Chapter 9
The Alamo: Destroy it, Save it or Retake it
THE NEW YEAR, 1836, was but a few weeks old when Sam Houston sent for James Bowie to meet him at Goliad.
Houston was Commander of the Regular Army of Texas . . . of 80 soldiers – vigorously resisted by the volunteers, who refused to “submit to a general not of their own choosing.” And Houston was not “authorized to command [the volunteers], unless it is their wish fully expressed.”
When a crisis occurred, the General was forced to entreat the volunteers to help. So, Houston called for Bowie, a favorite of the volunteers.
The Commander-in-Chief confided to the great duelist that certain hot-bloods at the Alamo had decided to invade Matamoros, a port city across the Rio Grande in Mexico. It was a foolhardy attempt, said Houston, to attract Santa Anna’s enemies in the Mexican interior to join the Texans in a revolt against him. Even more reckless was stripping San Antonio and the Alamo of 200 men and “most of the supplies of food, clothing, medicine and ammunition in the San Antonio area” leaving the fort indefensible. Houston had tried in vain to block what he (correctly) foresaw as this doomed expedition.
Alamo Commander James Neill had written to Houston that with barely one hundred men left (others had returned home after Cós surrendered), he could be overrun in eight days. Convinced that the Alamo could not be saved, Houston needed to ensure that the fortress would not be retaken by the Mexicans and become the staging area for Mexico’s return to Texas (and then serve as a base to retake Goliad). The General reluctantly concluded that the Alamo must be put to the torch, its fortifications demolished, its critically important artillery relocated to nearby safe garrisons – or destroyed. He believed that if Bowie gave the order, the volunteers would agree. Though Houston yet lacked Governor Smith’s “official” consent, he told Bowie he expected approval shortly.
Asked to carry out this appalling mission – to destroy the Alamo – Bowie hesitantly agreed.
On January 19, 1836, with Rose and 30 volunteers recruited from Goliad, Bowie rode to San Antonio de Bexar, where less than a month earlier, under enemy fire, Rose had followed “Old Ben Milam into San Antone.” On the way they passed Concepción where Bowie’s great victory had taken place. Soon they were at San Antonio.
The small troop was enthusiastically greeted in town by Colonel Neill, who introduced the visitors to his 27-year-old Post Engineer, Major Green Jameson, a former lawyer from Kentucky. The present army, Neill exclaimed, “owes in a great part its existence to his exertions and management.”
Bowie saw more guns than men to man them – it would take 500 men to command this fort, he suspected. Cós had been forced to leave behind 21 bronze and iron cannons, 2 to 12 pounders and one or two of larger bore with 1200 rounds of solid shot and explosives. Neill had only 114 men, 80 fit for duty. (In a unique act of compassion, there were also 50 sick or wounded Mexican soldados left by Cós when he abandoned the Alamo, ministered to by the Alamo doctor.) Almost all the horses were gone (including those captured by Bowie in the Grass Fight), galloping off to Matamoros.
Cordial conversation ended when Neill was told the purpose of Bowie’s visit. He protested that the Alamo should not be destroyed. Houston was wrong, Neill argued. As the barricade at the entrance to Texas, the Alamo would stop the Mexicans from reclaiming Texas. Worse, if the Alamo fell, said Neill, all of Texas would fall soon after.
Nor could Bowie relocate the artillery, Jameson added, because, thanks to the Matamoros expedition, there were now not enough oxen, mules or horses to haul the Alamo’s cannons to the next fort. And Texas could ill afford to lose 21 cannons – the greatest force between Mexico City and New Orleans.
Jameson looked Bowie in the eye and assured him the Alamo could be held! Do not believe we will fail, he pleaded, because another army was forced to surrender here. The “Mexicans have shown imbecility and want of skill in this Fortress as they have done in all things else.” The Alamo is now much more powerful than when Cós was here, he added. We have “strengthened the walls, strategically lined up the cannons, had trenches dug, built staked palisades . . . and it will be stronger still,” Jameson promised. Assuring Bowie they could repulse odds of 10 to 1, Jameson was begging for the life of the Alamo. “Please ride with me and decide for yourself,” he asked, ignoring the direct order of Sam Houston.
Bowie had never assessed the old Mission as a place to hold back a massive Mexican attack. Nor would he deny Jameson the respect of viewing his efforts. And besides, Bowie had to wait for Governor Smith’s approval before he could act. “Let’s ride,” Bowie said to Neill and Jameson, with a nod to Rose to join him. And so the four men rode the half mile to the Alamo.
Soon Rose spotted the rectangular-shaped fort with its azure blue flag emblazoned with an eagle, the declaration “God and Liberty” and white letters identifying the “First Company of Texas Volunteers.” A single rifle shot was assumed to be an alert to those inside.
