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HISTORICAL SKETCH

AND

GUIDE TO THE ALAMO

:BYs

LEONORA BENNETT

SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
1904

Copyright by Leonora Bennett
San Antonio, Texas
1904

Cm 44.30t

PRESS OF
JAMBS T. RONEY & CO.
CHICAGO

PART I.
IN THE BEGINNING.

The history of Texas has been recorded in the
blood of its martyrs.
The Lexington of the American revolution had its
' counterpart in the Alamo ; San Jacinto was the York-
town of the Lone Star.
Naturally, the greater American revolt was greater
by virtue of the greatness of the interests involved;
but the struggles, defeats and success of the Texas
wars for independence are thrilling in interest and
equally as illustrative of the courage, fortitude and
self-denial of the American pioneer as those which
characterized the contest between the American col
onies and England.
In that contest an Anglo-Saxon foe pursued a civil
ized warfare. In the Texas revolution the enemy was
a Latin. Too often was his" side of it waged upon
the principle that "all is fair in love and war," massa
cre, rapine and arson weaving their red thread
throughout the course of the struggle.

The tale of the Alamo is one of the blackest of the
blots with which the historian has to deal. It had no
equal in the American revolution, nor yet in the war
between the North and the South.
It is regretable that but little is known to most
Americans of the details of the struggles for inde
pendence which at last brought the magnificent area
compassed by the borders of Texas into a position
to be united with the great galaxy of commonwealths
by annexation. The principles involved were the same
as those that put the colonies of New England in
armed array against the mother country — impositions,
extortions and denial of self-government. The terri
tory contended for is well-nigh half as extensive as the
original thirteen colonies, and the contestants on the
American side were the offspring of those who made
the United States a separate government.
It is not possible in a "Guide to the Alamo," dedi
cated primarily to a portrayal of its relation to the
final contest, and to a description of the fortress and
church for the benefit of the visitor, to deal in extenso
with the greater subject of the various struggles for
Texas independence, yet it seems appropriate that a
few of the more important events which have a bear
ing upon the chief interest under consideration shall
be woven into the warp and woof of the story. This
will be cursorily done, that the reader may not be
wearied with the tale, it being the desire, rather, that
his interest shall be intensified as he follows the story
up to the Alamo and the fated immolation of its heroes
upon the altar of Texas liberty.

Discovery of Texas.
Texas was discovered by Robert Cavalier, a Sieur
de la Salle, by which title he was known, in January,
1685. La Salle had been to America before and had
returned to France to get the support of his king in a
voyage of discovery, his chief object being to locate
the mouth of the Mississippi. He failed in this, bear
ing too far South in the Gulf of Mexico, bringing up
on the Texas shore, on the Island of Matagorda.
The Frenchman established a fort and colony, made
several tours into the interior, bearing Northeastward
generally, and claimed the country for the French
crown. He engaged in numerous conflicts with vari
ous tribes of Indians, but eventually died at the hands
of one of his own men. It is supposed he is buried,
where killed on March 16, 1687, near the Arkansas-
Louisiana-Texas line, on the Texas side. The exact
spot is not known. Catherwood thinks it is on the
bank of the Arkansas river near Little Rock.
When La Salle set foot on Texas soil Spain owned
Mexico. Its territory was supposed to extend as far
east as the Mississippi, and when it became known
to the Spanish crown that its neighbor on the North
had been trampling upon his alleged rights in the far
West the Mexican Viceroy was instructed to eject the
offenders. The Viceroy sent out an expedition upon learning
the location of La Salle's original base. Fort St. Louis,
in the latter part of 1686. But the Frenchman with
a part of his band was at the time in the unexplored

country several hundred miles to the Northeast and
knew nothing of what was going on, while the remain
ing colonists had succumbed to the Indians and dis
ease. The Spaniards, under Leon, found only the
bones of the French intruders and their dilapidated
fort, of the latter possession being taken in the name of
Spain. But the Indians were vicious and looked equally
unfavorably upon the intrusion of the French and
Spanish, and eventually Leon was compelled to with
draw and retum to Monclova. The tribes that gave
both commanders trouble were the Comanches, the
Caranchaus and the Lipans. The Cennis and Nasson-
ites were friendly, a band of the former being the
Tehas, for whom the country was named. For both
La Salle and Leon the honor is claimed of giving the
country its title. It probably belongs to the latter.
The French had at this time come in complete pos
session of Louisiana, then the enormous area embraced
in what we now know as the Louisiana Purchase. But
Spain claimed everything from Mexico to the Missis
sippi, even holding that all territory bordering on the
Gulf was hers.
Thus the first contention over Texas was between
the European monarchs, Louis the Fourteenth and
King Charles. But the country was unexplored and
unoccupied, other conquests commanded the attention
of them both, and nothing was done about it for the
time. Nevertheless, the Commandant of Louisiana kept
guard over the interests of his Monarch, and in 1721

decided to send out an expedition and hold the coun
try for France. He was advised by his government
to occupy all territory as far west as the Bay of San
Bernard, as Matagorda Bay was then known, by
virtue of La Salle's discovery. But the Indians beat
them back, their force being too small to contend sua-
cessfully against the vast numbers of redskins roam
ing the prairies.
Meanwhile the Spaniards were gradually approach
ing from the Mexican side, various missions having
been located along the Rio Grande, the principal of
which, St. John the Baptist, was laid out by de Leon
upon his return from his initial search for Fort St.
Louis. The Franciscan monks had conceived the
great and glorious work of Christianizing the Indians
and served as willing pioneers in the cause of their
King. With small bodies of troops as a guard they
wended their way into the interior, and thus it came
that important civilizing missions were, established
along the watercourses from the Rio Grande to the
Sabine. Energetic traders and venturesome pioneers came in
from Louisiana and from Mexico, the gradual explor
ing of the new country taking place from both Eastern
and Western borders, opposing sentiments and inter
ests prompting the march of progress in each instance.
It is plain to be seen that eventually there must come
a clash. Various spirited conflicts between Frenchmen and
Spaniards occurred in Texas while France and Spain
were at war at home, none of them amounting to more

than sharp skirmishes, 'the honors being equal most of
the time, the French gradually driving the Spanish
back from the Sabine and Nacogdoches to San An
tonio, where the latter made so effective a stand that
the French retreated to their base without attack, not
again advancing so far into their interior but satisfy-
,ing themselves within their own recognized territory
and fortifications at Nachitoches, in Louisiana proper.
Spain was making her possession stronger year by
year by introducing colonists from Mexico and the
Canary Islands, these locating along the Rio Grande,
in the rich valleys back from the coast, and along the
Gulf shore, where ships could get in. The monks
worked along the water courses to the foothills, civil
izing the Indian and pressing him into service, to
gether with the Mexicans and Canary Islanders, in the
building of missions, churches, fortifications and
schools. Thus Indianola, Lavaca, Matagorda, San
Antonio, San Jacinto, Nacogdoches and other early
settlements have their origin in this Christianizing
march of the Franciscan fathers.
In 1768 France settled all possible cause of con
tention between herself and Spain over territory West
of the Mississippi by giving clear governmental title
thereto, and the Castillian became the acknowledged
owner of everything up to the big waters.
But this action irritated the French and Indian col
onists in Louisiana and resulted in the organization
of various raiding parties, which more than once suc
ceeded in destroying missions and temporarily driving
the Spaniards back from the border. There were

10

also the usual frontier troubles between the Indians
and both Frenchman and Spaniard, little progress
toward opening the country for actual settlement being
made during the eighteenth century.
Missions had been established at various important
points, it is true, and here and there a good-sized trad
ing post had sprung up under the fostering care of
the government and the priests. But of genuine set
tling there was little, practically none.
Chronology of the Missions.
The order in which the various missions were estab
lished, with dates, is given, in so far as possible:
St. John the Baptist, on the Rio Grande, near where
Laredo now stands, in 1690.
The Alamo, on the Rio Grande in 1703, removed to
San Antonio in 1718, and to the spot on which it now
stands in 1722.
Our Lady of the Guadalupe, at Victoria, in 1714.
Mission Orquizacas, on the San Jacinto River, in
1715- Mission Dolores, near San Augustine, in 1716.
Our Lady of Nacogdoches, 1715.
Mission Adaes, East of the Sabine River, 1718.
Mission Espiritu Santo, at Goliad, then La Bahia,
1718. Mission San Jose, San Antonio, 1718.
Mission de la Conception, 1731.
Mission San Juan de Capistrano, 173 1.
Mission San Fernando, 173 1.
Mission San Franciscan de la Espada, 1731.
11

It will be noticed the Spaniards and monks must
have been exceedingly active for a few years in lo
cating these important posts for the holding of the
country for Spain, and it will doubtless be noticed
with equal celerity that no subsequent period of any
thing like equal activity is recorded. It is reasonable
to assume that the work mapped out in the second
decade of the century was quite enough to keep both
the government and the church more than ordinarily
busy for a long time thereafter.
During the middle and latter parts of the eighteenth
century the various missions were developed and large
associated Indian schools were constructed. In the
main these missions were of the same general char
acter, here and there successful effort at elaboration
and imposing decorative effect being accomplished, as
at the Mission San Jose, the Alamo, and a few others.
Special architects among the Franciscans and from
Spain put their best talents into the work, the effect
being salutary upon the Indians and satisfying to the
Spanish and Canary Island colonists, who found ele
gant church homes, splendid CathoHc schools, and
well-established trading posts at convenient distances
from each other, away out in the wilds of the frontier,
the whole giving a connected chain from the Western
Louisiana line to Mexico.
During this period there also occurred a great many
exceedingly interesting historic incidents which cannot
be elaborated in a brochure like this. They afford
highly entertaining reading, however, and deserve
greater attention than they have received, especially
12

among Texas readers. Many a beautiful romance is
woven into the essential history of the state, while
many an eventful occurrence, worthy the pen of an
Irving or a Bancroft, has been allowed to pass un
recorded and unsung.

AMERICA'S AWAKENING.

Large droves of wild horses and cattle roamed the
prairies of Texas. The latter were Spanish breeds,
doubtless from stock originally imported from Spain
and the Canaries into Mexico, from which the present
long-homed cattle of Texas sprung, the former Indian
and Mustang ponies, strengthened by the blood of the
Arab imported in the early settling of Mexico. Droves
of as many as from two thousand to five thousand
horses dotted the beautiful plains and valleys of the
New Philippines, as Texas and the Northern part of
Mexico were known at that time in Spain, while cat
tle were equally numerous, roaming everywhere at
will without herder, drover or restraint.
The old San Antonio road had been blazed by St.
Denis almost a century before history tells of the
settling on the soil of Texas of an American foot.
That roadway led from Nacc^doches to Monclova.
Even as late as well toward the close of the nine
teenth century horsemen and wagoneers traveled the
path St. Denis had ridden when first he visited Monc
lova in the interest of better trade relations between
the French in Louisiana and the Spaniards in Mexico.
13

It extended beyond Nacogdoches far into Louisiana
and the northeast; but at Nacogdoches was the real
gateway to the New Philippines. The Mission of Our
Lady, at that point was the first Spanish settlement
encountered, the natural rendezvous of explorers,
traders and adventurers desiring to enter the for
bidden field.
Just at the close of the eighteenth century, in 1797,
the first white man set foot on Texas soil, so far as
history gives record. The American army operating
along the Mississippi and in Louisiana needed re
mounts and sent an emissary to the commander at
Nacogdoches, Senor Commandant (Major) De Nava,
to secure permission, if possible, to replenish its stock
from the prairies a hundred miles to the West, the
story of the droves of mustangs there to be found
having been carried by French and Indian scouts to
the commander of the American forces.
Philip Nolan was the American emissary of the
American army. It was with difficulty that he se
cured the desired permission, Spain's experiences with
France making her wary of allowing any other gov
ernment to set its foot on Texas soil. But Nolan
was persistent and diplomatic, and eventually got De
Nava's consent, together with a body guard of Spanish
troops from the little garrison, immediately setting
out for a part of the territory as yet unexplored, even
by the Spanish. But his guides knew their way, and
they penetrated the country as far West as where
Waco now stands, treating with various tribes of
Indians as they went, the Wacos among them.
14

On his first journey for stock he secured above
twelve hundred mustangs, without money or price, ex
cept the expenses of the original outfitting and the cost
of the presents he carried as a peace offering to the
redskins. Nolan made a second trip in 1800 for the same pur
pose, traversing almost the same ground, making his
start from Natchez, on the Mississippi, armed with a
permit from the Governor of Louisiana. This trip
proved his undoing. The Spanish had become jealous
of his ability to make friends with the Indians and
coveted the splendid lots of horses he had been able to
round up by their assistance, and De Nava had come
to look upon him with suspicion, as a possible adven
turer who might have designs upon the country, per
haps an intention to form a new American colony on
Spanish ground. He therefore issued orders for his
arrest and sent a body of troops after him. Treacher
ous Indian spies, serving as guides for the Spaniards,
learned of Nolan's whereabouts and he was attacked
and killed after a gallant defense. His party num
bered but a score of men, several of whom died with
him, the rest being confined for life, first in Texas
and then in Mexican prisons.
Nolan had withdrawn from the American army and
was operating solely on his own behalf at the time
his life was sacrificed to Spanish jealousy and fear.
A Game of Shuttlecock.
Meanwhile a game of shuttlecock was being played
with the colonists of Louisiana. Finding them un-
15

willing and recalcitrant subjects Spain deeded their
country and citizenship back to Bonaparte about the
time of Nolan's death, and three years later diplo
matic negotiations and purchase made them and that
country the property of the United States.
This carried the Southwestern border of the Ameri
can republic down to the Spanish line, and America
became an interested party in Spain's occupancy of the
Great Southwest.
The old boundary dispute had to be settled.
The Spaniards claimed everything to the Missis
sippi. The United States believed her purchase embraced
everything as far West as the Rio Grande, in those
days confused on the maps with the Nueces.
The Easternmost Spanish mission and settlement
was still Nacogdoches.
The French had turned over to the United States
her Westernmost trading post and fortification, Nach
itoches, on the opposite bank of the Sabine.
The stream was the temporary boundary line. It
alone separated the two forces; its crossing by either
meant war.
For a time the situation was dangerously threaten
ing. The Mexican governor moved his headquarters
from San Antonio, where he was in closer touch with
his home government, to Nacogdoches, and the Ameri
can, commander had gone to the front from New Or
leans. Each side was ready for the conflict if emergency
16

forced it. Each parried for time. Each strove to
beat the other in diplomacy.
The Spaniards won.
They secured a temporary delay by virtue of an
agreement to the effect that a seven-mile strip of
ground, extending West from the Sabine to the Ar
royo Hondo, should be neutral land until the matter
could be settled at Washington and Madrid.
The American forces had viewed the promised land,
but had been forbidden to enter and were disappointed.
Naturally, intrusion by Americans as individuals
was dangerous, the Spaniards guarding their inter
ests too zealously for personal safety.
THE BEGINNING OF THE INEVITABLE.

