The Blood of Heroes: The 13-Day Struggle for the Alamo--and the Sacrifice That Forged a Nation

by James Donovan

  ELEVEN

  Circunvalado

  Béxar was held by the enemy, and it was necessary to open the door to our future operations by taking it.

  GENERAL SANTA ANNA

  The men of the garrison celebrated George Washington’s birthday until very late, eating, drinking, smoking the locals’ cornshuck cigarettes, dancing, and romancing the black-eyed beauties of Béxar. Most of the artillerymen bunking in the Alamo eventually made their way down Potrero Street and across the narrow footbridge and up into the old mission. The rest of the rebels returned to their quarters in town or found some shelter to sleep off the effects of tequila, mescal, and corn liquor. Some of them had barely flopped into their blankets at dawn on Tuesday when they were awakened by a frenzy of noise and activity unusual for that early hour. The townspeople were “in quite an unusual stir,” remembered John Sutherland:

  The citizens of every class were hurrying to and fro through the streets, with obvious signs of excitement. Houses were being emptied, and other contents put into carts, and hauled off. Such of the poorer class, who had no better mode of conveyance, were shouldering their effects, and leaving on foot.

  When several bexareños were detained for questioning, they claimed to be going out to the country to prepare their fields for the summer’s crop. Travis issued orders that no further citizens be allowed to leave, hoping to discourage the steady exodus with threats of more drastic measures, to no effect.

  At last, near noon, came an explanation for the commotion. A friendly Mexican secretly informed Travis that on the previous night, while the fandango was in full swing, the Mexican cavalry had reached a point just a few hours’ ride west of town.

  Despite this seeming corroboration of the story told by Blas Herrera just a few days before, Travis was still skeptical. They had been hearing similar stories for weeks. As a precaution he borrowed a mount from Sutherland, who had two with him, and sent a man to drive the main horse herd, grazing a few miles east of town on the Salado River, back to town. He also posted a sentinel in the bell tower of the San Fernando church, the highest spot in town. Travis and Sutherland clambered up there with the soldier, but seeing nothing suspicious, climbed back down. Travis ordered the man to ring the bell at any sign of enemy activity.

  Thirty minutes later the church bell rang out, and the lookout shouted, “The enemy is in view!” Sutherland ran across the plaza from his friend Nat Lewis’s store to where a crowd was gathering next to the church. Several men scrambled up the scaffold and looked to the west. They saw nothing, and dismissed it as a false alarm. The sentinel insisted he had seen soldiers. “They were hid by the mesquite bushes,” he said.

  Sutherland proposed to ride west to the Alazán Hills, about a mile and a half away, if someone who knew the country would accompany him. Garrison storekeeper John W. Smith, “El Colorado,” volunteered. He was 6 feet 1 inch and a former county sheriff in Missouri—a good man to have by your side. And he knew the area well, having lived in Béxar for a decade. Sutherland told Travis that if they returned at any gait but a walk, it would be a sure sign that they had seen the enemy.

  They splashed across the fifteen-feet-wide San Pedro Creek and trotted past barren cornfields and the Campo Santo burial ground and out of town along muddy Calle Real, the street that became El Camino Real.

  BY LATE AFTERNOON of the twenty-second, the weather had again conspired against Santa Anna’s Army of Operations. A wave of heavy rain hit the area and transformed the gentle Medina River into a raging torrent. Part of the battalion had already crossed the water, but the ammunition train was left on the opposite bank. At five p.m., despite His Excellency’s fury at the decision, Ramírez y Sesma gave the order to stand down. The downpour continued until midnight, when it finally eased up. Ramírez y Sesma led his 160 lancers out of camp soon after.

  The rest of the brigade marched out early the next morning, with Santa Anna in the vanguard. They reached a trickle of water called Alazán Creek just after noon. Beyond the stream rose low hills covered with chaparral and mesquite trees. A mile and a half further lay the center of town.

  To the surprise of everyone, they found Ramírez y Sesma and his lancers waiting. He had reached the creek at seven a.m., but received conflicting reports from sympathetic bexareños and a captured spy. Some gave him directions on where to fall upon the rebels, most of whom had remained in town. But the spy told him the Texians knew of his presence and were planning an attack at that very moment. Ramírez y Sesma, uncharacteristically paralyzed, decided to remain in place until the rest of the brigade arrived.