Then Rose saw the Porte Cochere, the entrance to the compound, an upside-down “U” cut in the stone of the South Barracks, on top of which were three riflemen, one of whom yelled: “Boys, it’s Jim Bowie himself come to join us!” As they rode double file across a wooden foot bridge over a wide ditch to the entrance, men came running, yelling, “Bowie! Bowie! Bowie!”
The four riders dismounted in the Plaza of the fort, a rectangular area, 450 feet long, 160 feet wide – the dimensions of an oversized soccer field, such as Rose had seen throughout Europe. Waiting were two dozen men gathered round to shake the frontiersman’s hand, to tell him where they were from and to steal glances at his knife.
Only one came to shake Rose’s hand. It was now-Captain Carey, “fifty six-brave souls [having] joined into a company of artillery and selected me for their Captain,” he told Rose.
But there would have been no cheers or handshakes had the men known why Bowie and Rose were there.
Bowie began his inspection with Jameson pointing out the strengths of the Alamo, with the men trailing behind. No one had to identify two eight pounders facing them (and the entrance) in the Plaza, in the middle of a raised area surrounded by pickets and stone.
To their left was the West Wall (facing San Antonio) with its mightiest cannon, an 18 pounder, nearest the main gate. Bowie greeted the men manning the cannon, as he did the troops at every section of the Alamo. Next he saw smaller cannons which protected the middle of this wall. Each wall had riflemen in position. Walking clockwise, Bowie observed the North Wall with two batteries (of two eight pounders each). Continuing to the right was the Long Barracks (formerly the Mission Convent) where most of the men slept when not on duty. On the second floor was a small hospital; behind it a cattle pen with a separation for a horse corral. Next to the Long Barracks was a small yard in front of the Chapel. Atop the Chapel and hospital and in the horse corral were more cannons. Finally, guarded by four small cannons, was the palisade, a dangerously low picket fence with rammed earth breastworks linking the Chapel to the main entrance.
Jameson described how the foot bridge at the entrance was to become a drawbridge protected by a half-moon battery of cannons. My plan, said Jameson, is to abandon San Antonio for “we have too few to garrison both [it and the Alamo] and we will bring all our forces to the Alamo.” The “18 pounder [will] command the Town and the country around.”
Viewing the dug trenches, the reinforced walls, the emplacement of cannons, and the men’s enthusiasm, Bowie was impressed. Jameson kept up a barrage of words, attempting to persuade Bowie but permitting him no time to reflect. Finally, Bowie placed his hands in front of his chest, palms facing Jameson, as if to push him away, as if to say: “Enough, I’ve heard you.” The Alamo officers were visibly disappointed as Bowie beckoned Rose to talk with him, alone, and walked with the Frenchman to the two 8-pounders facing the entrance and sat down, leaning on the pickets enclosing the cannons.
Bowie, there to follow Houston’s dictate (when the Governor agreed), nonetheless remembered what he considered Houston’s lack of resolve when he voted for the Texans to give up their attack on the Alamo. And besides, was this whole expedition to destroy the Alamo (particularly its haste) at all necessary? Like most Texans, Bowie figured their war was already won. The Mexican army had been humiliated and defeated at Anahuac, Nacogdoches and Goliad. They had been chased from Gonzalez to San Antonio and forced to leave Texas soil . . . and pledged never to return. Surely the Mexicans would not try again.
In addition, even if the Mexicans chose to attack, the assault couldn’t occur before Spring given Santa Anna’s financial problems, his army weakened by civil war and the winter’s lack of grass to feed his oxen, mules and horses during the march.
“Rose,” Bowie began, “Let me be straight with you. I’m sorely tempted to delay destroying all of this (Bowie’s hands opened wide as if to embrace the fort) if there is hope to save it . . . and if we can still do our duty, if necessary.” Rose was silent but Bowie could see doubt on his friend’s face.
Bowie’s instinct was that the fort was too promising to yield without a fight. After all, if Cós had endured the Texans’ siege for over a month, there must be something here worth saving. He surmised the reason: there were only two principal roads that made paths of invasion into Texas: Goliad blocked one, San Antonio the other. Otherwise, Santa Anna could strike directly at Gonzales or even San Felipe. He concluded that here was the place to stop an invasion south of the Colorado or Brazos Rivers – especially since all horses and teams of draft animals suited for hauling the prize cannons were long gone to Matamoros.
“So the first question is ’How much time do we have?’ If Santa Anna is coming, it is certain that he’s dragging artillery because how else can he breach these walls.” Rose nodded his agreement. “It’s more than 400 difficult miles just from Saltillo. You, Rose, know how far that is. You traveled the same distance from Nacogdoches to here, over better terrain, with only you and a horse to feed.” Again Rose nodded. “Santa Anna,” Bowie continued, “must feed many oxen which must pull his cannons and there’s not yet enough rich buffalo grass for the animals to eat. That means Santa Anna cannot even begin to march and ride until the grass is up in the spring, certainly not before mid March . . . and we are only in mid January.”