Destiny has guided the course of the American
people. Their watchword has been progress, their
march ever forward.
Without large dividing lines Texas could not al
ways remain Spanish domain. Nolan had his proto
type in a young American lieutenant, Augustus Ma-
gee, who while the war of 1812 was attracting atten
tion decided upon a coup in Texas which he hoped
might make it an independent republic, joining hands
with a former Mexican revolutionist for the purpose of
an invasion.
They gathered togetlier the first independent invad
ing party that ever attempted to strike Spain down
in her acknowledged possession of the country, their
17

troop being composed of adventurers who had flocked
to the neutral ground near Nacogdoches, dissatisfied
Spanish soldiers, Mexicans of adventurous nature,
Indian guides and half-breeds, together with a handful
of discharged soldiers and reputable Americans out
for the love of adventure and legitimate exploitation — ¦
in all several hundred men making up a formidable
invading army.
The first conquest of this first invading troop from
American Unes, although it started from the neutral
strip and was composed largely of others than Ameri
cans, was the capture of the fort and mission of Na
cogdoches, the Spaniards offering no resistance but
fleeing Westward toward San Antonio upon the first
appearance of the invaders.
Gutierrez, the defeated Mexican revolutionist, was
in command, Magee having gone to New Orleans, to
try to raise money for the purposes of the war. To
the American, however, belongs the credit, or the
blame, whichever the historian and the reader may
allot, of the original effort at the republicanizing of
Texas. Magee soon returned from New Orleans, and with
recruits joined forces with Gutierrez on the Trinity,
the combined army of republican stragglers and ad
venturers following the St. Denis road, capturing
Goliad and taking the Spanish garrison into their
ranks, strengthening their armament by the addition
of the cannon which La Salle had brought from
France a century and a half before. He died at Goliad
of consumption, but not until his force had engaged
18

in serious conflicts with various wings of the Mexican
armies sent out to destroy them.
An American named Kemper succeeded Magee in
his relation to the command, which was able to with
stand all the onslaughts of the Spaniards, who finally
gave up their siege and attacks upon the fortified mis
sion and retreated to the chief Spanish headquarters
at San Antonio. The First Real Battle.
Gutierrez and Kemper followed in hot pursuit and a
bloody and disastrous battle was fought only nine
miles from this city, on the Rosillo, the Spanish
armies, which greatly outnumbered the Republicans,
suffering an ignominous and overwhelming defeat.
This desperate battle meant a great deal for the Re
publican forces. If defeated their cause was doomed.
If victorious there was a chance of making of the
mighty empire of prairie and forest, of hill and valley,
of upland and lowland, of Indians and cattle and mus
tangs, a new republic where the pioneer American
might build for himself a home and castle.
The battle of Rosillo Creek settled the fate of San
Antonio. The city surrendered in advance of the ar
rival of the Americans, but seventeen Spaniards re
maining to guard the Church and Fortress of the
Alamo when the invading army marched into the city
with their banners flying.
In connection with the battle of Rosillo an unfor
tunate slaughter of surrendered and captured officers
occurred under the vengeful order of Gutierrez. The
troops who had surrendered were freed, the officers
19

paroled. But the following day the latter were bru
tally put to death, as a safeguard against possible fu
ture danger from their influence over their men. This
cruelty doubtless had its effect in influencing the de
termination of the Americans in the Alamo, in their
fateful defense against the armies of Santa Anna, to
withstand to the last.
The brutality was due to Mexican orders, not those
of an American commander. But all were republi
cans, and republicanism was held to blame.
Though defeated so ingloriously the Spaniards were
not dismayed and under command of Elisondo, San
Antonio was attacked on June 4th of the same year,
1813, by a well-organized and equipped army from
Mexico. The republican forces were well-intrenched and be
hind their fortifications, however, and successfully
withstood the onslaught, defeating the Spaniards at a
loss of above a thousand men. For a time this satis
fied the Mexican soldiery that the republicans were a
worthy foe and they held the city undisturbed.
But it was only for a time.
Two months later, on the i8th of August, the tide
was reversed.
Kemper had returned to Nacogdoches after the
battle of Rosillo, determined not to go back while
Gutierrez was in command, the horrible massacre of
Governors Salcedo, Herrera and Cordero, with sur
rendered Mexican officers at Rosillo, meeting with
his violent protest and unqualified condemnation.
Several of the best American officers resigned and re-
20

turned with him, and later Gutierrez handed the com
mand over to General Toledo and retraced his steps to
Nacogdoches, with the intention of recruiting more
troops and gathering a large fund for the pursuit of
the war.
But Toledo made a fatal mistake. General Arre-
dondo had come over from Mexico to succeed Eli
sondo, and had satisfied himself with intrenching his
forces on the Medina, fourteen miles West of the
city, from which point he intended keeping up a
series of harassing operations.
Instead of resting secure behind his fortifications
and the Mission walls of the Alamo Toledo decided
to go out and force the fighting.
A terrible reverse was the result, practical annihila
tion of the Republican army following a fruitless at
tack upon the intrenched Mexicans. Less than a
hundred of the nine hundred troops composing the
attacking force escaped, and the massacre of the cap
tured officers at Rosillo was avenged by the admin
istration of a similar fate to the captured at Me
dina. The war had degenerated into a brutal hand-to-hand
conflict, without quarter, and with certain death fol
lowing surrender.
Ninety-three escaped Americans, this including such
Mexicans, half-breed French and Indian admixtures
as were classed as Americans for republican purposes,
beat their way back to Nacogdoches, and the first war
for Texas independence was at an inglorious end.

21

The Second Attempt at Invasion.
The ill-fating of the Magee-Gutierrez-Toledo army
checked the spirit of republicanism for the time, but
it would not stay down. Five years after the battle
of the Medina a Tennesseean who had served with
General Jackson at New Orleans, Dr. James Long,
who had become imbued with the martial spirit and as
pired to immortalize himself by making Texas free
and establishing a miniature American republic there
upon, organized an army of invasion of three hundred
adventuresome spirits at Natchez and marched to Na
cogdoches, that outpost having become so accustomed
to the changes of war that it surrendered peacefully
upon the approach of the intruding force.
General Long actually founded a "Republic of
Texas" at Nacogdoches at that time, though the suc
cessful republic eventually annexed to the United
States was the product of a later effort. Yet Long
organized a government, established a legislature,
formulated and set up revenue. and immigration laws,
and otherwise tried to accomplish that which failed
of success until a quarter of a century later.
Long's government was overthrown by the Span
iards while he was absent trying to induce a French
man, Lafitte^ successfully installed on the Island of
Galveston, to join him in his struggle against the Mex
icans, and again the attempt to make a republic of
Texas had failed.
Lafitte was a piratical spirit from New Orleans who
had found the sandy island upon which Galveston is
32

now located to be a suitable place from which to roam
the sea. He had organized a considerable colony, al
most a thousand, all told, of French and Indians, to
whom his word was law, and had accumulated large
wealth from privateering among the Spanish vessels
which sailed the Gulf.
Lafitte had aspirations of his own in regard to a
republic in Texas, but declined to join Long in his
movement in that direction, having the foresight to
understand that a considerable and effective fighting
force would be required to overthrow the Spanish
governor. All of Mexico was immediately behind the latter,
with Spain across the seas to sustain the Mexican
colonists in the defense of the rich frontier.
Lafitte was wise. Both the Magee and Long ex
peditions failed for lack of numbers and reinforce
ments. Each played a part toward the eventual liber
ation of Texas from the Mexican yoke, but both were
premature. Long made a second effort in 1821, getting as far
West as Goliad, then La Bahia, with but fifty-two men,
who were subsequently easily overpowered by a frag
mentary Mexican force, the leader being sent to Mex
ico City as a prisoner, where, after eight months' con
finement, he was killed by a Mexican soldier imme
diately after being pardoned, a practice quite the rule
in those early days.

23

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

The beginning of the end of Spanish domination
dates from the granting to Moses Austin of permission
to introduce colonists in Texas, in 1820.
Austin was a Missourian of enterprise and pioneer
ing proclivities, who succeeded only after a great deal
of effort in procuring a severely restrictive permit to
occupy a selected section with his colonists. The lat
ter would have to come from Louisiana, at that time
a very much larger territory than now. They had to
be of good character, swear allegiance to Spain, and
belong to the Roman faith. They were to be free from
taxation for a period of six years, and to each able-
bodied man 640 acres were to be allotted, to each mar
ried woman 320, to each child 140, and to each master
80 acres for each slave he owned.
Austin died before he could perfect the contract, but
his son, Stephen F. Austin, then twenty-eight years
old, took up the work and later introduced the colony
in the winter of 1821.
Hardly had the newcomers started to set themselves
up on farms and clearings before Mexico revolted
against Spanish domination and a war was on in the
Mexican peninsula. The Spanish governor at San
Antonio could not fulfill all the terms of the contract,
this necessitating a trip to the City of Mexico by the
younger Austin for the purpose of securing his rights
and learning what might be the probabilities for the
future of his people. Their shipload of supplies had
either been captured by pirates or lost in a Gulf storm,
24

and the Indians harassed them continually. Yet they
held on, and succeeded in planting the tree of liberty
from which grew later the young republic.
Their leader's journey was a long and tedious one,
fraught with many dangers and- delays, and not until
the summer of 1823 was he able to get back from
the Mexican capital, with such assurances of a safe
guarding of interests as the precarious government
was able to give. The section occupied by the col
onists extended from the Brazos to the Colorado, in
which the towns of Austin, Bastrop, Gonzales and
Victoria had been plotted, as plotting went in those
early days.
Two years later Stephen Austin got permission
to bring in five hundred more families, while other
colonists had been given smaller grants and the set
tling of Texas had been fairly begun.
To Hayden Edwards, a Kentuckian, a grant had
been given near Nacogdoches which set up trouble.
There was constant dispute between the colonists and
the Mexicans as to the ownership of ground, water
rights, timber, etcetera, increasing friction resulting.
Finally, during the absence of Edwards for another
colony, the Mexican governor annulled his grant and
ordered the leaders out of the country. They made a
feeble effort at resistance, organizing themselves into
an army called "Fredonians," but being unable to in
cite the Indians and other colonists to war gave up the
struggle and returned to Louisiana. 2,S

Callings of the Mexican Yoke.
Spain had been overthrown in Mexico and that
country had become an independent government.
Texas had previously been a separate department, or
province, with San Antonio as its headquarters, all
business between the colonists and the government be
ing transacted at that point.
In 1824, however, Texas was added to Coahuila,
whose capital was Saltillo, only a department com
mander being left at San Antonio, and it thus became
necessary for the colonists and government to deal at
long range, to the great inconvenience and oftentimes
great loss of the former.
This error of the new Mexican government was a
fatal one.
But President Bustamente and his advisers had
come to look with suspicion and fear upon the energy
and success of the Americans, who were making a
formidable population, and who had the courage to
ask for such reliefs as they considered themselves en
titled to.
The Americans were a sturdy lot of men, larger in
stature than the Mexicans, well-educated, accustomed
to a republican life at home, they knew what justice
and injustice were, and as straightforward, outspoken,
courageous citizens had little patience with the dilatori-
ness, lack of decision, and disposition to treachery
which characterized the conduct of many of the Mex
ican officials.
Friction increased under the new regime. The
26

Americans became restless, and with radical changes
in the attitude of the government toward them, the
former gradually sealed its fate.
Among especially irritating edicts from Alexico
there came the radical change of the prohibition of the
further introduction of slaves. Most of the colonists
were from slave-holding sections of the United States
and resented this strenuously.
Then orders were issued to the ^lexican constabu
lary to limit the number of firearms in a family to one,
usually a fowling piece. The Indians were still very
troublesome in secticns, and frontier colonists would
not allow themselves to be disarmed.
An extravagant system of taxation was inaugurated
and special Mexican collectors and assessors were ap
pointed who worked unusual and irritating hardships
upon the people. i
The water right problem, along streams and irriga
tion ditches, proved an especially annoying one. Mex
ican inspectors rode the streams and canals during dry
seasons, guarding sluiceways and water gates, allot
ting plent)- of water to Mexican farmers and depri\-ing
Americans of their just share.
Appeals to the coiuts were in vain. The judiciary
were all Mexicans, chiefly military officers, the rule
practically that of martial law.
The government was committing its own suicide.
Meanwhile, an insurrection was on in Mexico. Bus
tamente had proved himself an unwise and tyrannical
ruler and Santa Anna, of the Mexican Army, had
organized a military resistance. The colonists helped
27

BE COIiONIZACfON

Seccion </.'

ay

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elect him president, and hopeful of better treatment
at his hands a convention was held at San Felipe in
the spring of 1833 and separation from Coahuila and
a return to former conditions were asked for. Austin
was sent to Mexico with the convention's memorial,
but met with antagonism and his mission failed, and
he started back to Texas, after having written advising
the colonists to take steps toward the organization of a
separate republic.
His letter was intercepted, and after getting as near
home as Saltillo he was arrested, taken back to the
capital, and imprisoned for almost two years.
Santa Anna proved to be as unwise an official as
Bustamente, in so far as the colonists were concerned.
He ordered them all disarmed, sending a body of troops
to force acquiesence, and imposed taxes and burdens
which the Americans would not bear.
Various conferences and conventions were held, at
various times and places, each tending to further ce
ment the Americans and decide them upon a revolu
tion unless relief was given, and as the Mexicans in
creased their garrisons, sending new troops in from
Mexico, a call was finally issued for a Consultation, to
be held at San Felipe, on the i6th of October, 1835,
at which the colonists should agree upon some course
of action which should be definite and effective.
THE CONFLICT BEGINS.

