Three Roads to the Alamo

by William C. Davis

  Bowie's arrival meant more than just the small number who came with him. “Bowie's prowess as a fighter made him doubly welcome,” said Noah Smithwick, and the Louisianians like Ham and Richardson who came with him seemed “spoiling for a fight.”59 He arrived too late to attend a war council that Austin held that evening, and it was just as well, for Austin conducted the meeting more as a negotiation, mindful of the fact that all these men were volunteers who could come and go as they pleased. He may have been general in charge, but he put every decision to a vote of his officers. The day before they had voted to stay on the Cibolo for the time being, but this evening they voted to rescind their decision of the day before, leaving future movement to Austin's discretion. Running an army, even this one, in such an indecisive way, would have enraged Bowie. It would in fact soon enough.60

  Bowie knew all or most of the officers he met when he reached headquarters. Austin made his old friend Warren Hall adjutant, and William Jack inspector. Edward Burleson and John Moore held commissions as lieutenant colonels, William Wharton acted as major, and James Fannin and others commanded the several companies as captains. Travis was here, too, now a lieutenant. Thanks to having lived in San Antonio for some time at Veramendi's, Bowie already knew something from his friends of the state of Cós's preparations for its defense, and when he told Austin of this it only made the hard-pressed commander even more hesitant. Ill as well as uncertain, Austin sat in his tent with his head in his hands much of the time, burdened with the knowledge that he—and perhaps he alone—was keeping this army together and that a wrong move on his part could see it dissolve. Moreover, the army formed much faster than his ability to care for it, and the volunteers found themselves short of bread and other necessities, with only his promise of imminent action holding some men in the ranks.61

  It was the sort of situation made for Bowie. Austin immediately appointed him a volunteer aide on his staff, but recognized his brief militia rank as a colonel, and acknowledged even more his surpassing fitness for such a crisis. While the army stayed on the Cibolo for a few days, Bowie managed to get a letter into San Antonio on October 21 to his old friend Menchaca, who passed it along to some influential bexareños. He wanted information of the Mexicans' preparations, and also encouraged his tejano friends to come and join Austin. The next day a few dozen tejanos stole out of the city and came to the Texian camp, and brought with them information of the Mexicans' fortifying of the old Alamo mission, emplacing cannon on the roofs of some of its buildings, and the division of their forces between the mission and the town.62

  There also came news of an expected wagon train of supplies, something that interested the Texians very much. Moreover, it was believed that some stores of corn and other provisions were left at the missions San Juan Espada, San Juan, and San José, a few miles south of San Antonio. On the morning of October 22 Austin gave Bowie orders to take Fannin's company to the missions, send any corn and beans found there back to the main army, and reconnoiter the surrounding country. The missions lay right on the La Bahía road, the route by which any supply train headed for Béxar must come, and thus if one of the missions seemed suitable for fortifying, the Texians could command the road and cut off further supplies to Cós, and make good use of the provisions themselves. Bowie should also determine the sentiments of the local people, and keep an ear cocked for any news of the Mexicans' caballado, the horses that could not be foraged in San Antonio and had to be kept out on the open prairie to feed.63

  Bowie and Fannin covered twenty miles, much of it off the road, to reach the mission Espada by 4:30 that afternoon. The guard of five Mexican soldiers fled with no resistance, and Bowie soon found some corn and beans, but it belonged to local tenant farmers who would only sell for cash. There would be no Mexican military stores at the San José or nearby San Juan missions, but there was abundant corn belonging to tejanos who lived in town, and Bowie dispatched a scout to infiltrate through the Mexican defenses of San Antonio to try to negotiate a purchase from the owners. Most of the crops still in the fields were not yet ripe, unfortunate for the Texians, but equally bad for the Mexicans in the city.