  Santa Anna knew that half the rebels were living in the old mission compound on the east side of town, but that many others were staying in the barracks on Military Plaza and in houses in the area. If he moved fast, there was still a chance he could seize some of them. His Excellency issued orders to march. He dispatched General Ventura Mora to lead his Dolores Cavalry Regiment and some infantrymen and swing down below Béxar to Mission Concepción, the strongest in the chain, to make sure no Texians were there—it was better fortified than the Alamo, and the rebels might have moved down there. To Colonel José Vicente Miñón, he awarded the honor of leading a group of sixty cazadores from the Matamoros Battalion into town ahead of the brigade, to take the church. Tall and lean, the Spanish-born Miñón, a twenty-year veteran of the army, was a good choice: as a young second lieutenant during the revolution against Spain, he had led thirty men against four hundred at Querétaro and had taken the town after an all-day battle. His exploits made him a national hero. He had also distinguished himself at Zacatecas the previous May.

  While his soldados checked their muskets and rifles and prepared for battle, El Presidente donned his finest uniform, belted on his fanciest sword, grasped his gold-plated saddle, and swung onto his horse. It was time to lead his army.

  SUTHERLAND AND SMITH GUIDED THEIR horses up the low hill, eventually reaching the crest and peering down on Alazán Creek. Less than 150 yards below them were more than a thousand Mexican soldiers. The sun flashed off the brass buckles of their uniforms and arms. Hundreds of mounted men gripped the long, sturdy lances that were so effective in open-field combat.

  The two men wheeled and galloped back down the slope. Rain had fallen the night before, and the horses began to slip on the trail. Sutherland’s was smoothly shod, and before they had gone fifty yards tumbled to the ground, throwing its rider ahead and then rolling across his knees. Smith reined in and jumped down. Fortunately Sutherland was not a large man, and Smith managed to pull him out from under his horse. They remounted and loped into town.

  Their pace sent the desired message. The church bell was clanging and rebels and townspeople alike were hurrying through the streets when they galloped through Military Plaza and past the church into Main Plaza, where they ran into David Crockett on horseback, heading their way to reconnoiter himself. He told them that Travis was moving his headquarters and the entire garrison to the Alamo. Smith left for his house. Crockett and Sutherland rode over to the mission and made their way to Travis’s new quarters in the Trevino family house, along the west wall. As Sutherland dismounted, his right knee gave way and he fell to the ground. His left arm and neck were also injured. Crockett helped him inside, where they found Travis dashing off a brief message to Andrew Ponton, the alcalde of Gonzales. He wasted not a word.

  COMMANDANCY OF BÉXAR, 3 o’clock P.M. The enemy in large force are in sight. We want men and provisions. Send them to us. We have 150 men and are determined to defend the Alamo to the last. Give us assistance.

  P.S. Send an express to San Felipe with news night and day.

  Travis needed an express rider, and quick. Sutherland’s injuries clearly rendered him unfit for garrison duty. Travis asked him if he was capable of riding to Gonzales with the message and rallying the settlers there to come to his aid. The doctor said he was, and left at once. A few minutes later he ran into Smith, also on his way to Gonzales; his family and pregnant wife were already th
ere, en route to New Orleans. By that time the Mexican cavalry had reached Main Plaza, so the two headed south on the Goliad road until they were out of sight, then struck east for Gonzales.

  There was not much time left. Travis dispatched another express rider, cavalryman John B. Johnson, to Goliad with a similar request for aid. He had sent James Bonham there a week earlier, and for the same purpose. Now their plight was much more serious. They would hold out, he wrote Fannin, “until we can get assistance from you, which we expect you to forward immediately. In this extremity, we hope you will send us all the men you can spare promptly. We have one hundred and forty six men, who are determined never to retreat.” Fannin had previously ignored several requests for aid, so now Travis added a jab to his honor that could not be overlooked: “We deem it unnecessary to repeat to a brave officer, who knows his duty, that we call on him for assistance.” There were more than four hundred men at the presidio in Goliad. If Fannin responded quickly and sent even half of them, the Alamo garrison’s chances would be improved greatly.

