy Crockett, his Tennessean sharpshooters, and the men who later made their way through the Mexican lines to join those inside. Also in the mission were Susanna and Angelina, wife and daughter of Texian captain Almaron Dickinson, two of Bowie's cousins-in-law, Bowie's young nephew, and some Tejano women from San Antonio. Travis's black slave, Joe, and Bowie's black freedman, Sam, also remained.

James Bowie collapsed from his illness on the twenty-fourth. It's thought that he had pneumonia or tuberculosis, and he was unable to leave his cot for the rest of the siege. William Travis assumed full command of the Alamo.

While Mexican light cannon bombarded the walls from batteries surrounding the mission, Travis inside wrote his famous letter “to the People of Texas & All Americans in the World.” He sent it out by courier rider. It was eventually copied across Texas, reprinted throughout the United States, and even carried across the Atlantic to Britain. It was only fifty years since independence, and there were still many close relatives there. Travis concluded the letter: “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…. I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country. VICTORY OR DEATH.”

The Mexican barrage continued. More than two hundred cannonballs plowed into the Alamo plaza in the first week alone. Each night, the cannons were maneuvered closer to the walls. During the day there were skirmishes for the control of abandoned huts outside the mission walls, which the Texians burned to deny the Mexicans cover. Travis ordered his men to conserve their sparse ammunition but allowed Crockett and his riflemen to shoot at any Mexicans in range.

On March 3 another thousand Mexican soldiers entered San Antonio, marching proudly past in their blue-and-gold full-dress
uniforms. From the battered white walls of the Alamo, the defenders rested on their long-barreled muskets and watched. By then, some four thousand soldiers surrounded them.