The initial conflict for independence occurred at
Gonzales on October ist. The town had a cannon

30

which had been given it by the government four
years previously as a defense against the Indians.
Under a radical and complete disarming act a Mexi
can colonel was sent with a detachment to get this gun.
The citizens declined to surrender it and the next
morning turned it upon the enemy, who beat a retreat
with a loss of several men.
The second conffict was at Goliad, where a band of
Texans numbering fifty or sixty men, mostly plant
ers, marched upon that post, under command of Col.
Ben Milam, capturing the garrison, including several
hundred stands of arms, which the colonists needed
badly, a number of cannon and a good supply of am
munition and military stores. The movement was
spreading. The colonists were determined to have
justice and independence if they had to fight for it.
The San Felipe Consultation had no need to settle
the question. The Gonzales and Goliad incidents had
already decided it. The people were notified of those
occurrences and were asked to cast their votes by the
bark of the rifle. They came from farm and planta
tion, from ranch and pasture, from the desk and the
counter, from the rostrum and the pulpit. A spirit of
absolute independence prevailed throughout all the set
tlements, and a considerable army gathered at Gon
zales before the Consultation at San Felipe had ended.
Austin was elected Commander-in-Chief, and war
was on.
Meanwhile, the Mexicans were not idle. Santa Anna
had sent his brother-in-law. General Cos, one of the
best commanders of the ^Mexican army, to take charge
31

at San Antonio. Reinforcements to the garrison had
arrived, the intrenchments were strengthened, and the
Mexicans made preparations to put down the insur
rection in its incipiency, as the Spaniards had done so
many times before, always with Mexican troops.
The American Forces Move West.
Austin realized that it was important to have a base
of supplies as far to the West as possible. He there
fore early took up the Westward march, his force
being added to as he went, his council consisting of
Houston, Bowie, Travis, Fannin, Crockett, Milam,
Burleson and Deaf Smith, as courageous a council
as ever engaged in war, pioneers of the best and brav
est type, men without fear, each a power, in himself.
Leaving Gonzales with three hundred and fifty men,
not a large army but a determined one, by the time he
got to the Mission de la Espada (the Mission of the
Sword), known as the Fourth Mission at San Antonio
to-day, the number had increased to above six hundred,
well-armed, confident and determined to set Texas
free. From la Espada, nine miles south of the city, Austin
sent couriers to San Antonio with a demand upon
General Cos that he surrender. The couriers were ac
corded scant courtesy and received a negative answer.
The bridges had been burned, the opposing command
ers had thrown down the gauntlet.
It took Austin and his council but a few minutes to
decide what to do, and the next morning, October
27th, Colonels Fannin and Bowie were sent with a
32

MIHSIUN l>K l..\ CnNriOI'CION. ITIII h'lUHT Ml.ci.SION IlKKdUK
SKIUMISII TOOK I'l.AOIO.

WHICH INlTlyM.

detachment of less than a hundred men to take up their
station at the first mission, that of the Immaculate
Concepcion, two miles south of the Alamo, which was
the Mexican fortress and headquarters. From that
point they threw out their lines, preparing to harass
the enemy while the main force was being further aug
mented by recruits from the Eastern colonists, to
whom word about the uprising had been sent.
Initial Skirmish Before San Antonio.
At the first mission the first San Antonio skirmish
occurred. The Mexicans were the aggressors. Gen
eral Cos sent out a force to drive Fannin and Bowie
back, attacking them at daybreak on the 28th.
The attacking party consisted of a troop of cavalry
and a battalion of artillery, with a six-pounder, which
opened early in action upon the Americans, under
cover of its fire the cavalry charging the lines of the
invaders with the intention of riding them down and
breaking their battalion into fragments. But every
American was a deadly shot with the rifle and the
Mexicans could not stand the fire. After a fierce ad
vance they were compelled to retreat, and before they
could re-form under the cover of their gun the in
vaders had charged upon the artillery and captured the
cannon in a desperate hand-to-hand conflict, in which
they inflicted severe loss upon the Mexicans and lost
their first hero in the War for Independence, the only
loss sustained in the skirmish.
The booming of the cannon told Austin that the
action was on and reinforcements were hurried to the
35

mission. They were not needed that day, so well had
Fannin and Bowie done their work ; but the main army
was brought forward from la Espada and the invest
ment of San Antonio was begun.
Uneventful skirmishes before the city occurred dur
ing the next few days and well into November, and
to the colonists' men had been added three companies
of troops from New Orleans and Mississippi. Gen
eral Edward Burleson, who had had extensive experi
ence as an Indian fighter, succeeded to the command,
Austin having resigned to go to Washington as special
commissioner of the Insurgents, in the hope of secur
ing government recognition as combatants and the
good offices of the great republic for a satisfactory
cession of Texas by Mexico.
Burleson kept his forces closely in hand, waiting for
reinforcements, before attacking the Alamo, but the
colonists were impatient for action and the army grew
dangerously restless. The Siege of Bexar.
Finally, upon having definite word from the enemy's
headquarters of his weakness. Col. Milam led a volun
teer troop of three hundred, for several days a hot skir
mish being kept up on the West side of the river, from
Soledad street to the present site of the Santa Rosa
Hospital and City Market House, Milam being killed
in the court of the old Veramendi House, still standing
on Soledad, between Commerce and Houston, at the
head of Veramendi street.
Col. Johnson assumed command when Milam fell,
36

; -^

COL, BEN, MILAM,
Killed at the "Siege of Bexar" December 6, 1835.

and the straggling fighting was continued for several
days, until, on the 9th of December, the Alamo sur
rendered and for the first time in history the fortress
and San Antonio came into complete possession of the
American colonists.
General Burleson had not participated in the five
days' fighting, the original three hundred men who
had volunteered to go with Milam and Johnson having
won the victory. He finally secured the surrender of
Cos, but not until the courageous little band had fought
their way in hand-to-hand struggles into all the strong
holds of the town except the Alamo.
The flag of the republic had been raised over the
fortress, but unfortunately not to stay.

LEADING UP TO THE ALAMO.

Following the gallant capture of San Antonio and
the occupation of the Alamo by the colonists various
interesting occurrences took place, too many, by far,
to be enumerated here, bearing upon the subsequent
liberation of Texas from the galling yoke of Mexican
rule. The Convention of Consultation elected a provisional
government but decided not to withdraw from Mexico
and set up a republic, contenting itself with asking
home rule and the annulment of restrictive and unjust
laws. This failed to satisfy the more radical of the
patriots and from time to time sporadic outbursts by
enthusiastic bands of republicans kept the agitation
39

between the colonists and the Mexican troops at its
height. Henry Smith was elected provisional governor and
to General Sam Houston was assigned the command-
ership-in-chief of the armies to be raised. Austin,
Archer and Wharton were sent to Washington as a
board of commissioners for Texas, it being thought
wise by the consultation to make every effort to se
cure needed relief and reforms through diplomacy if
possible, the resort to arms to follow only as a last
recourse, now that the colonists had shown their abil
ity to overthrow military rule if required and their
subsequent willingness to accept a continuation of re
lations with Mexico under a home government and
just administration.
Nothing came of the efforts toward peace. The
uprising had become too general. The tastes of vic
tory which had savored the mouths of the colonists
but whetted them for complete independence. On the
other hand, the Mexican army felt the disgrace of
the defeats of Goliad and San Antonio and were bent
upon revenge. Large numbers of trained soldiers
were sent to increase their forces, and Santa Anna,
who had succeeded in his ambitious desire to become
Dictator of Mexico, was determined to retain Texas
at all cost, and gave such orders for its holding to
Generals Cos and Urrea, commanders of the Mexican
forces, that they were impelled to their utmost to re
gain the lost prestige of the army and recapture San
Antonio. Urrea had succeeded during the period of diplo-
40

matic effort in defeating a column of the more en
thusiastic but misguided colonists, who tried to do too
much with inadequate numbers and equipment, and
was eager for further conflict.
General Cos bad been paroled by Burleson w hen he
surrendered the Alamo and San Antonio, and by
honor was bound not to return to the struggle. But
Santa Anna was unyielding, and compelled his
brother-in-law to take the field in spite of his parole.
It is not on record that Cos' protests were very pro-
nouncedj a parole not meaning much to the army of
the frontier in those stirring days.
The Mexicans made elaborate preparation for their
next invasion, and to make sure of success, and to as
firmly establish his dictatorship in Texas as he had
succeeded in doing in the provinces of the republic,
Santa Anna took command of the combined armies
himself, sending Urrea to Matamoras, Refugio and
Goliad, Cos and General Filisola accompanying the
commander to San Antonio, all the time the post, mis
sion and city of chief importance throughout the
struggles for liberty.
Dissension Among the Americans.
After the surrender of Cos to Burleson, succeeding
the five days' fight in the town, then mostly located
West of the river, including Main Plaza and Soledad
and Acequia streets, the American forces had scat
tered, returning to their homes and farms, the leaders
going to the Convention of Consultation, at San Fe
lipe, and the stragglers scattering over the country,
41

occupying various small posts and trading sites, no
central body of troops remaining in organization to
sustain the limited garrison remaining in charge of
the Alamo.
Of these there were but a hundred and forty-five
men, under the command of Colonel Wm. Travis, one
of the heroes of Gonzales and GoUad, one of the most
courageous of the colonists and a wise and able leader.
David Crockett and James Bowie were with him, both
known to fame as Indian fighters of note and as pio
neers whose courage was undoubted.
It is unfortunate that in this critical period the
Texans were divided. President Smith failed to se
cure the sustaining support of his cabinet and leading
advisers. Houston leaned toward Smith's views and
thus lost control of the army. A council guided its
movements, and unfortunately distributed it over the
country, no garrison having an adequate fighting force.
The Alamo was the best manned of them all.
Urrea had defeated and brutally massacred Col.
Grant's battalion at Bahia. Indecision and lack of
concentration characterized the conduct of the presi
dent and council. Houston wanted to bring the colo
nist forces together into one command and make
an effective stand wherever the enemy might strike.
But having taken up the president's cause, which was
not the popular one, his wishes were overridden and
segregation followed.
And such was the unfortunate state of affairs when
Santa Anna took command on the Rio Grande and set
out for San Antonio to recapture the Alamo and put
down the insurrection forever. 42

THE ^nSSION OF THE ALAMO.

No recital of the fall of the .\lamo, and the massa
cre of the courageous band of colonists who so gal
lantly defended it that their bravery had immortalized
them in Texas history, would be sufficiently explana-
tor\' to give to the reader the best tmderstanding of the
struggle that failed to give a history of the Alamo
itself. This, in fact, is the motive which has prompted
this brochure — to portray to the visitor the founding,
building and life of the Alamo; to depict its strength
as a fortress; its influence as a church; its relation to
the territory as a central station for the army, the
Franciscans and the frontiersmen of Texas ; and to por
tray the memorable struggle that took place within
its massive walls, and about its environs, as Texan and
Mexican contended and fought and died for its pos
session, in that memorable battle that made the beauti
ful river at its feet run red with the blood of the mar-
tj'rs within its walls and of the foe that attacked them
from without.
That which has preceded is preliminary to that
which follows. The history and tale of the Alamo
cannot but arouse the patrotism of every Texan, and
hold with interestedness every visitor who views its
sacred precincts.
Senor Don Domingo Ramon is supposed to have
located the first of the posts of San Antonio near the
beautiful springs of the San Pedro in 1715, to which
was given the name of Fort San Antonio de Velaro.
43

This was in the nature of a garrison together with a
little church, the post remaining there three years,
when the Franciscan monks began the erection of a
mission in association therewith.
Three times the site of this was changed. First, it
was moved to the present Military Plaza, then back to
the San Pedro again, and finally, in 1722, or a hun
dred and eighty years ago, it was located permanently
on its present site, on the Eastern side of the San
Antonio river.
The city takes its name from that of the original
post. The mission took its title after it became a parish
from the beautiful trees along the bank of the river and
acequia, the word being the Spanish for the tree known
to America as the "cottonwood."
As will be seen by a glance, either at the building by
the visitor or at the frontispiece by the reader, the
Mission or Church of the Alamo was a most sub
stantially and somewhat artistically built structure.
All these old missions were built upon the Cesaeran
plan, with extremely heavy walls and partitions be
tween rooms, parapetted cornices, graveled azoteas
for roofs, the main building of a mission always com
bining the features of a church and a fortress.
The Church of the Alamo was but the central build
ing of the mission. A visit to the Mission de la Con-
sepcion or the Mission San Jose at the present time
will give an idea of the surrounding structures, at both
those missions parts of the old embattlement walls, and
some of the smaller buildings which were parts of
44

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i

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MOMA5-r£RV

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them, still remaining intact. Those of the Alamo have,
unfortunately, been completely destroyed or removed.
The "Plan of the Alamo," which accompanies, will
give a fair idea of the extent of the enclosure and the
areas of the different parts thereof. The church was
the only finished or architectural part of the mission.
The monastery, which stood immediately in the left
of the front entrance, was a large stone structure,
covering quite an extent of ground, i86 feet in length
and narrow, its greatest width being but eighteen feet.
It ran North in its long dimension, extending out to
the border line of what is now the city's Houston
Street. Within a quarter of a century it has been
modernized and is owned and used by a business firm
as a wholesale merchandise house.
In front of the monastery and church were various
domestic buildings, among them a large granary,
traces of which are to be seen in the plan, in which
the defenders of the Alamo stored their corn and pro
visions in times of seige.
All the buildings of the mission were enclosed in
heavy stone walls with supporting arches and parapets,
as in the time of Caesar. Many of the smaller build
ings along these walls remained in existence until
thirty or forty years ago. Quite a row of them stood
whe^e the Opera House and business houses lining the
West side of the Alamo Plaza now stand as late as the
beginning of the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
It is unfortunate from the historical viewpoint that all
of them were not preserved intact.
Immediately surrounding the mission were large
47

cultivated gardens and small fields, wherein the In
dians were taught their first lessons in agriculture and
methods of civilization, these supplying the inhabi
tants of the missions and the garrisons of the posts
with vegetables and fruits, and their horses with grain.
History tells us that these garden spots were a delight
to the eye, so well-kept and luxuriantly green were they
from irrigation by ditches constructed by the Mexi
cans, Canary Islanders and Indians, under the guid
ance of the monks and the protection of the garrisons.
One of the acequias ran directly behind the church of
the Alamo to supply it with water in time of war.
Traces of it remain a monument to the industry of the
padres of two hundred years ago.
Secularization of the Mission.
Toward the close of the eighteenth century Spain re
called the monks and the mission of the Alamo, along
with others which had been established by the Francis
cans, which was secularized by Senor Don Pedro de
Nava, at that time Spanish Governor of Texas, and its
control was turned over from the monastic order to the
State clergy as a parish, there having been irritations
and friction between the monks and the military at
various times during their ownership by the Francis
cans. The Spaniards saw the greater need of military
posts than of churches and schools and prepared for
defense, the missions thus becoming fortresses first,
churches afterward.
It was in this stronghold of Franciscan friarship
construction that General Cos was quartered when
48

Milam and Johnson won the first battles of San An
tonio, and it was also in it that Travis, Bowie and
Crockett were quartered when Santa Anna set out
from Mexico to retrieve the ground his armies had
lost in Texas. ^ ^ ^
Col. Travis was in command of the regulars by vir
tue of orders from Houston and the council. The com
mander-in-chief had issued a memorable order, which
had a ring of independence about it not to be mistaken,
on the 8th of October, 1835, in which he spoke to the
people as follows:
"The time has arrived when the revolutions in the
interior of Mexico have resulted in the creation of a
Dictator and Texas is compelled to assume an attitude
defensive of her rights and the lives and property of
her citizens. War is our only alternative. War in
the defense of right,' must be our motto. The morning
of glory has dawned upon us. The work of liberty has
begun. Our acts are to become a part of the history
of mankind. Patriot millions will s)rmpathize with'
our struggles, while nations will admire our achieve
ments. Rally around the standard of the Constitution,
entrench your rights with manly resolutions, and de
fend them with heroic firmness. Let your valor pro
claim to the world that Liberty is your birthright. We
cannot be conquered by all the arts of anarchy and
despotism combined. In Heaven and valorous hearts
we repose our confidence."
Col. Bowie, as brave and gallant as Travis, was in
command of the volunteers who remained in San
49

Antonio after the "Siege of Bexar," as the five days'
fight led by Milam and Johnson had been styled, the
little force of a hundred and forty-five being made up
about equally of Bowie's and Travis' men. It was
but a handful against the five thousand Mexican
troops who were approaching under command of the
Dictator and his staff. Could they but have known
the forces of the Mexicans, retreat would have been
honorable and their sacrifice need not have occurred.

