71. Journal of the … General Council, 166.
72. Ibid., 165ff.
73. Ibid., 192.
74. Dimitt to January 10, 1836, Jenkins, PTR, vol. 3, 465.
75. Bowie to Houston, January 10, 1836, quoted in Ham, “Recollections,” UT.
76. Journal of the … General Council, 166ff.
77. It has been argued that the reference to “Col. James Bowie” in the proceedings of the council constituted a recognition of his rank, but it was simply a common usage, just like “Colonel” Crockett, and with no more authority in this context.
78. Houston to D. C. Barrett, December 15, 1835, Samuel Asbury Papers, SHC, UNC.
79. James C. Neill to Houston, January 14, 1836, Jenkins, PTR, vol. 4, 14.
80. Houston to Smith, January 17, 1836, ibid., 46.
81. Ibid.; Brown, Smith, 210.
82. Thomas R. Lindley, “Drawing Truthful conclusions,” Journal of the Alamo Battlefield Association 1 (September 1995): 27-28. This perceptive analysis is quite convincing on the point that Houston did not order Bowie to go Béxar, but that it was a request, a decision reached mutually between them. Lindley may go too far, however, in suggesting that Bowie's going was entirely of his own volition.
83. This set of instructions does not survive, but reference to it is made in Orders of Gen. Houston, n.d., Jenkins, PTR, vol. 9, 144.
84. James Bowie receipt, January 18, 1836, in Jenkins, Texas Revolution and Republic Catalog no. 188, item no. 130. This receipt, by its date, established the day of Bowie's arrival, and since he signed it as commandant of the post at Béxar, it must mean that Neill was not present.
85. Stephen L. Hardin, “J. C. Neill: The Forgotten Alamo Commmander,” Alamo Journal 66 (May 1989): 5-11.
86. L. W. Kemp to John W. Dickinson, August 19, 1939, Williams Papers, UT, asserts that Dickenson had at this point changed his name to Dickerson, but there is no contemporary evidence to support this.
87. Estado a manif ta la Art'a, armes municiones y armas efectos…, March 6, 1836 (copy dated April 29, 1836) Ex XI/481.3/1655, Archivo Historico Militar Mexicano, Mexico City. The figures in the text represent what is included in this March 6 statement of what was captured from the Texians at the Alamo, plus one additional cannon added after Cós left, and an allowance for the ammunition expended by the Texians during the siege. It does not include the 400 or more small arms brought in by the Texian defenders, that raised the total of rifles, pistols, shotguns, etc., captured on March 6 to 816.
88. John Sutherland, “Fall of the Alamo,” typescript of a document written in 1860, Williams Papers, UT; William R. Carey to William F. Oppelt, January 12, 1836, in “A Letter from San Antonio de Béxar in 1836,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 62 (April 1959): 516.
89. Green B. Jameson to Houston, January 18, 1836, Army Papers, Record Group 401, TXSL; Mariano Arroyo, Report of Military Hospital at Béxar, August 1, 1836, EX XI/481.3/1151, Archivo Historico Militar Mexicano; Testimony of Mrs. Hannig Touching on the Alamo Massacre, September 23, 1876, TXSL. Mrs. Hannig—Susanna Dickenson—said there were fifty to sixty Mexican sick and wounded in San Antonio.
90. Jameson to Houston, January 18, 1836, Army Papers, Record Group 401, TXSL.
91. Neill to Smith, January 23, 1836, Jenkins, PTR, vol. 4, 127.
92. Ibid., 128.
93. Proceedings of a meeting at Béxar relative to the general council & Gov. H. Smith, etc., January 26, 1836, Communications Received, Secretary of State, Record Group 307, TXSL. Henry Smith, “Reminiscences,” 52-53, 55, later claimed that the garrison actually wanted to come to San Felipe to forcibly reinstall him as governor, but this is almost certainly false. If they would not abandon their post in the face of the enemy, they would hardly do so just to protect him.
94. Affidavit of Horatio Alsbury, November 7, 1836, Memorial No. 451, TXSL.
95. Green, Maverick, 55; Government of the Republic of Texas to William[son] Oldham, n.d. [1836], Petition of Administrators of James Bowie, memorial No. 451, TXSL.