  Johnson jumped on a large bay, rode out of the lunette and through the Plaza de Valero, then turned southeast onto the road to Goliad.

  Meanwhile Crockett, at Travis’s side, was assessing the situation. He was not the official commander of the Tennessee Mounted Volunteers—that honor belonged to Captain William B. Harrison, who had arrived, bringing several more men, a few days after Crockett—but since he had fallen in with them he had occasionally assumed some leadership duties, and this was no time to stand on ceremony. He asked Travis to assign him and his “twelve Tennessee boys” a position to defend. Travis gave the ex-congressman the 115-foot wooden palisade between the church and the low barracks, the most vulnerable part of the perimeter. Crockett’s renowned marksmanship could make a difference there.

  MIÑÓN LED HIS LINE OF skirmishers over the Alazán Hills, past the Campo Santo cemetery, and into the western edge of Béxar. Crude jacales gave way to larger stone and adobe structures as they neared the center of town. The few remaining residents stayed hidden behind closed doors. The cazadores waded the shallow San Pedro Creek. The sprawling Plaza de Armas, the Military Plaza, lay less than two hundred feet ahead. They gripped their Baker rifles and Brown Bess muskets tighter.

  But no American rebels were in sight, and the only occupants of the barracks were the dozen or so Mexican soldados—most of them from the battered Morelos Battalion—too seriously injured in the battle for Béxar in December to leave with General Cós, and the doctor and two interns who had remained behind to tend them in the hospital. The rebel flag had been taken down from the flagpole in the center of the plaza. Miñón ordered his veterans to secure the area and wait for His Excellency to arrive.

  AS THE MEXICAN TROOPS ENTERED the west side of town a frenzy of activity engulfed the east. Somehow Bowie found the strength to lead a detachment of his men in breaking into several deserted jacales near the Alamo’s south gate in a last-minute search for food. They found eighty or ninety bushels of corn, which they carried into the fort. Travis scribbled a receipt for thirty beeves to a local man and ordered them driven into the cattle pen on the eastern side of the compound. The meager horse herd arrived soon after and was guided into the corral adjacent to it.

  Half the garrison—artillerymen, primarily—was already quartered in the Alamo. The remainder, most of whom had been bunking in the presidial barracks on Military Plaza, quickly gathered their few possessions and trooped down Potrero Street and across the footbridge on the San Antonio River. As they trudged down the street toward the river they waved to friends among the bexareños standing in doorways watching them. “Poor fellows,” some of the women cried. “You will all be killed; what shall we do?” At his shop on Main Plaza, bald-headed Nat Lewis, a one-time whaling man from near Nantucket, jammed as many of the most valuable goods he owned into saddlebags and joined the line of people crossing the river.

  A few of the rebels were still boys in their teens. Carlos Espalier, the mulatto boy informally adopted by James Bowie and his wife, was now seventeen years old. He had been born out of wedlock to a Louisiana widow and shunted off to live with his aunt in Béxar as a child. Bowie, a friend of the family, and his wife, Ursula, had taken the boy in years ago. At the age of thirteen he accompanied Bowie on the legendary San Saba expedition in 1831, when the Bowie brothers and their comrades held off repeated attacks by more than a hundred Indians. Now he marched into the Alamo to fight alongside the man he called Uncle.

  At the Alamo, there was a great deal of activity but little panic. As the men evacuating Béxar neared the south entrance they could see an artillery captain named William Ward at one of the lunette’s cannon. The frequently inebriated Irishman now stood quietly at his post with his battery mates, sober and calm. Inside the compound, everyone was busy. Other gunners were readying the rest of the pieces. A few defenders were storing the bushels of corn in the rooms of the granary, on the north end of the long barracks. Several of the Tejanos were herding the cattle into the pen on the east side. Some of the volunteers who had sold their guns for drinking money—still hungover, no doubt—were scrambling to procure muskets or rifles at the small arms arsenal at the south end of the long barracks, and swearing up a blue streak doing it. Nat Lewis would never forget the vivid profanity he heard that day. He only stayed a short while, but he noticed that not one member of the garrison deserted. He had no horse, so he headed east toward Gonzales on the San Felipe road with his heavy saddlebags over his shoulders.