  Indeed, Bowie's knowledge of San Antonio and its people proved a great asset now, for he made contacts that brought information out of the fortified town. Repeated messages told of citizens being forced to work on the Mexican defenses, and many of them resolving to escape to Austin's army instead. The Mexican engineers were fortifying the housetops at every street entrance, cutting firing holes in the walls of homes, and stationing soldiers throughout. So far Cós had eight small four-pounder cannon and one larger gun mounted, with his powder and ammunition stored at the Alamo itself.64 He proposed conducting a reconnaissance himself above the town the next day, at the same time suggesting that Austin move from the Cibolo and occupy a position north of San Antonio on El Camino Real, while Bowie held Espada. That would isolate Cós from any communications, “alarm and intimidate the enemy, and inspire our friends with renewed confidence.” If Austin could send him fifty more men, Bowie even boasted that he could take and hold any position desired. He believed that the foe numbered about six hundred, with no recent reinforcements, and most of his horses sent off to Laredo, only two to three hundred being with the command, grazing outside the city during the day, and brought in for protection at night. The only real failure in his intelligence gathering came when faulty information led him to believe that, despite their apparent strength, the Mexicans were desperately low on provisions. “In five days, they can be starved out,” Bowie reported to Austin, a wildly inaccurate estimate.65

  It was on the whole an excellent report, giving Austin copious detailed information more than sufficient to formulate a campaign plan taking advantage of Mexican weakness without risking enemy strength, and virtually all of it must have been due to Bowie, for Fannin had no connections in this area. Wisely Austin conformed his decision to Bowie's suggestions. He gave orders for them to go ahead to the other missions, and on October 23 Bowie and Fannin went to San José and San Juan. As expected they found only a very little corn and peas, much of it unripe, and even that Bowie could not just take, and having no public money he could not buy. In order to forestall the mounting complaints in their command over hunger, he and Fannin decided to spend their own money to buy corn and beef for the men that night. But he warned Austin that “our private resources are quite limited, and cannot be expected to last beyond tomorrow.” They must have food or money to continue. “You know the materials we have,” they said. “They will fight—and fight desperately; but must Eat.” There also came word from Béxar that a reinforcement of thirty Mexican soldiers got into the city the night before, and Bowie's regular communications with friends in the town informed him that more and more sympathetic tejanos were leaving.66

  Suddenly the Mexicans took the initiative. Shortly after dawn the next morning Bowie heard firing, and soon found himself attacked at Espada by an unknown number of the foe. He saw about fifty, but the dust cloud from their column on the road in the distance looked like one made by two hundred or more, and one witness mistakenly thought he saw Ugartechea leading them. Before long the Mexicans retired with no damage done on either side, but Bowie started putting Espada in shape to be defended, and asked Austin what his plans were, and if he could not spare a reinforcement of fifty men. He and Fannin agreed that Espada offered an important strategic point and should be held. Moreover, he suggested that with thirty minutes' notice he could advance to timber within three-quarters of a mile of San Antonio itself, further harassing Cós. But he must have men and orders, not to mention food or money. Bowie recognized the sagging morale of the volunteers. These men had left their homes expecting a few days' service, a fight or two, and then a return home. But now they had been in the field for two weeks and more, ill fed, unpaid, and with no action. Moreover, Bowie saw some of his men starting to look uneasy at being so far in advance of the main army. Austin must come up and they must act. Bowie and Fannin sent an emphatic plea at
7:00 A.M., shortly after the Mexicans retired, saying that they “suggest—nay urge, the propriety—the necessity of some movement, which will bring us nearer together, and shut in the enemy, and either starve them out, whip them out, or dishearten and beat them in small parties.”67 Unsaid in the message there appeared to be a growing impatience with Austin's apparent caution and indecision.