96. Day, Almanac, 1868, 559.
97. José Maria Rodriguez, Memoirs of Early Texas (N.P, 1913), 71.
98. Bowie to Smith, February 2, 1836, Army Papers, Record Group 401, TXSL.
99. Houston to Smith, January 30, 1836, Jenkins, PTR, vol. 4, 188.
100. Memorial of Citizens & Soldiers of Béxar, n.d., Consultation Papers, TXSL.
101. Bowie to Smith, February 2, Army Papers, Record Group 401, TXSL.
Chapter 20 Travis 1835-February 23, 1836
1. Travis to the governor and council, December 3, 1835, Army Papers, Record Group 401, TXSL.
2. Travis to Robinson, December 17, Lamar Papers, TXSL.
3. Barker, “Army,” 230-33.
4. Ibid., 234; Journal of the…General Council, 65, 72-73. For more than a century people have claimed that not only were Travis and Bonham childhood playmates, but that Bonham came to Texas at Travis's urging. Not an atom of contemporary evidence exists to support this, and the only basis at all are Milledge L. Bonham to Mixon, June 16, 1929, Mixon Papers, and Bonham to Asbury, n.d. [February 1923], Asbury Papers, UT. both letters are by the grandson of James Butler Bonham's brother, simply repeating family stories nearly a century after the fact.
5. Travis commission, December 24, 1835, copy in Travis Papers, UT. The original is indicated as being in the Mexican Military Archives, suggesting that Travis has to have had it with him in the Alamo, or else left it in Béxar on February 23, 1836.
6. Houston to Wilson, December 28, 1835, Jenkins, PTR, vol. 3, 350, Houston to Travis, December 23, 1835, 301.
7. Charles Wilson to R. R. Royall, December 24, 1835, Jenkins, PTR, vol.3, 310.
8. San Felipe Telegraph and Texas Register, January 9, 1836.
9. Journal of the… General Council, 94.
10. Barker, “Army,” 232.
11. Houston to Travis, December 23, 1835, Jenkins, PTR, vol. 3, 301
12. James Butler Bonham to Houston, December 31, 1835. Daughter of the American Revolution Collection, East Texas Research Center, Stephen F.Austin State University, Nacogdoches.
13. Barker, “Army,” 230.
14. Travis to W. G. Hill, January 21, 1836, Jenkins, PTR, vol. 4, 109.
15. H. Klone receipt, January 22, 1836, Auditor's Book of Claims Paid 1835-1840, TXSL.
16. Travis to Smith, January 28, 1836, Army Papers, Record Group 401, TXSL.
17. Travis statement, January 7, 1836, Military Service Records, Republic of Texas, Series 1, Section 52, Book B, TXSL; Travis voucher to “Mrs. Kenner,” October 5, 1835, with endorsement by Travis January 20, 1836, Heaston, Texas in the Nineteenth Century, catalog no. 27, item 298.
18. Travis to Smith, January 28, 1836, Army Papers, Record Group 401, TXSL.
19. Edward Wood to Robinson, January 1836, Jenkins, PTR, Vol. 4, 229-30.
20. Sap Felipe Telegraph and Texas Register, January 23, 1836.
21. Inventory of notes, June 8, 1835, Austin Papers, UT; Travis document, November 1835, unidentified autograph catalog, n., n.d., 66, copy in possession of the author.
22. Autobiographical Sketch of James Harper Starr, 1881, James H. Starr to Franklin J. Starr, January 8, 1836, R. H. Pinny to Franklin J. Starr, May 25, 1835, James H. Starr Collection, UT.
23. Account of the sale of personal estate of Franklin J. Starr, 1837, Receipt for books n.d., Starr Collection, UT.
24. Receipt of Travis & Nibbs, March 1, 1836, H. C. C. Hudson receipt, November 17, 1836, ibid.
25. John R. Jones Account Book, Estate of William B. Travis, Claims filed against the estate of Wm. B. Travis, March 26, 1838, copy in Travis Biographical File, DRT; Inventory of Estate of William B. Travis, certified copy in Mixon Papers; James H. Starr receipt, November 7, 1837, Starr Papers, UT.
26. Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Alabama (Tuscaloosa, 1836), 48; Journal of the Senate of the State of Alabama (Tuscaloosa, 1836), 164; Acts Passed at the Annual Session of the General Assembly of
the State of Alabama(Tuscaloosa, 1836), 112.
27. Travis to Smith, December 3, 185, Army Papers, Record Group 401, TXSL.
28. San Felipe Telegraph and Texas Register, November 14, 1835, January 2, 1836.
29. Recommendation, January 3, 1836, Consultation Papers, TXSL.
30. The original of this is in the Texana Collection DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Tex.
31. J. H. Money to Wood, January 22, 1836, Jenkins, PTR, vol. 4, 118. Williams, “Critical Study, III,” 84, speculates without authority that Travis tried to get out of his assignment to command at Béxar because he still wanted to lead the Matamoros expedition, but his January 28 letter to Smith makes it plain that he had lost all respect for those involved in that enterprise.
32. San Felipe Telegraph and Texas Register, January 23, 1836.
33. Barker, “Army”, 236. No actual order to Travis can be found, but in Travis to Hill, January 21, 1836. Jenkins, PTR, vol. 4, 109, he states that “I am ordered off to the defense of San Antonio.” Yet in Travis to Burnet, January 20, 1836, Jenkins, PTR, vol. 4, 6, Travis speaks of a note due for collection and says that he will take it to Brazoria in person to collect. Clearly he did not have his marching orders at that time, or he would have known that he could not go to Brazoria. Thus Travis must have received his instructions late January 20 or early January 21. It is clear from Travis to Smith, January 28, 1836, that Travis is moving in response to orders from Smith, and Travis to Smith, January 29, makes reference to an order to take one hundred men with him. Both letters are in Army Papers, Record Group 401, TXSL.
34. John R. Jones statement as executor of William Barret Travis, December 18, 1837, Comptroller's Military Service Records, No. 5926, TXSL. This document is missing from then State Library and Archives and has not been seen, apparently, since it was examined by Ruby Mixon when she researched her “Travis” thesis, and consequently the material here is taken from her transcription on pp. 439-42 of her thesis.
Thomas Ricks Lindley, the most indefatigable researcher to go through the Texas Revolution documents in the State Library, concludes that the item was a forgery, a conclusion with which this author cannot concur. It is important to understand the nature of this document. In the original entries in Col Travis hand saying: “The foregoing is taken from the original entries in Col Travis hand writing made in a small blank morocco bound book with his name in it.” Thus, the document missing from the archives is not the book itself, but a one or two page copy of information in it made by Jones. The document may simply be misfiled, which has happened with other Texas Revolution documents, or it may have been stolen, and the archives did suffer a number of unfortunate thefts in past decades.
Lindley's conclusion that it is not genuine is based on a)the fact that it cannot be found, and b)certain discrepancies between dates and vendors for purchase and their locations listed from the book, and actual invoices for claims due from some of these same vendors now to be found in the Audited Military Claims files in the archives. However, certain thing need to be kept in mind. The invoices in the Audited Military Claims are for goods that Travis purchased on government credit, and for which the vendors subsequently submitted their claims. The expenditures listed in the Travis book transcribed by Jones are expenditures that Travis made out of his own pocket, and which Jones was submitting, as executor of his estate, for reimbursement to the estate after Travis's death. Thus the amounts would not agree between the two sources because they do not cover the same purchases. A couple of seeming discrepancies do still exist where Travis appears to be in two different places on the same date, but again, the Jones tabulation only lists the names of vendors, without stating locations of the purchase. The fact that Audited Military Claims place Travis at Beeson's Ferry on January 25, while the Jones tabulation has him buying goods from Jesse goods at Burnham's Ferry, where his command did in fact camp January 28-29. Burnham could have brought the goods to Beeson's on January 25, or Travis could have ridden from Beeson's to Burnham's a distance of less than twenty miles. Furthermore, it is always possible that Travis made some entries in his morocco book from memory, getting a date or name wrong. In 1834 in his law practice he engaged a clerk to clean up the chaos he had made of his own book-keeping.