THE SIEGE OF THE ALAMO.

The Mexican army camped on the Medina, where
Arredondo had so signally defeated Toledo, and sent
out advance guards to learn where the Americans
might be found, to ascertain their number and other
wise gain information in regard to their situations.
The garrison was not well outposted, and finding the
coast comparatively clear the Mexicans moved for
ward to the Alazan, three miles West of the town.
Garrison life had become tiresome and the Ameri
cans had given themselves over to a careless indulgence
and a life of festivity. Pickets had grown careless.
The men were weary of waiting, and their existence
was a lazy one.
Without means of communication with the frontier
they were not prepared for the enemy. Reinforce
ments had been expected, preliminary to a march to
the West, and the little troop had been alternately im
patient and indifferent about their arrival, so long had
50

it been delayed and so often had they been disap
pointed. The contentions among the leaders and coun
cil had postponed the organization of an army, and the
infection of unrest and indifference to strict military
rule had permeated the garrison of the Alamo.
Thus it happened that the Mexican army drew so
near imannounced and unknown. They chose the
night for their coming, to make their march tmseen
more sure, and by dawn on the 23rd of February were
discovered swarming the prairies West of the San
Pedro and filing down the banks of the more distant
Alazan. The alarm was given from the mission on ^lain
Pljiza 1^ a sentinel stationed on the tower, and created
the greatest consternation in the sleeping little cit)-.
Travis and Bowie could hardly believe it, so strong
had been their dependence upon their government and
the council. Trusty couriers, Dr. Sutherland, surgeon
to the band, and a volunteer named Smith, were dis
patched to leam the truth or falsity of the alarm and
were not long in discovering, from Desiderio Hill, just
West of the San Pedro, that an army before which the
garrison would be powerless was already drawn up
in battle array. With the coming of that dawn came
the fate of the American battalion. They could not
retreat in honor, nor were they horsed for a flight.
There was nothing left but to do the best they could,
behind the sturdy walls of the fortress, into which they
were quickly filed.
Today we see around the Alamo a busy city. Then
there was but here and there a little adobe on that side
51

of the river, the town having been built on the West
banks, the mission on the opposite side. Where Travis
Park now is was prairie, and all along the river on the
Eastern side grazed little bunches of cattle. Men had
scurried here and there, gathering as many of these
together as was possible in the time at command, and
as Santa Anna invaded the city from the West the
American forces drove their herd into the enclosure
and closed the heavy gates of the Alamo behind them
for the last time.
The fiat had gone forth. During all the fierce skir
mishes between the opposing forces, with the single
exception of the capture of San Antonio by the col
onists, massacre had followed surrender. It was a
war of no quarter, a struggle to the death. Travis
and Bowie — and the brave little band with them —
knew when they drew the gates that it was the end,
unless reinforcements from the East should come very
soon. Within the Alamo t:he supplies of the fortress
were but a few bushels of corn and the beeves which
had been run in that morning. For the latter there
was no feed beyond enough for a day or two, and
without means of communication with the seat of gov
ernment the abandonment of the garrison must have
been resignedly complete.
Every American but one had entered the fort. Dr.
Sutherland had been dispatched upon the fleetest horse
at command for reinforcements. San Felipe was a
long distance away. Only a straggling settler here
and there lived West of the Brazos. The frontiers
men had suffered more severely at Goilad and the
52

Medina than those from the colonies further to the
East. The courier had a long way to go before he
could reach a settled section. His mission was hope
less, and though he rode the death ride fearlessly the
garrison lived not to leam the result of his effort.
Message of Defiance and Death.
Hardly had the gates been closed and barricaded
before messengers from Santa Anna arrived demand
ing surrender. Travis had a cannon on the roof and
answered the demand by a shot. The Mexican had
taken possession of the Mission San Fernando, and
upon its tower, from which the sentinel had given the
first warning of his approach, he ran up a blood-red
flag. The heroes of the Alamo saw it and knew what
it meant. The messenger of their death waved be
fore them in the gentle breezes of the Southern morn.
The river lay between, and ran more water than
now. An army could not be forded, and thus delay
occurred. The answer which Travis had sent him
told Santa Anna that he had a struggle ahead, so his
engineers were put to work constructing a bridge, far
enough down the river to be beyond the reach of the
American guns.
To get timber for the bridge a detachment of men
was sent to attack the walls of the mission from the
rear, but the galling fire of the riflemen within less
than an hour sent thirty of them to their death and
they were withdrawn, a cordon being swung to the
North and East, on what is now known as Dignowity
53

Hill, to prevent the possible retirement of the garrison
in that direction.
The state of siege necessitated concert of action
within the Alamo. Travis was formally placed in
command, with Bowie as second officer in case of his
death. Crockett, who had come from Tennessee after
his defeat for re-election to the American Congress,
upon his arrival had been tendered the command by
Travis, but he declined the honor and responsibility.
"I am among you to live or to die; I have come to
your country to identify myself with your interests,
and the only honor I desire is that of assisting to
defend, as a fighter in the ranks, the liberties of my
fellow citizens and the freedom of this beautiful coun
try," was his patrotic reply.
Davy Crockett was a character of whom history has
recorded many an incident. Tall, lithe, athletic, as
courageous as a lion, he had been a Tennessee fron
tiersman of whom the state had been proud. He had
led his fellow settlers many a time against the Indian's
and outlaws who had infested that state.in early times,
and had finally, in the days of peace, been sent to the
American Congress. There he was a striking char
acter, in his buckskin dress and coonskin cap, with
his favorite rifle always by him. He had the courage
of his convictions and. followed the dictates of his
conscience rather than the mandates of his party, his
favorite motto, which made him famous, "Be Sure
You Are Right, Then Go Ahead," being his guide in
all his transactions, and he was not returned a second
time. He had proclaimed in his canvass that if de-
54

Pvo>veev SoVdvev axvd S\tvVcs\\\c\j<v

Q&c^oi'cL -w^oc /i^-^j^j-

\\vVled oX \V\e-Va>.VVt 0^ t\\c

feated he should go to Texas and take up the cause
of Liberty there, and had kept his word.
Crockett had no ambitions to lead the Texans, he
preferred to follow. But from the moment he set foot
on Texas soil he had been an enthusiastic devotee of
the cause of the Texans, and now, at the crucial mo
ment, was a fighter among fighters, a private among
privates, yet a counsellor among counsellors within the
walls of the cradle of the liberty of the Lone Star Re
public. Seriousness of the Siege Understood.
Within the Alamo there could be no misunder
standing of the seriousness of the siege. Travis com
prehended the situation and saw that it was des
perate. Unless relief should come there could be but
one result.
A consultation decided that assistance must be se
cured, and one of the bravest of the brave defenders
of the Alamo, Col. James B. Bonham, a South Caro
linian who had colonized to Texas, volunteered to un
dertake the hazardous task of getting through the
enemy's lines and carrying the message of distress
to Col. Fannin at GoHad. Under cover of darkness
he made his way through the pickets, and once well
out on the prairie rode with the swiftness of the wind
in the interests of his compatriots and their cause,
making Goliad on the morning of the 25th and earn
estly laying the situation before the commander of the
post at that point.
Fannin had but a small force and it took time to
57

gather together enough men to make the effort worth
the while. On the 28th he started with a troop of
cavalry and several cannon. But the traveling was
heavy, the wagons were in bad condition, and head
way was made too slowly for Bonham, who galloped
back alone and under cover of night, as when he left,
succeeded in returning to the Alamo with his an
nouncement of reinforcements within a short time.
But Urrea was j marching upon Goliad and the
news was carried to Fannin, compelling him to return
with haste to his own garrison, and thus the Alamo
heard nothing from aid from that direction.
Meanwhile the courier who had first set out for
San Felipe had succeeded in arousing the garrison at
Gonzales and thirty-two courageous volunteers broke
through the Mexican lines on the eighth day of the
siege and got within the enclosure, where they were
enthusiastically received by Travis, who yet hoped
that enough might come from various garrisons and
settlements to enable him to hold the fortress against
the enemy.
But in this hope he was to be disappointed. The
Mexicans were pressing hard and drawing closer and
closer. The distances between the colonists' posts were
great, and traveling was bad. Couriers were the only
means for the transporting of dispatches, and they
were often shot down and failed to reach their des
tination. The country was sparsely settled and with
difficulty could even small bands of fighting men be
gathered. It was the destiny of fate that the Alamo
was not to be relieved. The hundred and seventy-
58

seven brave heroes who were besieged within the mas
sive walls of the church and fortress were to be immo
lated upon the sacred altar of liberty, and the day of
their immolation was near.
Patriotic and Pathetic Appeal.
The Mexicans had not yet attacked the fort, so
Travis wrote a patriotic and pathetic appeal on the
24th of February and sent a second courier out of the
walls in the hope that he might get with safety to the
settlements and be able to arouse the scattered colon
ists to a concerted reinforcement and defense of the
city. His appeal speaks the story of his courage bet
ter than any words a historian might pen, reading as
follows :

"Gjmmandancy of the Alamo, Bexar, February 24, 1836.
"Fellow-Citizens andl Compatriots: I am besieged by a
thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna. I have
sustained a continued bombardment for twenty- four hours, and
have not lost a man. The enemy has demanded a surrender
at discretion ; otherwise the garrison is to be put to the sword
if the place is taken, I have answered the summons with a
cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls,
/ shall never surrender or retreat. Then I call on you in the
name of liberty, of patriotism, and of everything dear to the
American character, to come to our aid with all dispatch.
The enemy are receiving reinforcements daily, and will no
doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days.
Though this call may be neglected, I am determined to sus
tain myself as long as possible, and die like a soldier who for
gets not what is due to his own honor and that of his coun
try. Victory or death ! W. Barrett Travis,
"Lieutenant-Colonel Commanding."
"P. S, — The Lord is on our side. When the enemy appeared
in sight we had not three bushels of corn. We have since
found in deserted houses eighty or ninety bushels, and got
into the walls twenty or thirty head of beeves. T."
59

On the first day of March Travis made still an
other attempt to get in communication with the coun
cil, then in session in the town of Washington, in
which he told his compatriots of the situation and an
nounced his intention of holding out to the last wheth-
.er relief should come or not.
"Blood-red banners fly from the church at Bexar
(Cathedral San Fernando) and the camp entirely sur
rounding the Alamo are tokens that the war is one of
vengeance against the 'Rebels.' I shall continue to
hold the Alamo until I get relief from my country
men, or shall perish in the attempt."
Evidently anticipating the inevitable he wrote a
friend to take care of his little boy, adding in the let
ter: "If the country should be saved I may make
h.'m a splendid fortune; but if lost, I perish and he is
the son of one who died for his country."
This boy, then a lad of tender years, was later a
member of the Texas legislature, a captain in the
United States army, and at one time belonged to Col
onel Sidney Johnston's regiment.
These letters were sent by couriers who never re
turned. The distances they had to travel were so
great that the Alamo had fallen probably even before
they got to their destination.
THE DAWN OF BATTLE MORN.

It was on the sixth of March, 1836, on a beautiful
Sabbath morning at the close of the first week of the
month, in the loveliest springtime in Texas, that the
Alamo fell. 60

FACADE OF mission DE SAX JOSE, 1718.

In order to get an intelligent and appreciative un
derstanding of the situation the exercise of a little ret-
lospection is required.
When the battle of the Alamo occurred there were
but a few thousand people in all that vast domain em
braced within the geographical limits of Texas.
Louisiana was still but a province, St. Louis but a
trading post. There was no Chicago. The iron horse
had not yet disturbed the slumbers and reveries of the
residents of the numerous peaceful valleys of the
United States. The telegraph was unknown. There
was no Kansas, no Nebraska, no Dakota, no state of
California. Texas was as far removed from American civiliza
tion in that day as South Africa is from England at
the present time. The nearest settlement worthy the
name was two hundred miles from San Antonio. The
country was one vast area of prairie and chaparral,
the home of the Indian and buffalo, the cayote and
cougar. The Alamo was the strongest fortress in the
territory, San Antonio the central post of military
operations. It being the strongest of them all any
help that might come would have to come from weaker
stations. The city was so isolated that it was a kingdom in
itself. The traveler would ride day after day with
out seeing a habitation of any kind, a ranch, a jackal
("hacal") or even a dugout, coming upon San Antonio
and its mission settlements out of the depths of the
mesquite, a city of the valley and plains, hidden in the
63

mighty pecan and cottonwoods of the river, isolated
and alone.
In the stone church of the Franciscans were grouped
a hundred and seventy-seven courageous American
pioneers. Outside were five thousand Mexican soldiers under
a tyrannical leader, seeking to break down the pro
tecting barriers of stone and mortar and massacre
them all.
From the tablet of memory the present geography
and substantial cities and towns and railroads and
enterprises of the United States and the great South
west must be effaced.
Only the Alamo, the little town west of the river,
the handful of American defenders and the gaudily-
dressed and well-equipped Mexican army without the
walls, form the picture upon which the sun rose on
that beautiful Sabbath in the Texas springtime, when
nature was arrayed in her best garb and the soft air
was laden with the delicious perfume of a thousand
flowers, the birds warbling their sweet melodies in the
leafy bowers of the majestic trees, and the oncoming
light of the rising orb of day dispelling the mists of
the valley.
It was the hour when the monks would have been
at prayer.
The siege had dragged its weary length along partly
because Santa Anna had waited for reinforcements.
He had learned by the experience of his generals in
the field that the Texans were desperate fighters, and
64

that nothing but overwhelming numbers could over
come them. He already had nearly five thousand men,
but he waited for the arrival of an additional force ol
two thousand more, under command of General Tolza,
before beginning his final attack upon the garrison and
church. Tolza arrived on the 3d of March, and now
an army of seven thousand Mexicans surrounded the
Alamo. On the 5th the commander-in-chief communicated
his plans to his generals. Unusual quantities of am
munition were distributed to the troops, and scaling
ladders and crowbars were parceled out as a part of
the equipment.
During the night of the 5th the troops were assigned
their positions and were marched to their respective
stands. The Matamoras Battalion was halted on a
favorable position near the river. Behind the Alamo
General Cos occupied a commanding station with two
thousand well-trained troops, among them those he
had led out of the mission when the Americans came
into its possession, General Tolza's command holding
the ground to the south. The attacking troops were
under Amat, but Santa Anna was the power behind
them all. Official Orders for Attack.

