Batres collapsed into the water, a horrified look on his face. Air bubbled from his lungs. Blood poured from his mouth and from the gaping wound in his head.
The swampy water of Peggy’s Lake, never crystal clear to begin with, had become smoky from yesterday’s rain and muddy from today’s battle; the next day it would be a dull, brackish red/brown, the color of spent lives.
The horror—and the glory—of battle had lasted just a little more than eighteen minutes.
As dusk approached, an eerie calm settled over the battlefield. The ground was littered with the dead and dying, soaked with blood, blackened by soot. To the soldados who had been present at both fights, it was disturbingly reminiscent of the aftermath of the battle of the Alamo. But this time it was the Texians who wandered among the dead, looking for souvenirs, money, clothing or anything else of value possessed by the Mexican corpses. Some of the Texians continued to crave grislier souvenirs, and carved more ragged scalps from the Mexicans’ heads.
Nearly seven hundred Mexicans had been killed in the slaughter. About seven hundred escaped, but three hundred of them had been rounded up and brought back to the camp before nightfall.
Houston sat under an oak tree, his wounded ankle being treated by Dr. Labadie. He pulled out his snuff box and took a pinch to ease his discomfort. The wound was painful, but the escape of Santa Anna was worse. “All is lost,” Houston said, near tears. “My God, all is lost!” Seguin squatted by his side. “You have clearly won the day, General,” he said.
“But don’t you see, Juan?” Houston said. “Without Santa Anna, it means nothing.” He pointed toward the ridge. “Do you think these are all the Mexicans in Texas? There are more headed this way right now. If they attack us now, who will be victorious? Our men are exhausted.”
Seguin said, “We lost almost no one. Five or six dead, a few wounded. We can still fight.”
Houston stared at the woods with a look of terror on his face. “My God, here they come!”
Several hundred Mexicans were emerging from the trees. Seguin stood up quickly and instinctively placed his hand on the hilt of his saber. Suddenly, he relaxed. It was a large group of prisoners being guided back to the camp by T. J. Rusk, Colonel Wharton and two dozen Texians. Seguin recognized Almonte among them but he looked in vain for Santa Anna.
Houston was also looking for El Presidente. He strained to sit up higher, but the pain in his leg forced him back down. He looked at Seguin and shook his head. He did not say it again, but the phrase continued to go through his mind: All is lost.
Houston fell asleep beneath the tree and was tortured all night long with strange and disquieting dreams. He was awakened at dawn when someone nearby shouted, “Hey, there, Deef! Got some more for us?” Houston looked up to see Deaf Smith and some of his boys leading in another sixty Mexicans. The string of new prisoners was haggard, bloody and defeated. They were tied together by rope, waist to waist.
As the new arrivals were led over to join the previous prisoners, a low murmur began to go through the crowd. Deaf Smith noticed that one of the prisoners, in a private’s uniform, hung his head low, as if trying not to be recognized. The sitting prisoners took note. One man’s face brightened and he cried out, “He lives! The president lives! Viva Santa Anna!” Other men began to recognize the prisoner, and one by one they began to stand at attention. Several more took up the call, “Viva Santa Anna!”
Deaf Smith and the Texians with him turned and stared incredulously at the private. Smith walked over to him, grabbed him by the hair and lifted his head. A broad grin broke out on Smith’s face. “Well . . . lookee here,” he said. “The head man hisself!”
Delighted, Deaf Smith took Santa Anna across the camp to introduce him to General Sam Houston.
Santa Anna sat on a box near Houston, who was still seated on the ground, his ankle heavily bandaged. Almonte stood nearby to translate. All around them, a group of Texians, thirsting for blood, eyed the proceedings. Rusk and Sherman were, in turn, watching the Texians, alert to any outbreak of trouble that the situation might ignite.
Santa Anna whispered to Almonte, who turned to Houston and said, “That man may consider himself born to no uncommon destiny, who has defeated the Napoleon of the West.”
Houston smiled politely and said nothing.
Almonte continued, “And now it remains for him to be generous to the vanquished.”
Houston looked at Almonte and then locked eyes with Santa Anna. Although he spoke in English, he never broke his gaze with the dictator. “Generous, eh?” Houston said. “You should have remembered that at the Alamo.”
Almonte quickly translated—although from the look on Houston’s face, he scarcely had to—and he and Santa Anna looked at each warily, realizing the delicacy of the situation.
“His Excellency,” Almonte said to Houston, “is willing to discuss terms of surrender.”
Mosley Baker shouted, “I say we hang him from this very tree!”
Other men in the area took up the notion as their own. Several stepped away to fetch a rope. Houston stared hard at Santa Anna, who, feeling the tension, whispered something to Almonte.
Almonte said, “The general would also like to humbly remind that he, like you, General, is a Mason.”
Houston waited another long moment, then slowly nodded and took another pinch from the snuff box. Santa Anna watched the action and, indicating the snuff, said to Houston, “Por favor . . . ?”
Almonte said, “His Excellency wonders if you might share a bit of your opium? For the nerves?”