If that is true, thought Rose, it will take Santa Anna two additional months after March to get here – maybe as late as May.
“We can allow ourselves three months to get ready,” Bowie summed up, “and still leave enough time – if necessary – to destroy the fort, move or spike the cannons and ride off to Gonzales or Goliad if we decide we can’t hold the Alamo.”
Bowie stared at Rose’s face. The Frenchman said nothing but worried that the independence of Texas was staked on a wager on when the grass comes up to feed the livestock. (Yet Rose had first hand knowledge of how the lack of food for humans and animals had forced Napoléon to retreat from Moscow in 1812.)
And everyone shared the no-grass, no-invasion assurance. David Cummings, a volunteer from Pennsylvania, assured Rose that Santa Anna will not be seen “until the grass is sufficiently up to support their horses” – and all agreed that meant late April or early May. Even Houston had said that “by the rise of the grass [and not before], we will be on the march.”
Bowie moved from vegetation to troops. “But we need many more men.” Rose snapped out of his reverie of snow and grass and abruptly returned to the world of logistics. When Bowie saw he had regained his friend’s attention, he continued with his plan. “Of our former fighters, many are headed towards Matamoros, and many other volunteers have ’declared victory’ and returned home for planting. Here at San Antonio we now have just over 100 men who can fight but we need more than five times that number!”
“Col. Fannin, who I rode with at Concepción, has 400 men at Goliad. I can demand 300 of them, plus horses, ammunition and food . . . and still leave 100 troops to defend their fort. Another 100 from Gonzales.” (Such fighters, he thought. Each one of them worth five Mexicans.) “Figure 100 volunteers from the other colonies, responding to a patriotic call, and maybe 50 Army Regulars. How many is that”? Bowie asked rhetorically, and then answered his own question. “More than enough!”
“But,” Bowie continued, now impassioned, “we must not be foolish like Cós, who made himself a virtual prisoner (before he became an actual one) by not straying from this fort. We must ’run and gun ’em,’ stage unexpected small attacks on Santa Anna before he crosses the Rio Grande.” Bowie’s face bore the semblance of an enraged tiger. “We must kill as many Mexicans as we can – but our main target must be to kill their oxen.” Bowie went on: “And then attack their supply lines as well, killing the replacement oxen. Without the livestock, the cannons will never arrive; without cannons, they must get up close to scale our walls . . . and our long rifles will make them wish they never crossed the Rio Grande.” Both men laughed. “After that, Sam Houston, with the army he’s recruiting, will chase what’s left of ’em all the way back to Mexico City.”
“Do I sound like Napoléon”? Bowie laughed.
“Oui, mon Général,” Rose laughed back. But to himself he thought, Napoléon would not take this action. Rose checked off in his mind the reasons he disagreed:
√ The Alamo is exposed on all four sides: there is no body of water sheltering one side, no mountain to its back, no forest to hamper a charge – in other words, the enemy can attack us on all sides and we have no natural impediments.
√ We could get enough horses, mules and oxen to move the cannons at Goliad and Gonzales and return in a few days.
√ And, most of all, this is not a fortress, it is a rectangle of mostly single-story adobe houses – mud huts – that will not withstand the big cannons that Santa Anna will bring with him. That’s why Houston wants us to leave.
But Rose would never speak it to Bowie, who had not asked his opinion. The Frenchman would never say to anyone that he was the most experienced soldier in this fort; that although he was not a person his Emperor ever even spoke to, much less sought advice from, he had watched his General for many years and he had learned some things.
But he knew his friend’s lack of tolerance for dissent. Bowie sensed Rose’s ambivalence and exuded confidence. “If Ben Milam had thought hard about it,” he said, “you never would have attacked Cós behind these very walls . . . and we wouldn’t be sitting here right now in the Alamo. Courage will get us through! Not timidity! Not cowardice!” Upon saying that word, Bowie remembered and then repeated something Travis had told him from one of his books: “The coward dies a thousand deaths, the hero dies but one!” Rose wondered what that meant but didn’t ask; he worried that Bowie was referring to him.
Rose flushed and said nothing. Bowie put his hand on his friend’s shoulder to ease the tension, and joked: “Napoléon would probably have changed his whole military style if he had Texans behind him.” Bowie laughed loudly.
“If the plan doesn’t work,” Bowie shrugged, trying to reassure Rose, “we’ll do the deed we were sent to do and then fast ride to the next fort. Alright”? A much abashed Rose smiled his affirmance. “All right then,” said Bowie.