The following official orders governing the attack
have been preserved in history:
"The reserves will be composed of the battalion of Sappers
and Miners, and the five companies of the Grenadiers of the
Matamoras, Jimenes and Aldamas battalions of regulars, and
of the Toluca and San Luis battalions of volunteers.
"The reserve will be commanded by the General-in-Chief in
65

person, at the time of making the attack, but these forces will
be organized by Col, Don Agustin Amat, under whose control
they will remain from this evening, and who will conduct
them to the point which will be designated to him at the
groper time.
"The first column will be provided with ten scaling ladders,
two crowbars and two axes p the second will be provided with
the same quantity; the third with six, and the fourth with
two. The men carrying the ladders will sling their guns over
their shoulders, so as to leave them entirely free to place their
ladders wherever they may be directed.
"Grenadier and cavalry companies will be supplied with
six packages of cartridges to the man, and to the infantry
companies four with two extra flints. The latter will be en
cumbered with neither overcoats, blankets nor anything which
will impede the rapidity of their movements. During the day
all caps will be provided with chin straps. Corps command
ers will pay particular attention to this provision, and are also
required to see that the men are provided with shoes, or other
covering for their feet.
"The men composing the attacking column will retire to rest
at sundown, preparatory to moving at midnight.
"The men not well drilled will remain at their quarters,
"Arms, particularly bayonets, will be put in the best condi
tion, "When the moon rises the riflemen of the San Luis battallion
of volunteers will retire to their quarters, abandoning the
points they cover along the line, so as to give them time to
put their equipage in readiness,
"The cavalry, under the command of Gen, Don Joaquin
Ramirezy y Sesma, will occupy the Alameda, and saddle up
at 3 o'clock in the morning. It will be their duty to watch
the camp, and prevent the escape of anyone who may attempt
to do so.
"The honor of the nation, and of the army, being involved
in this contest against the daring foreigners in our front, His
Excellency, the General-in-Chief, expects that each man will
perform his duty, and contribute his share in securing a day
of glory to his country, and of honor to the Federal Govern
ment, which knows how to honor the brave men of the army
of operations who shall distinguish themselves by performing
feats of valor, ,.j^^^ Valentine Amador,"
"I certify the foregoing to be a true copy.
"Ramon Martines Coro, Secretary."
"A correct translation, David G, Whiting,
"Translator General Land Office,"
66

N. B. — This order, Becerra said, was issued March 5, 1836,
and copied next day.
This was the order given by the President of Mexico, and
commander of her armies, to six thousand Mexicans, the elite
of the Mexican army, who had been besieging less than two
hundred Texans for thirteen days. It speaks for itself.
On March 7th Gen. Santa Anna issued a "Proclamation,"
in which he speaks of the immolation of the Texans as a mat
ter of justice, and argues that the "Army of Operations" has
been marched into Texas for the performance of such deeds.

Within the Alamo the gallant little band of Ameri
cans were waiting patiently for the attack they knew
would come.
Travis had called them all together, from church
and fortress, from barracks and prison, from hospital
and kitchen, and had given them his farewell address.
This will be found in Historical Sketch No. i. Then
in silence and with determination they repaired to
their various stations, prepared to fight to the end, to
deal blow for blow, take life for life, and surrender
only in the arms of death, never in the -hands of the
enemy. The roof of the church held their cannon.
Behind its embattlement they would fight to the last.
If driven from the azotea they would seek the refuge
of the heavy-walled rooms, and there in hand-to-hand
struggle would hold on to the death.
There were no dissenters. But one man, whose
name was Rose, preferred to try to escape, and he low
ered himself beyond the rear wall, battered down in
previous conflicts. History, gives no record of his fate.
It could not have been better than that of the patriots
who preferred to stay, the surrounding limits being
67

overrun with Mexican soldiers on the lookout for
escaping Texans. The Battle Begins.
With the approach of dawn the Mexicans began
their closing in. On every side the brilliant equipment
of a gaudy troop glittered in the darting streaks of the
rising sun. From out the trees they came. From out
the chapparal their forms rose like a mighty swell.
Behind the Alamo General Cos, whom the Americans
had paroled on honor, led his regiments of Montezu-
mas directly under the walls on the East. Santa Anna
came from across the river, behind the main body of
the army, urging them on with all the wickedness of a
demon and the skill of a trained chieftain.
As the sun rose over the hill to the East the sharp
rattle of musketry was reverberating through the bush
on every side, while the heavy boom of the Mexican
cannon from across the river and to the South of the
fortress echoed and re-echoed down the valley and to
the river's springs. A perfect rain of shot and shell,
a hail of minnie balls and musketry lead, kept sweeping
the parapets of the Alamo. The Mexicans pressed on,
coming closer and closer, drawing their lines tighter
and tighter on every side of the fortress, the little band
of Americans biding their time.
Travis and Crockett and Bonham were calm. Bowie
was below on his dying couch, violently ill with pneu
monia, but from his bed he encouraged the men and
calmed the women. Occasionally the sharp crack of a
Texas rifle told the story of the death of a Mexican
68

officer, the patriots reserving their fire for the com
manders and until the scaling of the walls, which they
knew was to come, should have been begun.
FinaUy this moment arrived. The Mexicans pressed
their men forward. The outer walls were attacked
with rams and cannon and were easily broken down.
The enclosure outside the church swarmed with the
dark-skinned Latins, bent on the destruction of the
hated race within, and the time had come for action by
the patriots which should count for all they might be
able to give.
"Boom," "boom," sung their cannon from parapet
and comer into the swarm below. "Crack," "crack,"
"ping," "ping," sang their rifles, and before their gall
ing fire of ball and slug a thousand Mexicans went to
earth. The Texans fought like fiends. Their carnage was
awful. Every man was an expert with his gun and
employed it to the best advantage.
As the ladders were thrown against the outer walls
of the church and barracks and Mexican heads would
show themselves on the upper rounds, above the wall,
"crack" would go a rifle or a pistol, and down would
fall a swarthy form.
But their numbers made their losses little felt, and
under the prodding of their commander's swords and
the wild excitement of the conflict others would mount
the ladders and get to the top, only to fall upon the
stricken form of a comrade who had already gone the
way. The cannon were no longer of service on either side.
69

The conflict had resolved itself into a personal encoun
ter between man and man.
The Texans shot as long as they had ammunition,
and then clubbed the Mexicans down the walls, until
exhausted by their struggles and laborious physical
efforts they began to fall and the Mexicans saw their
victory. Over the walls they climbed and fell. With clubbed
rifles, pistol butts and knives the Americans kept up
the struggle. The plaza of the monastery was full of
the dark-skinned fighters by this time, the American
force being diminished moment by moment.
It was an awful carnage, a slaughter whose equal
has not been recorded since the day of Thermopylae.
Under a fierce ramming and barring the Northeast
corner of the monastery gave way, and through the
break Castrillion forced his men. The plaza was filled
in a minute, the court was packed, and the North doors
of the church, into which the Americans had backed
for their final stand, was attacked by a tremendous
power of men and rams. The openings were blocked
by sacks of sand, behind which dodged the remaining
patriots, picking off a man here and there with leaden
balls, nails and scraps of iron, with which they were
compelled to load their guns.
The doors were blown in with powder blasts and
then, after the fearful struggle, which had now lasted
more than two and a half hours, Mexican and Texan
faced each other in the burying ground of the Alamo,
the main body making their final stand in the audito
rium of the chapel. 70

INTIOItlCIK (11.' AI.AMO, WITH MIIDIOUN UOOF, VVIIKUW FINAL S'l'AND WAS MADl':

Again the Mexicans brought their cannon into play,
so dreadful had been the havoc the Americans wrought
among them. The front doors were attacked with
grape and canister, yielding at last to a terrific bom
bardment, which cost the Americans many a life. Into
the chapel the Mexicans madly rushed, over the bodies
of patriots killed by the grape and canister fire they fell.
The Americans were now attacked in their final cham
ber of death from behind and in front, and there they
fought as never men fought before, until every heart
had been stilled in death and every voice had been
forever hushed.
With pistol-butt and rifle, knife and bayonet, with
stones and pieces of iron, they fought their death-
fight, overwhelmed and crushed by force of numbers,
no one asking for quarter, none offering it to the other.
The confusion was awful, the carnage frightful.
The crack of firearms, the shouts of defiance and
groans of pain, the death agonies of the wounded, the
screaming of the women, the loud reverberation of the
cannon without, fired in upon the gallant handful
which were left, what an awful contrast within the
sacred walls of the old Franciscan chapel with the serv
ice to God which was solemnized on the Sabbath of
the monks and their converts!
Down into the very jaws of death climbed the Mexi
cans who scaled those walls and swarmed the yards,
and into the jaws of death madly rushed the bronze
soldier who dared his way to the chapel. It cost a life
to enter a room, even the bedridden Bowie fighting
73

from his couch and yielding only when he fell back
upon his pillow with his life shot out.
History tells that Travis was killed early in action
and that Crockett, Evans and Bonham directed the
fighting as long as further directing was to be done.
Under a dying injunction from the leader Captain
Evans tried to blow up the magazine at the final mo
ment, that he and his compatriots might perish by their
own act and not by the hand of the invader, but as he
was touching the light to the fuse he fell, pierced to
the heart by a Mexican bullet, and the carnage went on.
Crockett was among the last to die. His "Betsy"
made many a Mexican rue the day he had joined the
army, and when there was no more time to load he
clubbed many a foe to death with his gun before he
finally succumbed, his body bullet-ridden for minutes
before he gave up the struggle.
yf >f >f
It was well along toward the middle of the forenoon
before the conflict ended. The Americans had fought
against insurmountable odds, and had held out against
an enemy of tremendous strength, vicious cunning and
revengeful head and heart. Every inch of ground had
been contested. For every Texan's life the Mexicans
had paid thirteen fold.
The church was a morgue and charnel house. Mexi
cans and Americans were lying in clusters and piles
in every corner and angle. The floors of the smaller
rooms were actually covered by the lifeless forms of
the combatsiPts,. while cords of bodies of brown and
74

white were clumped before the main doorway, over
which the hordes who had broken through in the final
struggle had had to climb.
In his report to the commander-in-chief a Mexican
officer wrote as follows:
"An order was given me to gather our dead and
wounded. It was a fearful sight. Lifeless soldiers
covered the ground surrounding the Alamo, and were
heaped in piles inside the fortress. Blood and brains
covered the ground and spattered the walls. Ghastly
faces met our eyes as we moved them with despondent
hearts. Our loss in front of the Alamo was represent
ed by two thousand killed and three hundred wounded.
The killed received their wounds in the head, neck and
shoulders, rarely below that. The firing of tlie be
sieged was terribly accurate, and when a Texan rifle
was leveled on a Mexican he was considered as good
as dead. All this indicated bravery and cool self-pos
session of the men engaged in a hopeless conflict with
an enemy numbering more than thirty to one. They
infficted on us a loss ten times greater than they sus
tained." The victory of the Alamo was dearly bought. A
hundred and seventy-six Americans had held them at
bay for twelve days of siege, and, finally, though every
man among them was massacred, this gallant little
band had sold their lives at the expense to their foe of
two thousand killed and three hundred wounded. For
every American life there had been expended more
than thirteen Mexican soldiers, the flower of the Dic
tator's splendid army. 75

The siege and battle of the Alamo caused intense ex
citement throughout the country and aroused the in
terest of the United States in the cause of Texas. Of
ficially the great republic did not interfere. But indi
vidually thousands of her citizens hurried to the fron
tier and took up arms with the Texans, excited to ac
tion by the courage and fortitude of the heroes of the
Alamo, whose immolation made Texas free.
Monument Erected and Destroyed.
The Alamo is the monument of the State to the
heroes who met death within. It is held as a State
Museum, sustained under contract with the State by
the city of San Antonio.
To an Englishman named Nagle belongs the honor
of having originated the first statue to those who de
fended the fortress, which unfortunately was destroyed
by fire when the capitol at Austin burned, in 1880, and
which has not been reproduced.
It stood at the entrance to the capitol; on its four
sides, above the inscriptions, being carved the names
of Travis, Bowie, Crockett and Bonham.
On the North front of the statue was the following
inscription :
"To the God of the Fearless and Free Is Dedicated
This Altar of the Alamo."
On the West front it read :
"Blood of Heroes Hath Stained Me. Let the Alamo
Speak, That Their Immolation Be Not Forgotten."
On the South front it read: 76

"Be They Enrolled With Leonidas in the Host of the
Mighty Dead."
On the East front there was the following inscrip
tion: "Thermopylae Had Her ^lessenger of Defeat, But
the Alamo Had None."
Perhaps at some future time, may be even within the
Ufe of the present generation, Texas will again build
a monument and place it at the front of her splendid
capitol building, which shall be commemorative of the
deeds done in the body by the gallant heroes who died
so nobly in the cause of liberty and independence.
^ ^ yf
Following the si^e and battle of the Alamo the
bodies of the Americans who had been so ruthlessly
slain therein were taken to where the German Catholic
church now stands, oa East Commerce street, and
there were burned. Under orders from Santa Anr.
Colonel ^lora sent out his troops ro bring in wood, and
alternate layers of cord wood and bodies were piled
into a great funeral pyre, from which the smoke rose
on high as incense, lost in the great canopy as it
wended its way heavenward. Later the bones of the
martyrs were gathered and buried by Colonel Juan N.
S^uin. And thus ended the most memorable struggle re
corded in all the history of America, ilany deeds of
valor have immortalized her citizens. Many cour
ageous ccmfficts mark the pathway of American civili-
zati<m. The Revolutionary War and the unfortunate

struggle between the States witnessed many a deed of
heroism, many a sacrifice that should not have been.
But to the Alamo remains the glory of the most un
daunted bravery, the credit of the most courageous
heroism, and the shame of the blackest massacre that
American history records. Its significance was great,
its achievement worthy the best effort of the ablest in-
scriber of history's best deeds. The visitor cannot but
be profoundly impressed as he stands within the sacred
walls of this ancient church and fortress, and to him
the lives and work of the heroes who fell in its defense
cannot but be a glorious inspiration.