“To hell with his nerves,” Baker shouted. “Let us kill him and be done with it.”
The crowd of men loudly agreed.
Houston looked at the men, then shook his head a little sadly. “No, men,” he said. “You will settle for blood—and that ain’t enough.” He looked at Santa Anna and said, “I want Texas.”
Houston leaned forward and handed the Napoleon of the West his little box of snuff. Santa Anna had asked for opium, but this would just have to do.
Seguin did not watch the parley between the generals. To him, it mattered little whether Santa Anna lived or died. He only thought about his people, the Tejanos of San Antonio de Béxar. What did this victory mean for them? He walked slowly through the field, numbly gazing at the destruction. He stopped and dropped to his knees, looking at the bodies of Mexican soldiers lying all around him. Questioning everything.
Further in the wood, Mathew and Jesús were still lying where they fell. They were both dying, breathing with difficulty, too hurt to move, even though they had each lost too much blood to feel much pain. They stared at each other with slightly glazed eyes.
Finally, Mathew spoke, softly, in Spanish. “Where you come from, friend?”
Jesús looked around. “From here,” he said weakly. “I am a Texian.”
Mathew nodded. “Yeah. Me, too.”
EPILOGUE
The ancient goatherd stood on Powder House Hill, waiting patiently for his little flock to stop grazing and continue their lazy walk into Béxar. The city spread out before them in the distance and it struck the goatherd how large it was getting. Already, new buildings had spread beyond the banks of the river and almost to the walls of the old mission.
Not that there were many walls left. When the Mexican army had defeated the Texians so many months ago, a pompous general had been left behind to refortify the place, to make it strong enough once again to defend Béxar against more threats from the Texians. But after the defeat at San Jacinto, the general had received orders to undo everything he had just spent a month doing. They tore down most of the north and west walls, spiked and buried the cannon and set fire to the old church. Now, Béxarenos considered it a haunted place. Thousands of bats had returned to live in the ruins of the walls. At sunset, just as during Margarita Fernandez’s childhood, they spread a black cloud over Béxar as they emerged for their night travels.
In the courtyard in front of the old church, there were still c
harred bones and ashes from the funeral pyres that had consumed the bodies of the Texian rebels. Coyotes and rats had made off with much of the ghastly debris, but there was still plenty left, a terrible monument to the horror of that day in March.
The goatherd was startled out of his reverie by the sound of a horse’s hooves. Turning, he saw a horseman cresting the hill. The goatherd recognized him immediately.
“Don Juan,” he said in surprise. “It has been a very long time.”
Juan Seguin did not look at the old man. His eyes were locked on the ruins of the Alamo in the distance. It had always looked like a ruin but now it was decimated. There was nothing left but the old church, part of the long barracks and the main gate. The Alamo no longer resembled a fort—just a few crumbling, useless buildings.
When Travis had sent him out for help almost a year earlier, Seguin had sworn to return, to stand by his brothers in arms, no matter what the cost. That had not turned out to be possible. Instead, Seguin found himself avenging the deaths of those brothers at San Jacinto. Fate had decreed that he would not die in the Alamo but that he would be present when Santa Anna’s life was spared and Texas’s independence was won.
But he had promised to return, and today that promise was to be fulfilled. He intended to gather the remains of the heroes of the Alamo and bury them with proper ceremony. There was a lovely spot out near the Alameda, where a long, graceful line of trees lined the roadway. That would be the perfect place for the grave, where grateful Texians could pass by every day and cross themselves at the monument that he would build there.
“Don Juan?” the goatherd said. “Why have you returned?”
“I said I would,” Seguin said, his eyes filling with tears. “A man should always keep his word.”
Seguin gently spurred his horse. They began moving slowly down the hill toward the Alamo.
Santa Anna was spared that day at San Jacinto and Texas was won. For the next decade, Texas stood alone as an independent republic. Sam Houston served as the republic’s first popularly elected president.
Nevertheless, Houston was plagued until his death by those who blamed him for not going to the aid of the men in the Alamo.
On February 25, 1837, Juan Seguin gathered and buried the few remaining bones of the heroes of the Alamo, both Texian and Tejano. At that occasion he said:
These remains, which we have had the honor to carry on our shoulders, are the remains of those valiant heroes who died at the Alamo. Yes, my friends, they preferred to die a thousand times than to live under the yoke of a tyrant.
What a brilliant example! One worthy of inclusion in the pages of history. From her throne above, the spirit of liberty appears to look upon us, and with tearful countenance points, saying, “Behold your brothers, Travis, Bowie, Crockett as well as the others. Their valor has earned them a place with all my heroes.”
I invite all of you to join me in holding the venerable remains of our worthy companions before the eyes of the entire world to show it that Texas shall be free and independent. Or to a man, we will die gloriously in combat, toward that effort.
Within a few years, the marker Seguin placed at the grave deteriorated. Today, no one is sure where the remains of the Alamo dead lie.
Contents
Acknowledgments
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
EPILOGUE
The Alamo Page 31