LAUGHTER AND SMILES SEEMED LIKE GALLOWS HUMOR to Neill and Jameson, who were observing them. Now they watched Bowie walk to a wagon covered with straw, climb up and call for the attention of the Alamo defenders.
“Boys,” he said, “the salvation of Texas depends on keeping San Antonio out of the hands of the enemy. It serves as the frontier picquet guard and if it was in the possession of Santa Anna there is no stronghold from which to repel him in his march toward the Sabine.”
Then ignoring his Commander-in-Chief as he had his predecessor, Austin, Bowie continued:
[W]e will rather die in these ditches than give up to the enemy. . . . the public safety demands our lives rather than evacuate this post to the enemy.
The men cheered heartily, though somewhat confused at the intensity in Bowie’s voice, not knowing that the decision to save the Alamo had been made only moments before . . . and not knowing that the “request” of Gen. Sam Houston to destroy the Alamo had been rejected – as would be the Order of the Governor, if he agreed with Houston. Jameson and Neill ecstatically shook Bowie’s hand.
Bowie barely heard the cheers, his thoughts were occupied with saving the Alamo.
This was the other Bowie – call this one optimistic, impulsive, foolhardy, anything but avaricious. He was one of a breed, observed Alexis de Tocqueville, a countryman of Rose, who tried to explain these men of the New World. Just prior to the Texan’s seizure of the Alamo, he wrote: “Sometimes [an American] seems to be animated by the most selfish greed and sometimes by the most lively patriotism.” Tocqueville was amazed how Americans could “alternately display passions so strong and so similar first for their own welfare and then for liberty that one must suppose these urges to be united and mingled in some part of their being”: one moment for “his private interests as if he were alone in the world;” the next moment for the public good “as if he had forgotten his own [interests].”
Tocqueville could have been talking about Bowie . . . or William Barret Travis, who was about to join Bowie at San Antonio.
TRAVIS EARLIER HAD TOLD THE GENERAL COUNCIL that, although he favored a Regular Texas Army, he accepted reality: mostly volunteers were available. However, the lack of discipline of the volunteers, he complained, was totally unacceptable. He called for a permanent volunteer army plus cavalry: reliable, armed and trained . . . and prepared to remain for the duration of the war – and no more votes as to military matters! He proposed two categories of “Regulars”: the Regular Army and the Regular permanent volunteers. The Council accepted Travis’ recommendation and, on Christmas Eve of 1835, appointed him a Lieutenant Colonel of the newly created Legion of Cavalry – the title by which he would lead the new permanent volunteers.
But first Travis had to recruit his army. The Council helped by offering a little recruitment money and a promise of over 1,000 acres of land to each volunteer when Texas achieved its independence. Even with that incentive, few signed up.
In mid-January, Gov. Smith came to believe that a Mexican attack was imminent at the poorly-manned San Antonio and ordered Travis to assemble 100 volunteers to ride to aid Neill and save the Alamo. Houston, concerned that the Governor was acting like an impulsive volunteer, reluctantly agreed . . . with heavy heart. With only 26 men recruited (six to desert en route) Travis set off for the Alamo.
Exhausted and frustrated by the lack of recruits, Travis momentarily yielded to his worst instincts: his pride and self-pitying, which led to a message to the Governor that he was “unwilling to risk my reputation (which is ever so dear to a soldier)” to lead such a small, ill-equipped band. He threatened to resign.
However, after rest and reflection, he regained his strength and dignity and left his troops to relax, while he rode alone to San Antonio. He arrived on February 3, 1836, reported to Neill and advised that his small group would follow him in a few days. Then he met with Bowie and the two, for the first time, prepared to fight as a team.
NOT LONG AFTER TRAVIS a third man arrived on a fine horse that galloped through the town gate. Its rider was a buckskin-clad backwoodsman, wearing a coonskin cap with the tail still on it and carrying his faithful Kentucky long rifle. Of course, it was the legendary Davy Crockett.
The Texans cheered and roared their approval as the famous Crockett rode past the sentry into San Antonio with twelve of his “Tennessee Boys” – the newly formed Tennessee Company of Mounted Volunteers. Jumping off his mustang, Crockett stood on a box in the Town Plaza and spoke like a candidate stumping for President of Texas, an election which would have been his had a vote been taken in this place that day.