FROM THE ALAMO TO SAN JACINTO.

From the Alamo to San Jacinto is but a 'step. In
toxicated by his success in destroying the garrison at
the former Santa Anna lost no time in making prep
arations for an invasion further East. Mrs. Dickinson
and her child were put upon a horse and sent to Hous
ton's headquarters as a messenger of victory and de
fiance. The Alamo had fallen, the American must go.
But the Texans were made of sterner stuff. The
fall of the Alamo both shocked and enraged them.
They had not dreamed that so large an army would be
brought from the City of Mexico to overcome the gar
rison, and its destruction came as a complete surprise.
Nor had it been expected that Santa Anna himself
would take the field. 78

Houston lost no time in calling his councillors to
gether and gathering an army of defense. Travis'
appeal did not reach him until the day the Alamo fell.
Its courage had a thrilHng effect upon the patriots, and
by the nth Houston had gathered several hundred
troops together and had got as far west as Gonzales.
There it was thought to make a stand, but finding a
garrison of less than three hundred men a retreat was
ordered until reinforcements could be had.
Fannin was ordered to gather in his men and join
the main force, after burying his cannon and destroy
ing the fort. But it took time to get couriers out to
the various bodies of troops scouting the frontier, and
Urrea came upon him when but a few miles from
Goliad and he and his force were destroyed, cruelly
massacred a few days after their honorable surrender,
under promise of parole and return to Louisiana.
The destruction of Fannin further fired the patriot
heart, and Houston's force increased day by day.
Santa Anna had meanwhile styled himself the "Na
poleon of the West" and had heralded his determina
tion to destroy every settlement and town and slaugh
ter every American his forces might capture. Gon
zales was burned shortly after the patriots had re
treated from it, and on to the East the victorious Mex
icans marched.
But the end was near. The Colonist army had
swelled to several thousand men. Their intrepid leader
inspired them with courage, and the battle-cry of "Re
member the Alamo! Remember Goliad!" cemented
them as a single man, bent on freedom and revenge.
79

On the 2 1 St of April the contending armies met at
San Jacinto. When Houston's forces had crossed the
river he burned the bridges behind them. Escape there
was none. It was victory or death, and victory meant
liberty. It is beyond the scope of this monograph to detail
the combat of San Jacinto. It was a hard-fought bat
tle, a combat to the death, a struggle for independence.
The Americans won. Their valor was a marvel to the
Mexican chieftain. Such bravery and dashing courage
he had never met on the field of battle. The heroes of
the Alamo fought behind heavy walls, the heroes of
San Jacinto in the open field. The Mexican forces
were overwhelmed and dismayed.
General Cos was captured and was shot for having
violated his San Antonio parole. Santa Anna escaped
until the next day, when he was captured and taken
before Houston. That he was not made to pay the
penalty of death for his deeds was due to Houston's
magfnanimity and because it was believed that with him
as a prisoner better terms for independence might be
secured. The Mexican commander was held captive until a
Treaty of Peace and Independence was drawn, on the
14th of May, when Texas became a free and indepen
dent republic, a sovereign nation, later to become a
member of the galaxy that forms the American Union.
An interesting event in connection with the signing
of the treaty was that not having a seal Governor
Burnett cut from his coat a button bearing the lone
star and an oak leaf and laurel wreath and impressed
80

it thereupon, thus giving to Texas her seal, her flag
and her sobriquet, tiie Lone Star State.
The flag that had waved over the Alamo during the
American occupation was the tri-colored Mexican ban
ner, with the date of the Texas Constitution emblaz
oned thereon. With the massacre the IMexicans flew
their own to the breeze, the tri-color with snake and
eagle as an emblem.
The president of the Republicans at that time. Deaf
Smith, whose sobriquet came from defective hearing,
marched to the relief of the Alamo upon receipt of
Travis' appeal, but as he got within sight of the city
could see the Mexican colors and knew that the garri
son had fallen. Compelled to retrace his steps he over
took Mrs, Dickinson and her child and guide and acted
as their escort to San Felipe.
Later she and her daughter resided in San Antonio,
living in this city to the time of her death.

81

PART. II.

HISTORICAL SKETCH NO. i.

The long room into which the visitor first enters
when inspecting the Alamo was originally the nave of
the church when the buildings were used as a mission.
It is also where the bloodiest of the battle occurred,
after the Americans withdrew from the roof and were
driven within from the yard and outlying buildings.
During the siege it had been converted into a hospital
for the sick and wounded of the garrison. It was into
this room that the intrepid Travis called his gallant
band on the 4th of March, but two days before the
massacre, and explained the desperateness of the situ
ation to them.
"My Comrades : Stern necessity compels me to im
prove these few moments, while the enemy have ceased
bombarding and withdrawn to an unusual distance.
We are overwhelmed and our fate is sealed; within a
few days, perhaps within a few hours, we must be in
eternity. "I have continually received the promise of help and
have long deceived you by extending you this hope,
82

from the fullness of my heart, instilling you with cour
age and bravery, as it has been extended me by the
council at home.
"But they have evidently not been informed of our
perilous condition or ere this would have come to our
rescue. My last call on Colonel Fannin remains un
answered and my messengers have not returned. The
probabilities are his command has fallen into the hands
of the enemy or that our couriers have been cut off and
have not reached him."
So little of bitterness did he feel in that sad hour that
his soul in its sublimity had no reproach or censure.
Continuing, he said to them :
"It is no longer a question of how we may save our
lives, but a question as to how best to prepare for death
and serve our country. If we surrender we will be
shot without taking the life of a single enemy. If we
try to make our escape through the Mexican lines we
will be butchered before we can dispatch our adver
saries. To either of these I am opposed, and ask you
to withstand every advance of the enemy. And when
they shall scale our walls at last and storm the fort let
us slay them as they come, as they leap within slay
them, as they raise their weapons to slay our compan
ions slay we all of them until our arms are powerless
to lift our swords in defense of ourselves, our com
rades and our country.
"Yet to every man I give permission to surrender or
escape. My desire and decision is to remain in the
fort and fight as long as breath remains in my body.
But do as you think best, each of you, and those who
83

consent to remain with me to the end will give me joy
unspeakable." His speech was received in silence. It was no occa
sion for cheers and enthusiasm. It was a solemn mo
ment, and the silence was oppressive. Stepping from
where he had stood Travis drew a line with his sword
on the dirt floor of the chapel, from right to left of
the file, and taking his position on this line he left it
to the little band to indicate their position.
"Those who will remain and fight till we die step
across this line to my right."
Colonel Bowie called to his attendants to carry his
cot across the line and place it by his leader's side. It
was the signal for action. Every man but one followed
him. Moses Rose declined. With his face covered by
his hands he stood a moment, wrapt in thought, hes
itating as to what he should do.
Bowie spoke up and said to him : "Rose, you do not
seem to be willing to die with the rest."
"No," he replied thoughtfully and earnestly, "I am
not prepared to die and shall not if I can avoid it. I
speak the language of the enemy fluently, and perhaps
if I can clear the lines I may escape. I do not like
to leave, but life is dear to me and I shall go."
He gathered his things together, bid his farewell to
the men he knew best, and dropping over the wall was
gone. He escaped the lines and was cared for a few
days at a settler's home, after which nothing of him is
known. William Barrett Travis was a remarkable character
of bravery and self-possession, a courteous knight, a
84

thorough soldier. He was born in South Carolina, in
Edgefield district, on the 31st of July, 1809, moved to
Alabama in 1818, to Conecuh County, in this and in
Monroe County studied law, and was admitted to the
bar before coming to Texas. He was a man of re
fined appearance and conduct, of stern yet gentle fea
tures. He was but twenty-seven years old at the time
of his death. ^ >f ^
For a long time following the siege the Alamo was
more or less in a state of ruin. The Mexican armies
moved on eastward, operating in that part of Texas
until defeated at San Jacinto, and gave it no attention.
The colonists repaired the worst breaks during the life
of the Republic, but in 1848 the United States govern
ment put the building in what may be said to be its
present state of repair. They floored it, however, with
board floors, upper and lower, using the building for
commissary purposes, these floors being removed when
the building was set aside by the legislature as a State
Historical Museum, in 1883, when the city took pos
session of it and tried to put it back to its original con
dition, as far as could be done with safety, except a
few openings left for convenience, as it is to be seen
to-day. The original walls were solid, without windows ex
cept those ornamenting the West front. The heavy
columns on the North and South walls of the nave sup
ported arches which sustained the roof, made of stone
and mortar. These arches stood out in a series, vaulting
into a dome over the arms or transcepts, as the nave
85

forms the shape of a cross. The dome was crowned
by a small cupola, supplied with windows, through
which the light from above fell on the altar in perfect
ray. With the aid of the light from the front win
dow and portal this was sufficient for the needs of the
chapel. Above the entrance was an organ loft of solid
masonry, as is still preserved in Mission Concepcion.
The roof spanning the space over which the dome
rose is now braced by two stone pillars, added during
the occupancy of the United States.
The outer walls of the mission having been consid
ered a safe, protection the monks did not supply the
inner openings with doors, all of them opening directly
into the nave. ^ ^ yf
The main doorway was of mountain cedar and mes
quite panels, beautifully carved and adorned, traces of
the ornamentation yet to be seen in the doors of San
Jose. Above the portal can be seen the monogram, "M. A.
R.," "Maria Angelorum Regina" — Mary Queen of
Angels. Of later cut are the initials "N. O. D." — Nationum
Omnium Domina — Mistress of All Nations — ^this per
taining to the vast influence and possessions of Spain
at that time — 1744, the date of the mission's comple
tion. ^ >? *?
The mission proper was erected upon consecrated
ground, and surrounded by a court of its own, this
enclosed in an inner wall, which the monks considered
86

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adequate protection against attack. The inner wall
separated the Alamo from the Plaza San Velaro, the
latter being a small square or plaza before the monas
tery, into which, along the outer west wall, domestic
dwellings opened for the Indians.
The inner wall gave the Alamo a double protection
on the West and South, the ditch forming the division
line on the East. Not until the Texans had retreated
into the church did the Mexicans force an entrance
into this inner court and plant their guns before the
front door of the church, a continuous rain of fire from
the patriot's rifles holding them back until the Texans
were so reduced that they could keep up the continu
ous musketry no longer.
The inner wall of the mission is shown in the plan
of the Alamo to be found in this brochure. It has
been told -by historians that the enemy broke into the
Alamo by the window on the South, which, however,
was not there at the time of the siege. Nor was the
Alamo roofless, as has been heralded by various writers
on the history of Texas. It was from the roof, or azo
tea, that much of the fiercest fighting occurred, and
not until the outer wall of the monastery had been
scaled on the North, and until the cannons of the
Mexican army had battered down the front door of
the mission did Santa Anna's forces crowd in hordes
into the Alamo as we see it to-day, slaughtering the
small American force which remained until every man
had fallen.
The Sacristy which had been converted into a maga
zine, was a blind room inside the Alamo, and had Col-
89

onel Evans succeeded in lighting it with the torch not
only would the little band which had taken their final
refuge inside its sacred walls have perished, but the
building itself, so sacred to every Texan who gives
heed to the valorous deeds of its martyrs, would have
been destroyed. The intrepid Evans fell, pierced by
a Mexican bullet, as the vanguard broke through the
door, fighting their way over the bodies of their com
rades and those of the Texans who had fallen with
them in the hand-to-hand encounter which followed
the bombardment of the Mexicans' guns. A minute
more and the destruction would have been complete.
The Alamo is seventy-five feet long, sixty-two feet
wide, its walls are at present twenty-two feet high and
four feet thick. They formerly extended three or four
feet above the roof, forming a parapet of stone from
behind which the Americans fought so successfully.
The azotea, or roof, had afforded the monks a breath
ing place where they were safe from intrusion, as
also from the arrow of the savage and the stray shot
of the marauder.
Could the secrets of this chapel be told, .the secrets
of the Franciscans in their solitude, of the Indians in
their superstitions and fears, of the Mexicans in their
hatreds of the Americans and the Americans in their
hatreds of the Mexicans, could the heavy walls speak
and tell the tales of anguish, sorrow, suffering and
death that have been a part of their history, what a vol
ume they might produce ! The deeds of valor, the min
istering kindnesses, the religious consolation, the wor
ship of God, that have been a part of the lives of those
90

'r^

ROOM TO LEFT OF ENTRANCE, WHERE COLONEL BOWIE LAY SICK,
Showinc Dart of stone root. Size of room. 11Uxl2 feet.

walls, of that roof and floor, of that altar and those
dark rooms, make up a record not often assigned to a
single church. The Alamo stands for a great deal
more than the thoughtless citizen and the careless vis
itor give heed. To-day its portals are opened wide to
every one who cares to enter within the sacred pre
cincts of America's Thermopylae.

HISTORICAL SKETCH NO. 2.