And finally, it should also be borne in mind that the Jones tabulation is a copy made by Jones himself, and therefore subject to inadvertent mistakes in copying that could innocently introduce seeming contradictions that would not otherwise exist. Travis's numerals are not always distinct, his 3s, 5s, and 8s being quite similar, as are his is and 7s. The one remaining mystery, of course, is how the morocco book escaped being lost or destroyed in the fall of the Alamo. This is not an insurmountable problem but of course can only be addressed by hypothesis. The latest entry in it is dated February 17, six days before the commencement of the siege. Either Travis could have sent it off with one of numerous couriers along with other personal papers, probably addressed to his partner Starr, or it may have been left behind in the town of San Antonio when the Texians went into the Alamo, escaped notice by the occupying Mexicans, and subsequently was sent to Starr, who gave all of Travis's papers to Jones.
Lindley himself in a letter to the author, June 4, 1996, testified to having found in the Audited Military Claims an entry stating that an amount exactly equal to the expenditures on the Jones tabulation, was submitted after Travis's death. This certainly seems conclusive of the document's authenticity, though Lindley speculates that a forger, finding that payment, could have used it to create the Jones tabulation, which seems like rather a lot of effort in order to produce a document of no monetary value, the customary motive for forgery. By its own testimony, the document was in Jone's hand, not Travis's, and while Travis documents are extremely valuable, Jones documents are not. The only other possible reason to forge such a document would be the entry of a purchase of wood on February 3 in San Antonio, which establishes the date of Travis's arrival. Lindley makes a good case for Travis not reaching San Antonio until February 5—with which this author still disagrees—but if he is right, it still does not invalidate the Jones tabulation, keeping in mind that what we have in Mixon is her transcription of Jones's transcription of Travis's handwriting. Jones, could have misread a Travis 5 for a 3, or Mixon could have misread it in Jones, and a simple error like this seems a far more reasonable and persuasive explanation than a complicated and extended forgery for no discernible purpose.
. W. B. price to Zachary T. Fulmore, February 4, 1898, Zachary T. Fulmore Papers, UT; William Zuber, My Eighty Years in Texas (Austin,1971), 84.
36. Receipt of C. B. Stewart, February 22, 1836, Accounts and Receipts Submitted for Approval, Record Group 307 TXSL.
37. Thomas Ricks Lindley has produced an invaluable itinerary of Travis's journey to San Antonio, based on his extensive research. It will appear in a forthcoming work tentatively titled Alamo Traces: Backtracking the Historiography of the Siege and Storming of the Texian Alamo It is most inventive and effective in its interpretation of the slim evidence to locate Travis each day on the road, and with only a few exceptions, this author has accepted his conclusions. Travis's arrival at Burnham's Ferry represents one of those disagreements, however. Lindley notes that Burnham's was off the direct route to San Antonio from Beeson's Ferry, and then speculates—without supporting evidence—that Travis made the diversion, intending top go in person to Washington on the Brazos to meet with Houston and try to have his orders rescinded. This seems improbable at best. If Travis wanted to go to Washington, the best road and most direct route was back through San Felipe, not overland to Burnham's. Moreover, Travis certainly knew enough not to exhaust his entire command with unnecessary riding on what would have been a personal errand. It seems much more probable, considering the way Travis was scouring merchants for goods, that while at Beeson's he learned that Burnham had merchandise he needed—Travis charges $325.85 with Burnham on January 29—and took his command there to collect the goods. And he could
have learned of that merchandise on January 25 when the Jones tabulation shows him buying blankets, sugar, and coffee from Burnham, but not necessarily at Burnham's Crossing. In other words Burnham could have encountered Travis on the road on January 25, sold him a few thing, and told him that he had much more at his store, persuading Travis to make the side trip a few days later. Again this is hypothetical, but seems more logical than an imaginary trip to Washington for which no evidence exists. Finally, a personal visit to see Charles, as suggested in the text, could have been an additional motive for the diversion.
Three Roads to the Alamo Page 93