  When the news of the Mexican army’s approach reached Captain Almeron Dickinson he galloped up to the Músquiz residence on Main Plaza and yelled for his wife. Susanna appeared with her daughter in her arms. “The Mexicans are upon us,” he told her. “Give me the babe, and jump up behind me.” She passed Angelina up to him and climbed up behind the saddle, then took her child. Mexican soldiers were across the plaza on Potrero Street, so they made their way to a ford on the south side of town. They splashed across the shallow crossing, then followed the river bend up past the deserted jacales of La Villita and into the fort, where Dickinson gave Susanna an embrace and a kiss and left to join his company.

  Horace Alsbury had left recently on a journey east to the settlements, to find a wagon to remove his family and their belongings from town. He had not returned, so Juana Alsbury, Bowie’s sister-in-law, also moved into the Alamo, with her eleven-month-old child, Alejo, and her younger sister. Alsbury had placed his new wife under the care of Bowie; now Bowie was under hers.

  A dozen or so other Tejano women and children made their way into the Alamo as well, among them Juana Losoya Melton, the new wife of Lieutenant Eliel Melton, a Nacogdoches merchant who served as the garrison’s quartermaster. Her mother, Concepción Losoya, was there; so was her brother, defender Toribio Losoya, with his wife and three children. Toribio had been born and raised in one of the Alamo houses, and had still lived in it as a private in the Alamo presidial company; he had left his birthplace only when he had joined the rebels. A few black slaves and servants, two of them Bowie’s, entered also. Up on the parapets, men jeered at some of the fleeing merchants as they made their way across the river and out of town, carrying on wagons and their backs as much of their merchandise as they could.

  John Smith had left Sutherland in Crockett’s care to run by his own place. Then he raced to his friend Gregorio Esparza’s house on North Flores Street, north of the plazas, to warn him. Esparza had fought in the battle of Béxar, and Smith was godfather to Esparza’s youngest son, Francisco. The family had been preparing to leave for San Felipe after a friend offered the use of his wagon and team. Now it was too late for that.

  “Well, I’m going to the fort,” Esparza told his wife, Anna.

  “Well, if you go, I’m going along, and the whole family,” she said. There were four children, including Enrique, the boy who had learned the song from the norteamericanos.

  The family carried everything they could and made their way down Potrero Street. As
they crossed the footbridge they could hear the drums of the Mexican army beating on Military Plaza.

  By early evening, when the last courier had been dispatched and all but a few of the rebels were inside the mission, the defenders watched grimly as, five hundred yards across the river, a blood-red banner was hoisted atop the bell tower of the Church of San Fernando. Everyone knew its meaning: degüello—no quarter. No mercy would be extended. When the flag was brought to Travis’s attention, he ordered a blast from the eighteen-pounder, to the cheers of the gunners at their posts. It was a statement of intent, its meaning as clear as that of the flag: defiance.

  The Mexicans quickly unlimbered two howitzers and fired a round from each in response, then another—fused bombs that would explode upon impact, usually to little effect.

  Soldados were still pouring into Béxar from the west. From their position on a slight rise across the river, the men on the Alamo walls could see them as they filed into the two plazas flanking the church. There looked to be at least a thousand, including some lancers. A large cloud of dust downriver, somewhere near Mission Concepción, suggested the presence of hundreds more.

  Siege etiquette of the time dictated that the attacking army offer the besieged force the opportunity to surrender. A soldado displaying a white flag walked down to the footbridge over the river. With him was one of Santa Anna’s staff officers.

  In the mission, someone told the fatigued Bowie that there had been a Mexican bugle call just before the cannon shot—probably a request for a parley. When he learned of the large numbers of enemy soldiers, it gave him pause. The rebels were seriously outnumbered, perhaps ten to one. It might be worth exploring possible terms—perhaps a parole like the one they had generously extended to Cós in December. After his foraging exertions, Bowie was exhausted and unable to write, but he and Juan Seguín crafted a message to the invaders requesting a parley. When the Tejano captain finished the note he handed it to Bowie, who managed to sign it in a shaky hand, and noticed that Seguín had ended the missive with the traditional “Dios y Federación México.” Bowie crossed out the last two words and replaced them with “Texas.”