  That afternoon Warren Hall arrived bringing a message from Austin, and also newly commissioned Capt. Juan Seguín, whom Austin wanted to raise a cavalry company from among the loyal tejanos. Hall was to give Bowie instructions on movements, but apparently Austin had not been sufficiently specific for them to do anything but consolidate the position they already held.68 Hall did say that Sam Houston had joined Austin, however, and that results were coming in from the recent election of delegates to the consultation. Bowie sent Hall back with a fresh statement of the situation, and now increasing the requested reinforcement to 150, since he learned from Hall that more men had come into the Cibolo camp. This would allow him to cover the lower roads to the Rio Grande, and also to enhance defense, for he had a report from a friend in San Antonio that the foe intended to attack that night. “He knows our numbers,” Bowie warned. Bowie had to have specific orders as to what Austin wanted done, and specific information of what he intended, and whether they would combine for an advance on San Antonio on the morrow. In a cryptic note at the end of their dispatch, Fannin added a comment about the possibility of Bowie being superseded in command.69

  That night Austin sent a reply that said nothing about future movements, but at least informed Bowie that 50 men would be coming as soon as they caught their horses. However, he could send no money for buying supplies at the missions. Instead, he offered his own personal obligation for compensation for any food Bowie bought, and if the owners would not accept that, then he gave Bowie authority to invoke the “Law of necessity” and impress the grain.70 While Austin's previous messages addressed “Colonel James Bowie,” this last one he sent to “James Bowie Esq.” Perhaps it signified nothing at all, or a great deal. Having no formal commission, his “colonelcy” could not have expired, nor, for that matter, would Austin have the authority to revoke a title bestowed by the volunteers of Nacogdoches when they elected Bowie their colonel months before.

  More likely Austin's mode of address represented the anticipation of something else. In early October the several jurisdictions held their elections for delegates to the new consultation to meet in San Felipe in November. Nacogdoches ran nine candidates on its ballot, and even though Bowie probably left before the election—he was in San Felipe on the day of the vote—he must have known that his name was one of the nine. Austin may well have expected that Bowie would be one of those elected, just like the recently arrived Houston. As it happened, a number of men in the army were candidates, and as election results filtered in, their absence meant that no quorum was possible when the consultation met on October 16. They adjourned until November 1, or whenever a quorum should be present.71 Austin now faced the prospect of seeing several men, especially from his officer corps, leave to assume other duties in San Felipe. The expectation that Bowie would be among them is probably what lay behind both Fannin's otherwise unexplained comment, and Austin's suddenly addressing Bowie by a civilian honorific usually reserved for attorneys and public officials. But Bowie had not been elected. Houston led the field in the Nacogdoches balloting, and he and six others won seats, but Bowie received just sixty-eight votes and came in ninth.72 When Austin found out, he immediately dropped the “Esquire” and went back to addressing Bowie as “colonel.”

  Bowie probably did not get the news for another day or two, and in any case likely received it without much disappointment. The real excitement would be out here with the army, if Austin ever made up his mind to do something. Unfortunately, the difficulty over all the newly elected delegates who might have to leave delayed the general for two days on the Cibolo, revealing as much as anything the state of Austin's debilitated health and its effect on his ability to think and act. On October 25 Austin mustered the entire army, calling in Bowie and perhaps Fannin, to put the question before the men, yet more than just the leaving of delegates seemed to be in the balance. A strong contingent, led by Houston, maintained that the army itself should retire toward San Felipe, being too weak to accomplish anything in the face of Cós's forces. Houston spoke to the men in terms that bordered on defeatism, and when he finished others took the stump to counter all his arguments except those in favor of the elected delegates being sent to the consultation. Some all but denounced him for demoralizing the men, and Houston may already have been drinking when he made his unwise appeal.73 When Austin finally put it to a vote, the army decided to remain, but that the delegates should go to their new duties in San Felipe. Houston, who no doubt hoped to lead most of the army away under his command, was so downcast that he took refuge in his tent and the bottle, and by midnight was so drunk he was shouting for a pistol with which to shoot himself. Bowie actually restrained him, remaining with him long enough for sleep or calm to remove any danger.74 Houston and most of them left on October 26, though a few, including Travis, now elected from San Felipe, volunteered to stay.75