The small room to the left, as the visitor enters the
Alamo, is where Bowie lay sick, convalescing from
pneumonia, under the care of Madame Candelaria dur
ing the siege. He was too ill to take an active part in
the conflict but fought to the last when the enemy
forced itself into the chapel, after he- had been moved
across the way to an opposite r(Xim.
Bowie's troop were volunteers and preferred not to
serve under the command of Travis, who had charge of
the regulars. The latter wanted harmony and gra
ciously submitted to an election by the men to see who
should be commander-in-chief, he being the youngest
of the officers among them. Bowie was still the favor
ite of his own company, but they accepted Travis as the
general choice and served him faithfully and well.
It was under Houston's orders that Bowie had
joined the troop in the Alamo. He had been assigned
to GoHad and adjacent points to confer with other
officers of the volunteers, and after the performance
of that duty had repaired to San Antonio. Caught
93

helpless on his sick bed Bowie showed the stuff of
which he was made by firing from his couch with a
pistol, dispatching several of the Mexicans as they bore
down upon him, and finally, in the very struggles of
death, resting on his elbow on his cot, he fought as one
possessed of superhuman strength with the knife that
bears his name until pinioned by Mexican bayonets,
withdrawn only after the victory had been complete
and every American was dead.
James Bowie was an unusually intrepid and daring
man, a member of a family of fighters as famous as
the famous McCooks. His ancestry were sturdy Pres
byterians, the father's side from Scotland, the moth
er's from Wales. His grandfather came to America
in 1705, and with his son was a signer of the "Declara
tion of the Freemen of Maryland." In all the Ameri
can wars the Bowies have played their part, that of
bravery and patriotism. In the short war with France
in 1800, in the War of 1812, in the war with Mexico,
in the Nicaraguan expedition, in the Texas conflict,
in the Civil War and in the late war with Spain Bowies
have wielded the sword and carried the musket, never
declining to hear and obey their country's call, always
at the front and in the thickest of the fight.
James was no exception. He loved war and courted
danger. According to a biography written by his
brother he was born in Logan County, Kentucky, in
the spring of 1796. His father was Rezin Bowie, his
mother the daughter of a Welsh immigrant named
Jones. The elder Bowie had been wounded and cap
tured by the British in the storming of Savannah and

94

had been nursed by Miss Jones in the military hospi
tal. . The acquaintance and friendship there begun
ended in the plighting of their troth and the consum
mation of a happy married life, blessed by eight chil
dren, of whom James was the seventh.
The Bowies moved to Louisiana when the lad was
but four years old, taking up their residence on Bush-
ley Bayou, Catahoula Parish. Nine years later they
moved to Opeloussas, where the balance of James' boy
hood life was spent. The country was new, the life
that of frontiersmen. As a boy Col. Bowie was fond
of hunting and roaming the forests, of lassoing alli
gators, trapping bears and breaking untamed horses.
The more strenuous the sport the greater to his liking.
At the age of eighteen he started in business for him
self, establishing a clearing and lumber camp on Bayou
Boeuf, where he engaged for several years in the profit
able business of floating and marketing logs, occasion
ally visiting New Orleans in the interests of his busi
ness. Here he met Lafitte, the Galveston pirate, and, lured
by the prospects of larger gains, joined with him
in privateering for a time, the laxity of the laws and
their enforcement encouraging their disobedience and
defiance. Together with his brothers, Rezin and John,
he also at one time engaged in illegal speculation in
negroes and in a system of irregular practices against
the government, these experiences being the dark spots
that becloud an otherwise commendable and spotless
career. With monies gained in the lumber business and in
97

his temporary experience as a privateer Bowie invested
in lands, traded successfully, and soon amassed con
siderable wealth. He was provident and prospered.
Later he engaged with activity in local politics and af
fairs, never running for office himself but becoming a
factor of no inconsiderable importance in the campaigns
of his country. Possessed of great personal magnetism,
a hale fellow in every walk of life, an orator of no
mean ability, and a man of the people, he won thou
sands of friends and was an accepted factor in the
molding of the government of the frontier. He was
an open-hearted, sincere and loyal friend, a deadly and
daring enemy. But he also possessed the power to
forgive and forget, and while it was said of him that
he could hate "with all the rancor of an Indian" he
could also forget and forgive with the charity of a
woman. James had always felt an interest in the affairs of
Texas from the time of his association witli Jean La
fitte, and before the war cloud appeared upon the hori
zon he decided to emigrate westward. Coahuilla and
Texas were at that time one commonwealth, with Sal
tillo their capital. Bowie wanted to establish a cotton
mill and had to go to Saltillo for permission and a
grant. There he met and fell in love with the daughter
of the vice-governor, marrying Ursallita Veramendi
and locating at the capital, establishing his mills in the
immediate vicinity. Two children had been bom to them
when cholera devastated Mexico and his wife and chil
dren were taken from him. Broken-hearted he re
turned to Texas just before the outbreak between that
98

territory and the mother country occurred, and im
mediately allied his fortunes with the Americans, be
coming at once a colonel of Texas volunteers.
Colonel Bowie participated in almost every impor
tant skirmish and battle in the Texas war for independ
ence. At Nacogdoches, at San Saba, in the grass
fight, at the battle before Concepcion, at Goliad and
finally at the fall of the Alamo he distinguished himself
with such daring and bravery that he was the idol of
his men and the dread of the enemy. As Santa Anna
was burning the bodies of the heroes of the Alamo
he at first ordered Bowie's buried, remarking that he
was too brave a man to be burned like a dog. Later
he rescinded the order, however, with a "Pues no es
casa, escade!" — "Never mind, throw him in." The
Mexican chieftain had been godfather to Ursalita Ver
amendi, whom Bowie had married.
Bowie was impulsive, brave, sensitive to an inordi
nate degree, endowed with a splendid physique and a
clear mind. His early life had been characterized by
the usual list of frontier brawls and excitements, in
more than one of which his life had been seriously
endangered and in several of which he had been
wounded. He knew no fear, was courageous to rash
ness, acted first and thought afterwards as a younger
man. His later Hfe was thoughtful, noble, charitable
and that of a man who, brave as a lion himself, recog
nized and admired the same element in others. Small
wonder that he was adored by his men.
The knife which bears his name was given him by
his brother upon the occasion of one of his Indian
scoutings, prior to his removal to Mexico.
99

From kinsmen of the fallen hero, Mr. S. J. Bowie
of Anniston, Alabama, and Mr. H. B. Mackoy of Cin
cinnati, the data of Bowie's life and career have been
secured. There is soon to be published a more ex
tensive account of his life than is possible in the pres
ent little volume. For their kindness in permitting a
review of advance manuscripts, whereby reliable and
detailed information has been gained, the gratitude of
the author is expressed.

HISTORICAL SKETCH NO. 3.

The room to the right of the entrance was the Bap
tistry when the Alamo was used as a mission. Dur
ing the siege it was in this that six of the heroes took
their last stand, after having been driven from room to
room, there defending the sick and the women, who
had taken refuge within.
The women were five in number, Mrs. Dickinson and
her daughter, Mrs. Alsbury and sister, and Madam
Candelaria, who was Colonel Bowie's nurse. The two
first named were wives of patriots within the walls.
What became of Mrs. Alsbury and sister history has
not recorded.
It was in this chamber of death that Bowie met his
fate. The latter had been moved into it, along with the
women, just as the Mexicans were successfully scaling
the walls. He was slain on his bed, fighting to the last.
Crockett, the last to die, fell just outside the entrance,
between the latter and the one next to it.
100

DOOR OF BAPTISTRY BEFORE WHICH CROCKETT FELL.

A Memorable Appeal.
An interesting incident in connection with the clos
ing scene of the massacre is related in a memorable
speech made by the Honorable Guy M. Bryan, a mem
ber of the legislature from Brazoria, advocating a joint
resolution looking to the relief of the infant daughter
of Almiram and Susannah Dickmson. Fired by the
memory of the siege and battle of the Alamo, he spoKe
in behalf of the heroine's cause as follows :
"I had intended, Mr. Speaker, to remain silent upon
this occasion. But silence would now be a reproach
when to speak is but a duty. No one has raised his
voice in behalf of this orphan child; several have
spoken against her claim. I rise. Sir, as an advocate of
no common cause. Liberty was its foundation, heroism
and martyrdom have consecrated it. I speak for the
orphan child of the Alamo. No orphan of the patriots
can send up a similar petition to this house. None
other can say, T am the child of the Alamo.'
"Well do I recollect the consternation . which was
spread throughout the land when the sad tidings
reached our ears that the Alamo had fallen. It was
here that a gallant few, the bravest of the brave, threw
themselves between the enemy and the settlements,
determined never to surrender or retreat. They re
deemed their pledge to Texas with the forfeit of their
lives. They fell the chosen sacrifice of Texan freedom.
"Texas, unapprised of the approach of the invader,
was sleeping in fancied security when the big gun of
the Alamo told that 'Atilla' of the South was near. In-
103

furiated by the resistance of Travis and his noble
band, he halted his whole army beneath the walls and
rolled wave after wave, surge after surge, of his
mighty host against these storm battlements of free
dom. In vain he strove. The flag of liberty, the Lone
Star of Texas, still streamed out upon the breeze and
proudly floated from the outer walls. Maddened,, he
pitched his tents and reared his batteries, and finally
stormed and took a black and ruined wall, the blood
stained walls of the Alamo. The noble martyred spir
its of every one of its gallant defenders had already
taken their flight to another fortress, one not made of
hands. "The detention of the enemy enabled Texas to re
cuperate her energies, to prepare for the struggle in
which freedom was the prize, slavery the forfeit. It en
abled her to assemble upon the Colorado that gallant
band, which but for Houston would then have fought
and beat the enemy, and which eventually triumphed
on the plains of San Jacinto and rolled back the tide
of war upon the ruthless invader.
"But for that stand at the Alamo, Texas would have
been desolated to the banks of the Sabine. Then, sir,
in view of these facts, I ask this house to vote the pit
tance prayed for. To whom ? To the living witness,
and her mother, of this awful tragedy, 'the bloodiest
picture in the book of time,' and the bravest act that
ever swelled the annals of any country.
"Grant this boon. She claims it as the christened
child of the Alamo, baptised in the blood of a Travis,
a Bowie, a Crockett and a Bonham. It would be a
104

MONK'S BURYING GROUND, 21x25 FBBT, LOOKING INTO
SACRISTY, 16x22 FBBT.

shame to Texas to turn her away. Give her what she
asks, in order that she may be educated and become a
worthy child of the State, and take that position in
society to which she is entitled by the illustrious name
of her martyred father, made illustrious because he
fell in the Alamo.
"Crockett ! Bowie I Travis ! Bonham I Fannin ! Re
member the Alamo !"
HISTORICAL SKETCH NO. 4.

The burying ground, a large inner room of the hos
pital department or nave of the church, had no connec-.
tion with the latter during the siege. It was originally
dark, and in the small niche to the right of the entrance
burned the holy light. This room connected with the
monastery from the small archway in the right-hand
comer, now walled in.
The number of monks buried beneath the floor of
this room has never been ascertained, nor were their
remains removed when the mission was vacated. A
current report is that when the soldiers were quartered
in the monastery they found several skulls and numer
ous bones within the sacristy.
The Sacristy adjoining was used as a powder mag
azine during the combat. The opening from this into
the church was originally a large doorway which is
now occupied by a small window. The original stone
roof shows that this room was much longer than now,
as the present partition intercepts a part of a second
Moorish dome. Mission San Jose has three of these
domes intact in its sacristy. 107

PART III.

SKETCH OF THE MISSIONS.

Mission de San Jose.
The main door of the Alamo, which has already been
mentioned, can be studied to better effect in the portal
of Mission San Jose, known as the Second Mission, in
order of distance from the city, four miles South of
the Alamo, on the high ground West of the river.
It was established in 1718, but is now greatly in ruin.
It was in a fair state of preservation until in 1868,
when the nave and almost the entire North wall of
the church fell in.
On the South a small room, originally a baptistry,
capped by three Moorish domes, is used as a chapel.
The window of this room is a work of art, highly
carved in bas-relief, an exquisite piece of workmanship
in its time. It still retains traces of great beauty.
The king of Spain sent Juan Huicar, one of the best
architects of his day, to the frontier to decorate the ex
teriors of the more important missions, his best work
finding expression in the main facade of the San Jose
church. 108

This was never altogether finished, owing to Hui-
car's death. But it was nevertheless a facade of which
any architect might well be proud, its grandeur produc
ing a profound effect upon the minds of the Mexicans
and Indians of the early times. Among its ornaments
are full-size statues of Saints Joseph, Benedict, Augus
tine and Francisco, crowning them all being a figure
of the Immaculate Conception.
Following upon the construction of the Alamo, or
the Mission San Antonio de Velaro, as it was then
called, and the Mission San Jose, foundations were .laid
for the Missions San Fernando, Concepcion, San Juan
de Capistrano and San Franciscan de la Espada, in
1731- San Fernando, the Main Plaza Cathedral of today,
was used by Santa Anna as headquarters during the
Siege of Bexar and Battle of the Alamo. Around it
clustered a mission village of about fifteen hundred
families, including a few Americans, these departing
before hostilities began. The dome of this old mission
is still well preserved, seen at its best from the Military
Plaza side. Immediately beneath it is the present altar
of the church.
The front of this mission was rebuilt in modern style
in 1872, but nearly all of the rear part is the product of
the Franciscan monks in the first quarter of the
eighteenth century. It is situated in the very heart of
the city and is the chief Mexican place of worship of
San Antonio and surrounding country today. Attend
ance upon their weird services is one of the attractions
to visiting Americans at the present time.
Ill

Mission de la Concepcion. /
The Mission of the Immaculate Conception, two
miles South of the Alamo, has also its original dome,
roof and organ loft. The interior of this is a miniature
Alamo, and gives the visitor a better idea of the orig
inal construction and appearance of the interior of the
latter, as also of its strength as a fortress. With walls
free of windows except on the West this mission
stands grim and gray, in a good state of preservation,
its dark twin towers rising above the beautiful foliage
of the surrounding country, from which floated out o'er
the "Plains of Bexar" the message of bells, calling the
Indian and settler to prayer, their echoes lost in silence
on the gentle breezes of the perfume-laden prairies.
Solitary and alone it is a strong living testimonial of
the distant and eventful past.
In the room to the right of the entrance of this mis
sion is an elaborate baptismal bowl, inserted in the wall,
from which the little pappooses and Mexican mucha-
chos received their first sacrament of holy water and
priestly function.
The front of this mission was highly decorated in
the brightest frescoing of which the Franciscans were
capable, presumably for its effect upon the Indian
mind. Close inspection'reveals traces of this frescoing
still, though the ravages of time and weather are mak
ing them gradually more and more indistinct. In 1887
Bishop Neraz, then in charge of the diocese of San
Antonio, had the mission repaired and dedicated to
"Our Lady of Loudres." It is leased to a German and
112

cathedral SAN FERNANDO,

MISSION SAN FERNANDO, 1731— ORIGINAL REAR VIEW,

his family, who charge a nominal fee for admission.
Tourists will find a visit to the Mission Concepcion and
that of San Jose, on the opposite side of the river, of
gratifying interest.
Missions San Juan and San Franciscan.
The Missions San Juan Capistrano and San Francis
can de la Espada, respectively six and nine miles down
the river, were named for monks, the former born in
Capistrano, Italy, in 1386, the latter founder of the
Franciscan Order of Assisi. These missions are smallen
and plainer, and much of their walls have passed into
decay. But a visit to them is full of information.
They are picturesquely located, while the old stone
viaducts on the west side of the river recall vividly
those of Italy, Egypt and Spain.
Construction of the Missions.
The mission buildings are all constructed of stone
found in their immediate vicinity, a light limestone
which is easily worked and which hardens with ex
posure. The larger ones had immense granaries for
storing the products of the Indian patches adjacent to
them, while the irrigation ditches which were a part of
thfe system gave them plenty of water in times of even
the severest droughts, and made the mission spots
oases in the Texas desert that were fair to look upon.
Several of these ancient canals still course the blue
waters of the river among the gardens of the city,
while the granary at San Jose gives a very fair idea
of the means the monks established for the care of
117

