Alamo Traces (17 page)
Authors: Thomas Ricks Lindley
William Barret Travis
Photo courtesy Texas State Library & Archives Commission
Sunrise of the first day likely found many of the Alamo soldiers just going to bed. Others may have been at breakfast, eating flour tortillas with their eggs instead of the usual American biscuits. A small number of men were on duty at the Alamo. The garrison had celebrated George Washington's birthday the previous night, and the wild fandango, as was the Texian way, had continued through the night. Drinking, gambling, dancing, and romantic adventures with the young women of Bexar were the only rewards of service at the frontier post.
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Mexican dragoon
Photo courtesy Joseph Musso collection
Already the vanguard of General Santa Anna's Army of Operations Against Texas was within striking distance of the Texian rebels. The night before, General Joaquin Ramirez y Sesma, with one hundred sixty mounted infantrymen, had departed from the Medina River, about
eighteen miles west of San Antonio. Their mission was to prevent any escape of the Texians. Sometime during the advance, Trinidad Coy, a Texian spy, was captured by the Mexican advance. Coy, probably hoping to give Travis and Bowie some time, told the Mexican general that an ambush awaited his troops. Santa Anna had ordered his generals to be cautious in approaching the enemy in order to prevent an early defeat that might demoralize his untested soldiers. Therefore, Ramirez y Sesma halted at 7:00 a.m. on Alazan Creek, a mile or so west of the city, to await his commander and the larger force. The Mexican presence in Texas, however, had not gone unnoticed.
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Years later Francisco Ruiz reported: “. . . the forces under the command of Travis, Bowie, and Crockett having on the same day, at 8 o'clock in the morning, learned that the Mexican army was on the banks of the Medina river, they concentrated in the fortress of the Alamo.” Travis and Bowie, at that point, appear to have believed that the enemy force was under the command of Ramirez y Sesma, rather than Santa Anna.
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Despite their shocked surprise, fatigue, and hangover headaches, the rebels managed to pull things together. One or more soldiers were left in the San Fernando church bell tower to watch for the enemy. Otherwise, the defenders, their family members, and a number of Mexican-Texians (Tejanos and Tejanas) hurried behind the Alamo walls. The relocation was far from smooth.
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In 1878 Ruben M. Potter, the second historian to pen an account of the fall of the Alamo, reported:
The first sight of the enemy created as much confusion with as little panic at the Alamo as might be expected among men who had known as little of discipline as they did of fear. Mr. [Nat] Lewis, of San Antonio, informed me that he took refuge for a few hours in the fort when the invaders appeared, and the disorder of the post beggared description. . . . Some of the volunteers, who had sold their rifles to obtain the means of dissipation, were clamoring for guns of any kind; and the rest, though in arms, appeared to be mostly without orders or a capacity for obedience. No “army in Flanders” ever swore harder. He saw but one officer who seemed to be at his proper post and perfectly collected. This was an Irish Captain, named [William B.] Ward, who though generally an inveterate drunkard, was
now sober, and stood quietly by the guns of the south battery ready to use them. Yet amid the disorder of that hour no one seemed to think of flight.
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Dr. Horatio “Horace” A. Alsbury, the garrison's Spanish translator, was one of the Texians who moved his family into the Alamo. In addition to Alsbury, there was his wife, Juana Navarro Alsbury, her infant son, Alijo Perez Jr., and Mrs. Alsbury's sister, Gertrudis Navarro. Juana and Gertrudis were the nieces of Juan Martin Veramendi, James Bowie's father-in-law. Their father was Jose Angel Navarro, one of the city's leading centralists. Both women, however, had been reared in the federalist home of Veramendi and were viewed as sisters to Bowie's dead wife, Ursula Veramendi.
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Dr. Alsbury, after getting his family settled in the Alamo, departed for Gonzales with the news that the Mexican army was in the vicinity of San Antonio. Merchant Nat Lewis, however, did not join the garrison. Lewis, known as
Don Pelon
because of his bald head, left on foot that morning for Gonzales. At that juncture, the Alamo force numbered one hundred fifty-six effectives. There were fourteen or more men in the Alamo hospital, and Bowie was beginning to feel the effects of the typhoid pneumonia that would soon put him on his deathbed.