“Boys!” was all he got out before the cheering began again. He lifted his hand for silence and told his “version” of his adventures en route to the Alamo: about how he had boarded a steamer to Nachitoches, then set off on horseback to Nacogdoches, where he took his oath of allegiance to fight for Texas, and then headed for the Alamo – but was delayed first by a buffalo stampede; then later over a “raslin”’ match with a cougar:
I have had many fights with bears, but that was mere child’s play; this was the first fight I ever had with a cougar, and I hope it may be the last;
then by an encounter with a war party of Comanches who, when he showed them the body of the dead cougar, offered to adopt him into their tribe; and finally – within a few miles of here – a brush with twenty armed Mexicans, with whom he and his men shot it out and then were chased, until his pursuers turned tail when they came in sight of (here he paused for effect) “the independent flag flying from the battlements of the fortress of Alamo!” (Roars of approval)
“Boys,” he continued, waving his arms for a lessening of the pandemonium, “I have come to aid you all that I can in your noble cause . . . and all the honor that I desire is that of defending as a high private . . . the liberties of our common country.”
To speak further was impossible as the men shot rifles and pistols into the air and roared with delight until they were out of voice and breath. Rose was beside himself with renewed courage and optimism.
Crockett stepped down from the platform to be welcomed by Travis to whom he announced: “Colonel, here am I. Assign us to some place, and I and my Tennessee boys will defend it.”
While the newcomers were offered generous cups of whiskey, Crockett spotted a fellow frontiersman using his long knife to cut a strip of leather. Bounding toward Jim Bowie and offering his hand, Crockett feigned fear at the sight of the 12-inch blade, remarking, “I wish I may be shot if the bare sight of it isn’t enough to give a man of squeamish stomach the colic, especially before breakfast.” Bowie roared with laughter and pounded Crockett on the back. Rose stood with pride as he watched the two size each other up. He was especially pleased to be introduced by Bowie as a man who had fought alongside Napoléon. Crockett said he would have many questions to ask the Frenchman. Rose beamed.
But Crockett wasn’t finished. Asking if anyone would mind if he played his fiddle – but without waiting for an answer – he pulled out the instrument and began playing while the men sang, clapped and laughed until most fell asleep from the combination of liquor and sheer joy.
THE NEXT MORNING, February 9, 1836, the Alamo defenders awoke with whiskey heads but happy hearts. The three Colonels: Bowie, Crockett and Travis were now in place, to make ready to defend the Alamo.
A more formal welcome was prepared the next night to honor “Private” Crockett: a fandango, with food and drink and dancing. Bowie was having a grand time until he was handed a message which he read with alarm. Locating Travis romancing a young woman, he asked him to read the document but the lawyer mock protested that he was dancing with a lovely lady and had no time for business tonight. However, when Travis saw the look of concern on Bowie’s face, he excused himself from his dance partner and read the message: Santa Anna was but 140 miles from San Antonio de Bexar with thousands of troops! The Mexicans could arrive in 10 days or less.
A MOMENT OF TRUTH now faced the leaders of the Texans.
All of their confidence that the Mexicans would not attack at all or could not attack till Spring had been wrong. Immediate decisions had to be made and there were only two choices. Travel to Gonzalez and Goliad, get livestock to move the cannons (or destroy them), and horses to evacuate the men. Then destroy the fort. Or, if a confrontation was to take place, Bowie and Travis could – using their prestige – ride to all nearby forts, and recruit a force to defend San Antonio.
But they chose a third course. They did next to nothing. The cannons were not moved, the men were not moved and calls for help were half-hearted . . . at least for now.
Why? Rose asked his friend William Carey, who had no answer. But the answer lay within the psyche of the two leaders.
Col. James Bowie believed he was invincible. That backed by a hundred or more Texans – with 21 cannons – he could overcome even thousands of Mexicans. Col. William Travis, also had few doubts about his own prowess but he had a different priority: he was determined to die a heroic, perhaps immortal, death . . . if he could not attain an immortal victory. Neither man would retreat or beseech another fort for help – at least not until it was too late.
“If there ever lived a man who never felt the sensation of fear,” a friend commented, “it was James Bowie.” Had he not survived the Sandbar Duel (4 to 1), the Indians at San Seba (8 to 1), Col. Piedras’ entire army (15 to 1), and his small group surrounded and outnumbered at Concepción (4 to 1). And the Alamo itself had been taken against 1200 Mexicans in a fortress with over 20 cannons by 700 Texans. Bowie would prevail (as always) no matter what the odds.
And then there was Travis, who during 50 days in prison at Anahuac had been hogtied with muskets at his head while he shouted “Forget us and blaze away upon the fort!”; Travis, who had later seized that fort with two small boats and a cannon; who stayed to fight at the Alamo rather than legislate in San Felipe . . . and whose actions had been the catalyst for this Revolution.
But more pertinent than Travis’ heroics was his fatal flaw: romanticism. Travis told his good friend, Judge J.M. Rodriguez – one of a number of Mexicans who sided with the Texans – that, regardless of the size of the Mexican army, he and his men were going to hold the Alamo as long as they could, even if they all died trying.
One night Rose began to suspect what Rodriguez knew when Travis expressed his fantasies of heroic death.