their products. The granary of the Alamo occupied
the site of the park in front of the church, the protect
ing wall running North and South beyond the site of
the Opera House and the stores on that side of the
Plaza. The North wall of the Alamo enclosure extended out
into the middle of Houston street. It was two and a
half feet thick and almost as high as the eaves of the
church. It ran east as far as Dignowity hill, and as
far to the South. A good many acres of ground were
within the enclosure of the mission proper.
The Alamo, considered consecrated ground, together
with the monastery to the North, were separated from
the balance of the field by a dividing fence of stone,
almost as strong and high as the outer wall.
Behind the church of the Alamo ran the ditch, and
along its course grew stately cottonwoods, their leaves
rustling gently in the breezes from the gulf, the music
sounding like the pattering of a gentle rain. The ditch
on which these grew was known as the Madre de
Acequia, or Mother Ditch, the only means the mission
had of obtaining water. It requires but little play of
the imagination to think of those mighty cottonwoods
stretching forth their great arms as if to shelter the
church and the little band within while that awful car
nage of death and destruction doomed the gallant band
to their everlasting fate. The change of name from
the Spanish Duke de Velaro to the local name of "The
Alamo" seems most appropriate and poetic.
The Alamo stands in the midst of a civiHzation such
as the world has ever known, yet separate and alone
118

mission SAN JUAN DE CAPISTRANO, 1731— THIRD MISSION,

with its dead. Among us, it is not yet of us. Its his
tory is its own, and as it lives it holds aloft the record
of deeds well done- whereby the liberty of Texas was
purchased at a price though dear yet borne by the
martyrs without murmur or complaint.
"Remember the Alamo !
The very walLs have voices — solemn tones.
And spirits pulse their breathing in thy stones ;
Not moans, for when I place them to my ears
I hear the echo Oif Jacinto's cheers.
On, On, Revenge the Alamo!"
Live on, speak on forever, thou glorious Alamo !

121

PART IV.
Tributes to the Heroes of the Alamo.
A TRIBUTE.

Reverently Inscribed to the Alamo and Its Illustrious Dead.

By Geo. D. Emery, Minneapolis, Minn.
Tread softly in this sacred place
Twice dedicated unto God,
For martyrs of heroic race
Have sanctified it with their blood.
To teach the lessons of His faith
In pious love these stones were piled.
Ere Tyranny, with poisonous breath
Its holy altars had defiled.
Here bowed the monk in simple prayer.
Here beads were told and masses sung.
Hence over Bexar's plains afar
The bells of God their message rung.
And here when Liberty oppressed
Took refuge from the Tyrant's wrong
Her loyal sons with dauntless breast
Around her drew their cordon strong.
A Hero's soul in every eye,
Bright with a hero's purpose grand.
For Liberty, if need, to die
Or, living, in her name to stand.
Who reared these walls, 'neath smiling skies.
To spread the Gospel's peace afar
Ne'er dreamed an Empire here should rise
'Mid the wild hurricane of war.
122

^ftf

i
mJS^- ^
^vj. , >-
aEs^'^iP^^^S-^
¦
mission de la ESPADA, 1731— FOURTH MISSION.
High blazoned on the scroll of Fame.
Forever stands Thermopylae,
And Balaklava's hills of flame
Far echo England's bravery;
But where shall prouder banners wave
In nobler triumph o'er its foes
Than where oppression found its grave
And Freedom's bright Lone Star arose ?
These stains upon thy crumbling stones
'Mark where those dying heroes fell
But ages hence in trumpet tones
Shall fame their glorious triumph tell.
Their leader drew with sacred blade
Upon the sand that fatal line —
"Who crosses this with me, he said
"For Liberty, leaves' all behind,
"Flee those who can — come those who will,
"For where can death more welcome be
"Than where yon flag is waving still
"The emblems of the noble Free !
"Our leaguing foes, a score to one
"The mandates of the Tyrant bear
"Our help must come from God alone
"For man no longer heeds our prayer,
"Then come with me, who will to stand
"Where Honor's blood-stained pathway lies
"As, on the Altar of our Land,
"We lay a Freeman's sacrifice.''
Lit every eye with battle flame,
Blanched not one hero's cheek with fear.
But while Death called that Roll of Fame
Each ringing voice responded "Here !"
Brave hearts who heard that stirring call
And forward pressed with eager tread
A rescued country mourns your fall
Who thus her priceless ransom paid.
For deeds like yours no fitter shrine
On earth's broad bosom could be found :
All temples reared to Love Divine
Are freedom's holiest battle ground.
Live on! Your names shall glory wreathe
Where Freedom's fires shall brightest glow
And ages yet unborn shall breathe
The Spirit of the Alamo.

12S

THE SIEGE OF THE ALAMO!

By James D, Lynch,

The Old World has its glory, and it teems
With storied song and history's golden themes.
Whose notes still tune the living harp of time.
And thrill the patriot's heart in every clime.
But yet, the Old World has not all — the New
Can boast of its immortal themes, and view
With pride the glare of many a name
Which it has given to the scroll of fame,
'Mong those full high enrolled, let Texas tell
Of the New World's Leonidas — ^how fell
Brave Travis, how his comrades, at the call
Of glory, fell in one grand, glorious fall.
In her far borders under Bexar's skies.
Where the San Pedro takes its gushing rise,
Bosomed in landscapes of Elysian beam,
A fortress nestled near the emerald stream;
Where orisons were wont to wake the day.
But now the ensanguined scene of mortal fray.
Within its walls a chapel reared its shrine;
Around them Mexia demons drew their lines.
While Travis and his Texans held the post
Defiant of the fierce besieging host.
The thundering cannons swept the crimson ground.
While volleying muskets poured their hail around —
The vengeful missiles clanged the fortress walls ;
Its little windows rained a shower of balls.
Five thousand men came on in curved array;
Less than two hundred held the force at bay.
Ten days and nights they urged their fierce attack.
Ten days and nights they reeled and staggered back.
Two hundred men, less twenty, aimed in front and fired.
Two hundred men, less forty, faced about and fired ;
One hundred men, less twenty, faced to right and fired ;
One hundred men, less forty, faced to left and fired ;
Then forty men faced all around and fired.
And front, right, left and rear the foe retired.
126

Now twenty men received the last assault.
And caused the decimated foe to halt —
But stemming now the dwindling fusilade,
And overleaping scrap and palisade.
They thronged the walls and through the breaches poured,.
And yet the Lone Star banner was not lowered.
Within, one thing remained — all else was lost—
To barter life for death at dearest cost.
"Blow up the fort !" undaunted Travis cried —
"Blow up the fort!" he gasped in death and died,
A faithful soldier hastened to obey.
But fell before the deed could crown the day —
With martial death the unequal combat end.
And friend and foe in one blank ruin blend.
Within the breach the last heroic ten
Now met the enemy — devoted men !
One moment more, one breath, one flash, now five
Alone of all those martyrs were alive.
Now four, now three, now two, now one, now none —
The Alamo's red murderous work was done.
Live on, grow old, thou glorious Alamo!
Grow old in age, for thou canst never grow
Too old for fame ; its wreaths will cling to thee.
Thou New World's glorious Thermopylae !
Live on, speak on, of heralds thou hadst none ;
Thy tale is all thy own, but the bright sun
Was witness of thee, thy struggle, morning, noon,
And in the evening shade, the stars and moon
Beheld thee, and their pale, condoling beams
Yet mantle thee with still more weird dreams.
Thy very walls have voices — solemn tones.
And spirits pulse their breathing in thy stones.
Not moans, for when I place to them, my ears
I hear the echo of Jacinto's cheers :
On ! On ! Revenge the Alamo !"
Freedom; and victory over every foe !
Live on, speak on, thou glorious Alamo!
In living strains proclaim thy tale of woe.
And let thy widowed walls to Texas tell
How her immortal heroes fought and fell ;
Not in obedience to her sacred laws,
But love of freedom and of freedom's cause.
Speak on while eons roll their ages by.
And tell our Texans how to live and die.

127

HYMN TO THE ALAMO,

By Capt. Reuben M. Potter, U. S. A.

"Rise ! man the wall — our clarion's blast
Now sounds its final reveille —
This dawning morn must be the last
Our fated band shall ever see.
To life, but not to hope, farewell ;
Your trumpet's clang, and cannon's peal,
And storming shout, and clash of steel
Is ours, but not our country's knell.
Welcome the Spartan's death —
'Tis no despairing strife —
We fall — we die — ^but our expiring breath
Is freedom's breath of life,
"Here on this new Thermopylae
Our monument shall tower on high.
And 'Alamo' hereafter be
On bloodier fields the battle cry,''
Thus Travis from the rampart cried.
And when his warriors saw the foe
Like whelming billows move below,
At once each dauntless heart replied :
"Welcome the Spartan's death —
'Tis no despairing strife —
We fall — we die — but our expiring breath
Is freedom's breath of life !"
"They come — like autumn leaves they fall,
Yet hordes on hordes they onward rush ;
With gory tramp they mount the wall.
Till numbers the defenders crush.
The last was felled! — ^the fight to gain —
Well may the ruffians quake to tell
How Travis and his hundred fell
Amid a thousand foemen slain.
They died the Spartan's death.
But not in hopeless strife ;
Like brothers died — and their expiring breath
Was freedom's breath of life."

128

PART V.

THE HONORED DEAD.
A correct copy of a. partial list of the names of those who fell in
the "Alamo," March 6, 1836, on file in the Land Office at Austin,
Texas, is herewith given :

NAME

W. Barrett Travis,,
James Bowie 
J. Washington 
 Forsyth 
 Harrison 
William Blazeley .,
Wm. C. M. Balcer..
S. B. Evans 
W. R. Carey 
S. C. Blair 
 Gilmore 
Robert White 
John Jones 
J. G. Baugh 
Robert Evans 
 Williamson
Charles Despalier .
Eliel Melton 
 Anderson . .
 Burwell 
Dr. Michison 
Dr. Amos Pollard.
Dr. Thompson 
Green B. Jemison...
David Crockett ....
E. Nelson 
 Nelson 
Wm. H. Smith 
Lewis Johnson 
E. P. Mitchell 
P. Desanque 
 Thurston . , ,
¦ Moore

Lt, Colonel.

Captain

Lieutenant
Lt-Adjutant
Lt.-Mast. Ord
Sergt, -Major
Aide to Travis
Lt,-Q'rtmaster Asst. '¦_
Surgeon

Ensign
Private

Christopher Parker
C. Haskell 
Moses Rose 
Jno, Blair 
David Wilson 
John M. Hays 
 Stuart 
W. K. Simpson 
W. D. Sutherland...
Dr. W. Howell 
 Butler 
Charles Smith 
 McGregor . .
 Rusk 
Chas. Hawkins 
Sam'l Hollo way —
 Brown 
C. S. Smith 

WHERE FROM

Commandant*South Carolina.
Logan County, Ky,
TennesseeNew York
TennesseeLouisiana N, O, Greys
Mississippi TexasTexasTennessee N, O. Greys
Ireland

TennesseeSouth Carolina
Texa^NacogdochesTrinity, Texas
Georgia Philadelphia, Pa.
Kentucky Natchez, Miss.

NacogdochesNacogdochesTennessee

Navidad, Texas
New Orleans
New Orleans

Scotland Ireland

129

THE HONORED BEAU— Continued.

NAME

RANK

WHERE FROM

 Browne ,, 

Private
Lieutenant Private.

Philadelphia

 Kedeson 

Wm. Wells 

Wm, Cummings 

Pennsylvania

 ¦ Voluntlne 

 Cockran 
R. W. Valentine 
S, Holloway 
Isaac White 
 Day 
Robert Muselman 
New Orleans
Robert Grossman 
N.ew Orleans
England
Richard Starr 
J, G, Garrett 
James' Dimkin 
England
Robert B, Moore 
wm. Linn 
 Hutchinson 
Wm. Johnson 
Philadelphia
E. Nelson 
Geo. Tumlinson 
Wm, Deardorf 
Dan'l Bourne 
 Ingram 
Elng'land
W. I. Lewis 
Wales
Johnston Linley 
Micahjah Autry 
Lewis Duel 
Charles Zanco 
Denmark
James Ewing 
Robert Cunningham 
Marcus Sewell 
(Shoe Maker)
Kentucky
 Harriss 
John Flanders 
Opelousas
George C. Kimbell 
Gonzales
GonzalesGonzalesGonzalesGonzalesGonzalesGonzalesGonzalesGonzalesGonzalesGonzalesGonzalesGonzalesGonzalesGonzalesGonzalesGonzales
James George 
+j to
Dolphin Floyd 
Thomas Jackson 
O "
George W, Cottle 
S"
i4S
Thomas R. Miller 
M"
Isaac Baker 
Y V. a
William King 
2°
§s
William Fishback 
as.
Isaac Millsaps 
»^ a
Galba Fuqua 
John Davis 
i'
Albert Martin 
130
THE HONORED BEAT)— Continued.

NAME

RANK

WHERE FROM

Private

Clerk to Disanque

B. A. M. Thomas 

The foregoing- list is not included in the general certificate Feb. 17, 1839.
A list of the Gonzales Ranging Company of Mounted Volun
teers, mustered into service on the 23rd day of February, 1836, by
Byrd Lockhart, acting commissioner for that purpose and aid-de
camp to the acting Governor of Texas, attached to Travis' com
mand :

NAME

RANK

REMARKS

George C, Kimbell, , ,
William A. Irwin 
Jesse McCoy 
William Fahbaigh ..
John G. King 
Daniel McCoy, Jr 
Jacob Durst 
Frederick C, Elm,,,
Prospect McCoy 
M, L. Sewell 
Robert White 
John Ballard 
James Nash 
William Morrison , , ,
Galba Fuqua 
A. Devault 
John Harriss , , , , 
Andrew Kent 
Isaac Millsaps 
William E, Summers
David Kent 
John Davis 

Lieutenant
1st Sergeant
Private

Killed
KilledKilledKilledKilled

Killed Killed

Killed
KilledKilledKilledKilledKilled
Killed

To these Mrs. Candelaria adds the following Mexicans :
Cabrera, Tula, Jose Maria Jimines, Mexico
San

Jose Marera
Mexico.
Elijo or Elias LosoyO;
Antonio, Texas.

— Jacinto, from the coast of
Texas.

131

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