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Still, Bowie and Travis, despite a mid-February argument over who was to command the garrison in the absence of Lt. Colonel James C. Neill, worked to unite people, materials, and provisions to meet the enemy. Ignacio Perez, a local government contractor, sold Travis thirty head of cattle that were quickly herded into the courtyard on the east side of the Alamo to join an unknown number of horses. Eighty or ninety bushels of corn were found in houses abandoned by the citizens of Bexar. Most of the corn came from Gabriel Martinez's small hut located on the east side of the Alamo.
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Also, the defenders dismantled Antonio Saez's blacksmith shop that was located near the Alamo and carried the materials into the compound to help fortify the sprawling structure. In the days before Santa Anna's arrival, Saez had aided the Texians by repairing their arms and cutting up pieces of iron to be used in the place of canister shot for the Alamo cannon.
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The Alamo defenders were well armed. The compound's artillery commanders had twenty-one cannon of various calibers. Eighteen guns
were combat-ready on the walls. The Alamo armory was stocked with 816 rifles and muskets and over 14,600 cartridges. Except for cannonballs of certain calibers, the artillerymen had plenty of ball, grape, and “cut-iron” shot. Each defender had a bayonet for his musket. Others had swords or large butcher knives for the close fighting. Cannon and rifle powder, however, were in short supply.
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Provisions and weapons were in order, but Travis and Bowie still had little intelligence that identified the exact whereabouts of the enemy. The two commanders, however, knew that the opposing army would be moving in their direction Thus, Travis, probably around high noon, sent Captain Philip Dimmitt and Lieutenant Benjamin Noble, who had arrived in mid-February with supplies, out to locate the Mexican force.
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About the same time, Santa Anna's army joined its detachment of mounted infantry in the Alazan hills. After the revolution, Santa Anna, forgetting his order about caution, claimed the storming of the Alamo could have been avoided had Ramirez y Sesma obeyed his orders to dragoon the Texians without delay. Yet, at the time, the Mexican commander-in-chief was content to linger on the Alazan.
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As the Mexican army took a lunch break, additional men, women, and children scurried into the Alamo for safety. Other citizens hurriedly packed and left the city for their lower San Antonio River ranch houses or headed east to the Anglo-Celtic colonies.
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Captain Almaron Dickinson, however, settled his artillery company in the fortress and then left to get his family. Riding up to his temporary home, he found Susanna, his young wife, and Angelina, their baby girl, ready to move. Susanna handed Angelina up to Almaron, then she jumped up behind him for a fast ride to the Alamo.
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The invading army, after a stop of an hour and a half, resumed its advance. Between 2:30 and 3:00 p.m. the Texian bell tower sentry saw dust clouds rising from the road that ran west to Leon Creek. Travis was quickly notified of the sighting. Needing more information because Dimmitt and Noble had not returned, Travis sent John W. Smith, the Alamo's storekeeper, out to scout the Leon Creek road. Smith was a San Antonio merchant and carpenter who knew the area well. Soon after Smith's departure, the enemy marched into view near the city's graveyard, west of the city.
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Travis and Bowie could see they were going to need armed assistance to win the coming fight. They then sent John Johnson to Colonel James
W. Fannin Jr., commander of the Texian force at Goliad, on the San Antonio River, about ninety miles southeast of Bexar. Johnson carried a note that read:
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We have removed all our men into the Alamo, where we will make such resistance as is due to our honor, and that of the country, until we can get assistance from you, which we expect you to forward immediately. In this extremity, we hope you will send us all the men you can spare promptly. We have one hundred and forty-six men [correct number was 156], who are determined never to retreat. We have but little provisions, but enough to serve us till you and your men arrive. We deem it unnecessary to repeat to a brave officer, who knows his duty, that we call on him for assistance.