Shortly after Crockett’s arrival, Rose, Bowie, Travis and about a dozen soldiers stood around listening to Crockett “story tellin’.” The frontiersman was beloved for his tall tales, no less so that night when he described in extravagant detail how he “killed him a b’ar when he was only three.” The men applauded and cheered for the delightful yarn – if not quite for its veracity.
Travis chimed in that he too had a story to tell – in honor of Crockett – of great heroes of romantic literature and their glorious triumphs, especially, the characters of his favorite author, Sir Walter Scott. The former classics teacher evoked the great spirit of the medieval knights of King Arthur’s Round Table – ready to do or die for a noble ideal, who swore “awful oaths” to defend ones “bleeding country” against the “incursions of tyrants.”
“Once there was a brave knight named Ivanhoe,” Travis began with enthusiasm, “who fought alongside King Richard the Lion-Hearted in the Crusades.” Richard was taken prisoner, Travis related, but escaped and returned disguised as The Black Knight, joining forces with an outlaw by the name of Robin Hood who lived in the forest and robbed the rich to give to the poor. (Comments of approval were heard from the men; this story had the makings, all right.)
Despite overwhelming odds, Travis continued, together the King and the outlaw stormed the castle of Richard’s wicked brother, Prince John, to rescue Ivanhoe who was there held prisoner. They faced death, “but so what”? Travis asked rhetorically. “Even if they should die, a brave man’s life was at stake – cowardice is the only fate to be feared.”
Travis was speaking in a rush of sounds, almost unaware of Crockett and the others, so engrossed was he in the nobility of the deeds he was portraying.
Once freed, Travis resumed, Ivanhoe learned that a woman who had befriended him was facing death, falsely charged as a witch by a villain who lusted for her. Her only hope: a champion who would fight a joust – a trial by mortal combat – against her accuser. But Ivanhoe, weakened from earlier injuries, was “scarce able to support himself in the saddle.” Nonetheless, though his wounds and weakness virtually assured his death, he rode up and announced:
I am a good knight and noble, come hither to sustain with lance and sword the just and lawful quarrel of this damsel . . . ; to uphold the doom pronounced against her to be false and truthless, and to defy [her accuser] as a traitor, murderer and liar.
The challenge accepted, Ivanhoe “closed his visor, and assumed his lance . . . . The trumpets sounded, and the knights charged each other.” Ivanhoe was unhorsed but not before slaying the villainous accuser who perished “a victim of his own contending passions.”
Travis now lifted his arms to the sky, closed his eyes and cried out the chant of chivalry:
“Live pure, speak true, right wrong, follow the King/
Else, wherefore born?”
The men cheered and called for another story.
Travis obliged.
“The noblest hero of them all was Sir William Wallace, surpassing all others, because,” explained Travis, “he didn’t just risk his life like brave Ivanhoe, he gave his life!”
Travis told of the great Scottish knight who, defeated in war, was told he would be spared if he would “abandon the cause of Scotland [and] swear fealty” to its enemies. Sir Wallace chose death. “I should dishonor myself,” he said, “to accept even life . . . upon these terms . . . . I will die as I have lived . . . in being true to unblemished honor!”
And so he did . . . die!
It was sung of those who fought with Wallace, said Travis, proudly –
Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled,
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to Victory!
– a Scottish version, Rose noted, of Travis’ trademark: Victory or Death!
The men had enjoyed the tales but to Rose it had been worrisome that Travis might believe he was a Texas combination of Ivanhoe and Sir Wallace – seeking his own battle against overwhelming odds so that he too (and those with him) might die “true to unblemished honor.”
It was Mr. Invincible and Mr. Death-With-Honor who would decide the fate of the Alamo defenders.
AND IT WAS SEÑOR HONOR-AT-ANY-PRICE who was making the decisions for the Mexicans. Santa Anna was fighting to undo his sullied reputation.
All-out war between Texas and Mexico had been inevitable since last December when the white flag of surrender was hoisted over the Alamo by General Mártin Perfecto de Cós, husband of Santa Anna’s sister – who was mocked for having “capitulated to the ladies” – staining the honor of the dictator and jeopardizing Santa Anna’s standing among his subjects.
Two months before that ignoble defeat, Santa Anna had advised his commanders:
The foreigners who wage war against the Mexican Nation have violated all laws and do not deserve any consideration, and for that reason, no quarter will be given them as the troops are to be notified at the proper time. They have audaciously declared a war of extermination to the Mexicans and should be treated in the same manner . . . .
In the fall of 1835, while the Texans were driving Mexican troops out of Anahuac, Concepción, Goliad and Gonzales (and Rose was riding from Nacogdoches to San Antonio), Santa Anna was slowly and painstakingly preparing for a campaign against the Texans.