  That same day events started to move at last. The Mexicans were seen emplacing a large sixteen-pounder cannon on the roof of the Alamo church in San Antonio, and then Bowie and Fannin withdrew from Espada in the face of a strong force of skirmishers sent out to cover the arrival of a reinforcement.76 Meanwhile Austin finally put the army in motion toward Espada, arriving the next morning to find Bowie and Fannin in their former position. At last this looked like something promising to Bowie. He also probably took a little pleasure in finding out that a few days earlier Austin had appointed his friend William Richardson surgeon of the army, meaning, if nothing else, that Bowie would have two close allies on the general's personal staff, Richardson and Hall.

  Austin wanted to move cautiously, as always, and was still waiting for large cannon of his own to lay siege, yet now he seemed to be in the mood to make an offensive, perhaps in part because Houston had argued so strongly against it before he left for San Felipe. Espada sat eight miles south of San Antonio on the La Bahía Road. Six miles north of them lay the mission Concepción, just below the San Antonio River. He wanted to occupy that spot, where the river would protect his front, preparatory to moving against Cós himself, and called on Bowie and Fannin once more on the morning of October 27. They would take Fannin's “First Division,” which consisted only of Fannin's company and that of Andrew Briscoe, ninety-two men in all, and move cautiously forward toward the river to select the best place for the army to follow and camp that night. If possible, they should also reconnoiter the outskirts of Béxar, but in any event they were to report back to him “with as little delay as possible.” Austin wanted to have time to get the rest of the army on the road and in position before nightfall, not relishing having his army divided in the immediate presence of the enemy.77

  Bowie's column passed cautiously up the La Bahía, through country well timbered, and by noon he saw the mission Concepción ahead, and beyond it the tree-lined bank of the San Antonio. There was more than enough time now to send word back to Austin to bring up the rest of the army, but Bowie delayed. A small party of Mexican cavalry came out and skirmished briefly in the afternoon, but then withdrew, to take word of the Texians' arrival to Cós. Carefully Bowie chose his ground in the bend of the river about five hundred yards from the mission, and put his men in the woods skirting the stream, with the river at their backs. He divided the command into two wings, placing Fannin's company on the south flank of the river bend, and the balance, about forty men under Bowie himself, on the upper flank. The timber and the riverbank gave them good cover, with a clear field of fire onto an open plain leading to the mission. To reach them the Mexicans would have to come down the other side of the river, cross below them, and then approach across that plain. The positions selected, Bowie finally sent a courier back to
Austin around sunset.78

  Of course that was not what Austin had in mind. His instructions were for the entire party to return to him. All through the afternoon and into the evening he nervously waited to hear from Bowie. One of his aides saw that “this disobedience of orders gave the Comr in chief great discomfiture.” Austin became almost obsessed with the fear that the Mexicans would attack before he could get there, but since he only received Bowie's dispatch after dark, he could not put the army on the road until the morning, and in the best of conditions his leading elements would take two hours to reach Concepción. Austin sat awake all night, too anxious to sleep.79

  For his part, Bowie slept quite well. During the evening a Mexican arrived in the camp, sent by the padre of a mission in San Antonio with a bag of sugar candy and a bottle of mescal as a present for Austin. The Texians suspected that he might be a spy, trying by his gift to learn if the general himself was actually present, meaning presumably that his whole army would be with him. Some spoke of killing the man, but Bowie thought otherwise and apparently just held him overnight.80 Instead, serenaded by the mournful calls of the whippoorwills and the occasional distant howls of coyotes and wolves, Bowie passed the evening drinking mescal and chewing on the candy sticks called pilancillos. Finally he lay down, expecting a fight on the morrow. “I stayed all night with James Bowie,” a companion that evening later recalled. “On the night before the fight was to take place I never saw a man sleep more soundly than he did.”81