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Colonel Juan N. Almonte, Santa Anna's senior aide-de-camp, reported the Texian actions as seen from the Mexican advance: “The enemy, as soon as the march of the division was seen, hoisted the tri-colored flag with two stars, designed to represent Coahuila and Texas. The President with all his staff advanced to Camp Santo (burying ground). The enemy lowered the flag and fled, and possession was taken of Bexar without firing a shot. At 3 P.M. the enemy filed off to the fort of the Alamo.”
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In 1890 Juan N. Seguin also described the defenders' move to the Alamo. He wrote: “As we marched [down] âPotrero Street' (now called âCommerce') the ladies exclaimed âpoor fellows, you will all be killed, what shall we do?' ”
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A number of Texian sharpshooters lagged behind to cover the defenders' stroll to the Alamo. David Crockett may have commanded the Texian shooters. At least one of the men, James M. Rose, was in Crockett's spy company. Colonel Jose Vicente Minon commanded an advance element of Santa Anna's force as they dodged the Texian rifle balls in front of the church of San Antonio. Santa Anna later reported: “. . . the national troops took possession of this city with the utmost order, which the traitors shall never again occupy; on our part we lost a corporal and a scout, dead, eight wounded.”
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Meanwhile, outside the city a local Mexican encountered Dimmitt and Noble. He told the two Texians that Bexar was invested by the Mexican army. Later, a Tejano sent by Dimmitt's Mexican wife told the men
they would be killed if they attempted to return because “two large bodies of Mexican troops were already around the town.” Dimmitt and Noble's location at that time is unknown. They were, however, most likely on the Laredo road that ran south of Bexarâthe wrong road on which to have spotted the enemy. Santa Anna entered San Antonio by the Leon Creek road, west of the city. The two Alamo soldiers then rode to the “Rovia,” a nearby location, to wait and see what developed.
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Two other Alamo men were prevented from returning to the fortress that first day. A. J. Sowell, a Gonzales blacksmith, and Byrd Lockhart, a Gonzales surveyor, had departed the Alamo that morning in a search for cattle and other provisions. The enemy arrived while they were out on the supply-gathering expedition. Thus, Sowell and Lockhart rode to Gonzales, a loss of two more men for Travis.
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Another man who was caught outside of the Alamo that day was Luciano Pacheco. He went into the Alamo with Juan N. Seguin. Seguin then realized he had left an important trunk at his city home. He sent Pacheco out to get the trunk. By the time Pacheco had retrieved the luggage, the Mexican troops had taken possession of the city streets. Thus, Pacheco could not get back into the Alamo. Pacheco, however, was most likely not a loss for Travis. He had probably never been included in Travis's count.
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Travis, probably after he had entered the Alamo, wrote a short note to Judge Andrew Ponton at Gonzales: “The enemy in large force is in sight. We want men and provisions. Send them to us. We have 150 men and are determined to defend the Alamo to the last. Give us assistance. . . . Send an express to San Felipe with news night and day.” An experienced man with a good horse was needed for the eighty-mile shot to Gonzales. It would, however, take almost an hour before a rider hit the road with Travis's plea for reinforcements.
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Santa Anna's centralist force probably entered the city's main plaza around 3:30 p.m. From the Alamo, Travis welcomed the enemy soldiers with an iron ball blast from the Alamo's eighteen-pounder. One diarist in the Mexican force reported that the Texians had two cannon aimed toward the city, an eighteen pounder and an eight pounder. Unfazed, Santa Anna had his troops spread out until occupation of the city, except for the Alamo, was complete. Cavalry commander Ventura Mora took half of the cavalry to mission Concepcion to secure that location. By 4:00 p.m. a blood-red flag had been hoisted from the church's bell tower; the
banner's meaning was clearâno quarter, no mercy, and a Texian surrender would have to be unconditional. Travis responded with untroubled defiance by firing a round shot at the red flag with the eighteen-pounder. At that time, Colonel Juan N. Almonte was on his way to the Alamo with a flag of truce to initiate negotiations with the Texians. Almonte, however, understood the finality of the cannon blast and retreated. Minutes later a five-inch howitzer set up below Bexar began lobbing bronze bombs into the air over the Alamo compound.
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