But after the Texans took the Alamo in December, Santa Anna became fanatical and demanded immediate retribution: Invade Texas, retake the Alamo – kill all foreigners!
In order to replenish an army drained by many campaigns, recruits were shanghaied, plucked by press-gangs from their homes, dance halls and even jails; 300 Mayans were seized from the jungles of the Yucatán. The depleted treasury was speedily refilled with forced “loans” from the Church. When what was left of Cós’ dejected troops crossed the Rio Grande, they, as well as Cós, were immediately ordered to dishonor their “parole of honor” and return to fight again at the Alamo.
Even before Bowie was “requested” by Houston in January to destroy the Alamo, Santa Anna had traveled to San Luis Potosi, 250 miles north of Mexico City, to assemble his troops: an army that would eventually total 6,000 men, 1,800 pack mules, 33 large four-wheel wagons and 200 oxen pulling carts carrying 21 pieces of heavy artillery, including two 12 pounders and four 8 pounders. Tagging behind were “crowds of sutlers (peddlers) and a large group of soldaderas (camp follower-women).”
Barely a week after Bowie decided to spare the Alamo, the Mexican troops had traversed another 225 miles north to Saltillo, where Bowie and his Mexican father-in-law had planned to set up a cotton and spinning mill. There Santa Anna “buckled on his $7,000 sword, mounted his saddle laden with gold-plated trim and began his march north” – 400 miles to San Antonio.
At about the time Travis and Crockett arrived at the Alamo in early February, Santa Anna had traveled an additional 160 miles to Monclova, where he arranged for “25 well-mounted lancers . . . to become my escort.”
The General was fanatically punishing his army in the trek toward San Antonio. Faster! Faster! Faster! Then a forced march “crossing the barren mountainous country of northern Mexico in the dead of winter” – a painful journey which brought great suffering and often death to the marchers, especially to the poor Mayans, never before out of a sultry climate.
AND THE TEXANS HAD MADE IT ALL THE MORE DIFFICULT by burning large areas of grassland that the Mexicans had counted on for their animals. But what about the grass? All knew that Santa Anna could not travel without grass for his livestock! No grass till Spring! No attack till May! Every Texan at the Alamo recited this litany. There was no sense of urgency. The elements would buy time for the Texans.
But, alas no. General Antonio López de Santa Anna, the self-proclaimed “Napoleon of the West,” would not suffer the fate of his chosen namesake, who, defeated by the elements, was forced to retreat and eventually lost an empire. Not so for Santa Anna who would conquer the elements, who would not be deterred by winter’s lack of the normal range grass needed to feed the powerful oxen which pulled the mighty cannons which would breach the Alamo walls.
Three-quarters of the Alamo defenders had been in Texas less than four months. Most were from Southern and Eastern states and knew little about desert vegetation. Grass, to them, were blades of grass coming up out of the ground – which did not come up in winter. What Mexicans knew was that there was a shrub, about three feet high, called “mesquite grass,” a plant with deep roots that matures earlier than normal range grass. Even in winter, it was “up to allow for feeding stock along the trail” and would just barely supplement the loss of normal out-of-season range grass and the grass that had been burned by the Texans.
Feeding on this limited food source were hungry oxen. As a result, Santa Anna was forced to slow up his units so that they were two days apart, to allow the leaves on the shrub time to replenish and offer a little more sustenance – and to give the water holes a little more time to refill – after each unit passed.
Ox-power drove the military of the 1830’s. The ox, that “most noble animal, patient, thrifty, durable, gentle” . . . and slow. When well-fed, it would move “about two miles per hour.”
So there was 200 hungry, slowly moving oxen, barely subsisting on this mesquite grass, moving even slower than usual because of the short rations. Needing less forage were the horses of the cavalry of Santa Anna.
Finally, Santa Anna could stand the delay no longer. He separated out 1,500 cavalry and rode with them ahead of the slowly moving oxen, which were dragging the critically needed artillery and medical supplies – riding, a Mexican soldier confided to his diary in early February, “with inconceivable, rather astonishing haste.”
Why is he leaving the entire army behind? Does he think that his name alone is sufficient to overthrow the colonists?
But Santa Anna would neither rest nor slow down in his race to cross the Rio Grande to the Alamo – to restore his honor. As he rode at the head of his cavalry, he roared his rage at that “rabble of wretched adventurers [who will soon] become aware of their folly!”
Soldiers, our comrades have been shamefully sacrificed at Anahuac, Goliad and Bexar, and you have been destined to punish these murderers.
AND SO IT WAS IN MARCH OF 1836: Bowie for machismo, Travis for immortality, Santa Anna for honor. Not one of them was acting solely in the best interests of his nation.
For Texas, Bowie and Travis should have obtained livestock from Gonzales and Goliad and then moved the weapons and troops to Goliad, where over 500 men had a chance to hold off the Mexicans and “run and gun ’em.” For Mexico, whether or not the weapons were moved to Goliad, Santa Anna could ignore the frontier completely, and proceed along the coast, up to San Felipe and Washington-on-the-Brazos – there to capture the new Texas government and split off Houston from his frontier army. If the Texans determined to make a stand at the Alamo, Santa Anna could station a thousand troops around San Antonio to contain them (while Texan provisions and morale ran out). Then he could march his troops around San Antonio and the Alamo and still strike at the interior of Texas, attacking the Texas government, ill-prepared for a confrontation, especially with their army and cannons elsewhere.
But Santa Anna’s mind was made up: I will not go around! It is a matter of honor!
History would not be determined by what was best for each nation. Rather, it would be based upon the temperament of these three men. Each a courageous and outstanding military leader, whose flaws in contest with his valor would determine the course of events.
WHILE SANTA ANNA AND HIS CAVALRY were racing to fight at the Alamo, the Alamo defenders were busy fighting with each other. Days after Crockett arrived, Neill announced that he was leaving for three weeks due to urgent family needs, and had chosen Travis, the next ranking Regular Army officer, to assume command.
In reaction, the volunteers “mobbed [Colonel Neill] and threatened his life” when he resisted their call for an election “to choose their own leader . . . willing to accept Travis only as second in command.” They reminded Neill that only a month before Travis arrived, the volunteers at San Antonio had reaffirmed to the Consultation that they refused to “subject themselves to . . . the Regular Army [demanding instead] the privilege of electing their own officers.” They would accept no Regular Army officer “unless he be invited by themselves to their command.” And only a small number at the Alamo were part of Travis’ Regular permanent volunteers.
Neill “felt constrained to yield and . . . Jim Bowie was unanimously elected” to command the Alamo by the “old-style” volunteers. Crockett declined to even be considered, maintaining his chosen role of “High Private.”
But Bowie resented even the attempt by Neill and Travis to violate the democratic tradition of his day – to impose a leader not elected by the men. He vented his anger . . . while consuming vast amounts of whiskey.
Captain John Baugh, a Virginian, who was now adjutant for the Alamo garrison and partial to Travis, sought Rose’s help to bring about a reconciliation of the Bowie and Travis camps. He reminded Rose that although the old-style volunteers made up most of the Alamo forces, only they (and, in fact, not even all of them) had participated in Bowie’s election. “Colonel Travis,” he pointed out to Rose, “as a matter of course [as a soldier in the Regular Army] cannot submit to the control of Bowie.” Worse, the Captain added, as diplomatically as he could, your friend is out of control!
Rose knew it was true. Baugh complained that since Bowie’s election, he has been “roaring drunk all the time, has assumed all command and is proceeding in a most disorderly and irregular manner – interfering with private property, releasing prisoners sentenced by court-martial,” and generally “turning everything topsy turvy.”
Rose understood why. These citizen-volunteers, he tried to explain to Baugh, were hard drinkers and hard fighters. Taking orders was not what they did well – especially from someone imposed upon them. Raising hell was the response to the aborted effort to impose an outsider as their leader. To the volunteers, the “Regulars” were as bad as Santa Anna: trying to take away the democratic rights the volunteers were prepared to die for. Only to himself would Rose add: This is not the moment for such behavior.
Travis ordered his Regulars to move out of San Antonio and camp a few miles away to escape “this disgraceful business.”
Rose tried to reason with Bowie – but to no avail. Fortunately, Bowie recovered from the “indignity” very quickly, apologized to Travis and the friction dissipated. On Valentines Day of 1836, three days after Neill left, Bowie and Travis declared a truce, accepting that war was coming very soon and there was no time for dissension. They jointly wrote to their provisional government:
By an understanding of today Coln J. Bowie has the command of the volunteers of the garrison, and Col. W. B. Travis of the regulars and volunteer cavalry. All general orders and correspondence will henceforth be signed by both until Col. Neill’s return.
TWO DAYS BEFORE THE BOWIE-TRAVIS “TRUCE,” Santa Anna, with 2,500 men reached the Rio Grande. Santa Anna had accomplished the impossible: he had travelled with oxen – and then, only calvary, in the dead of winter, in the cold of winter, without sufficient food for his animals – over 350 miles in less than 30 days. Now, he joined up with General Ramírez y Sesma – he who had been prepared to rescue Cós at the Alamo – who waited with an additional 2,000 men. Soon Cós would join them with even more men. The Mexicans were a mere 150 miles away from San Antonio – only a few days hard riding, and they would be at the gateway to San Antonio de Bexar and the Alamo . . . but – as history would record! – without their oxen dragging their heavy artillery.