Exodus From the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  Seeming to have an intimate knowledge of Travis’ weaknesses, Santa Anna also gambled that when his artillery stopped firing in the afternoon, leaving all quiet on the night of March 5, this unprecedented artillery pause would not signal Travis to heighten extra vigilance among the garrison. In this regard, Santa Anna had calculated correctly, revealing just how well he knew his opponent. Instead of questioning if the silence was a wily ploy to literally lull the garrison into a sense of false security, Travis would allow his boys to sleep during the early hours of March 6. After all, they had been worn down, not only by strengthening the north wall at night, but also by Santa Anna’s waging of psychological warfare—continuous bombardment, Mexican bands playing music, and having his troops raise cheers—for nearly the past two weeks, which was effective in fraying the defenders’ nerves. But throughout the siege, Santa Anna’s most clever deception was to order cheering and musketry almost hourly during each nighttime bombardment, making the defenders believe that he was launching a night attack. The overall goal had been “to keep every American in position ready to repel the attack, thus through loss of sleep and increasing anxiety unfitting him for the final struggle.”

  While the defenders were fast asleep on the night of March 5, Mexican troops were preparing for battle. The chosen soldiers of the attack columns had received orders to “turn in after the night’s prayer’s as they will form their columns at midnight” for the assault. By this time, the worn Alamo garrison was in no shape or condition to adequately defend the old mission—especially the weak north wall. As Travis’ slave, Joe, later recalled after the bombardment that had steadily pounded the Alamo: “The Garrison was much exhausted by hard labor [in strengthening the works] and incessant watching and fighting for thirteen days.” 78

  While the Alamo garrison remained unvigilant in the early morning hours of March 6, Santa Anna was up early. He was busy, just like Napoleon in his prime, especially the night before Austerlitz when the French emperor had walked among the troops to inspire his soldiery. And like Napoleon, who wore a green tunic covered by a grey overcoat in Russia, he very likely now wore his trademark campaign coat—a green frock coat—to ward off the cold. Confidently, as if knowing the defenders could be swiftly overwhelmed on this chilly morning, Santa Anna had already boasted that he would “take his breakfast” in a fallen Alamo, once Mexican regimental and battalion battle flags and the national tricolor were flying proudly from its walls, after every man inside the compound had been put to death. 79

  Thanks to a well-conceived battle plan, meeting this tactical objective would be relatively easy, even if the garrison were not caught by surprise by the sudden attack out of the early morning blackness. Not only was the Alamo manned by far too few soldiers, but they lacked training, discipline, and munitions for a solid defense, even if everyone was ready, waiting, and in position for the attack. Because the Texas government had focused on buying tons of supplies, such as weaponry and munitions, for the future Regular Army of Texas, the Alamo volunteers—the revolution’s stepchildren—continued to go without almost everything. While warm uniforms, shoes, and blankets were stockpiled, and new muskets were stacked in neat rows to fill storehouses for future regular troops, the Alamo’s volunteers continued to lack proper clothing and went hungry, while wondering why both the Texas government and Texas people had abandoned them like sacrificial lambs. 80

  Finally, like a chess player, Santa Anna made his first move. Four columns of well-prepared Mexican troops moved stealthily forward over the bare landscape around 1:00 a.m. toward their assigned positions on the prairie, as designated by the commander-in-chief. With as little noise as possible, grim-faced soldados pushed quietly forward into the night, easing ever closer to the eerily silent walls of the Alamo now shrouded in darkness. An anonymous Mexican soldier of General Cós’ column that had slipped unnoticed across the flat ground and toward the west wall, wrote how: “After a roundabout approach we stopped at 3:00 A.M. on the [west] side, about 300 paces” from the Alamo. 81

  Incredibly, in the cold blackness of the open prairie, 1,400 Mexican troops now lay down in attack positions on the open ground within easy striking distance of the Alamo—after some minor obstacles had been quietly removed—without detection. Here, they awaited the inevitable signal to charge forward. Especially out in the open, this winter night was cold and windy. Rolling, dark clouds hid the moonlight, but provided sufficient light for soldados to make necessary final preparations for the attack. The younger men, especially those with relatively little battle experience, tried to stay awake in the cold and remained more nervous than the hardened veterans in the ranks. Gusting prairie winds gently rustled the nearby clumps of grass in the pale moonlight. A Godsend, the winds had masked the relatively little noise rising from the advancing columns. 82

  Santa Anna had developed a plan to minimize his losses because he knew that his late winter Texas campaign had only barely begun. Envisioning a vigorous spring campaign, he was now planning to drive the Anglo-Celts and their heretical civilization all the way to the Sabine River and out of Texas before the spring rains descended upon the land. Like a good student of Napoleonic history, Santa Anna had learned of Napoleon’s abundant mistakes in 1812 in marching across the steppes of Russia on the road to Moscow. Despite the summer season, Russian rains had played a role in slowing the advance, spreading sickness, and wearing out both men and horses. Santa Anna therefore demonstrated considerable wisdom in deciding not to invade Texas too late in the year, so as not to be slowed by spring rains. This decision also ensured that if the war against Texas developed into a lengthy conflict, or even a war of attrition, the Mexican troops would not face the worst winter weather in late 1836. Delaying too long in a foreign land, hundreds of miles from support systems, was a classic error that had led to Napoleon’s defeat. In fact, some Anglo-Celtic soldiers in Texas now believed that the key to victory lay in utilizing the Russians’ 1812 strategy, luring Santa Anna deeper into Texas.

  While the Alamo’s defenders rested blissfully in their first undisturbed sleep since the siege’s beginning, dark masses of carefully chosen Mexican troops made final preparations to attack. In the cold darkness only “a short distance from the first trenches,” the Mexican’s dark blue uniforms helped them blend into the winter blackness that covered the silent prairie like a shroud. Demonstrating excellent discipline, hundreds of Mexican soldiers remained absolutely quiet amid the biting cold and breezes that cut to the bone in the damp air, while patiently awaiting the attack signal.

  On the open prairie, no shelter existed for Santa Anna’s troops from the harsh winter winds sweeping down the open river valley. Not a warming fire or even a pipe could be lit. The soldados suffered and shivered in disciplined silence, while embracing a grim fatalism that was a distinctive characteristic of the Mexican peasant—both Indian and Mestizo—who had been exploited for so long by autocratic military, church, and political leaders. Ensuring that they would be ready for the signal to attack, these foremost troops now possessed no blankets to ward off the biting cold, more frigid than anything they had felt in Mexico. The thin wool uniforms—made for summer campaigns in Mexico’s heat and humidity—offered only meager protection from winter’s harsh breath on this near-freezing night, though Santa Anna had taken the wise precaution to ensure that all assault troops now wore “shoes or sandals.” Along with their Catholic God, ancient Mayan Gods, or Lady of Guadalupe, these young men from all parts of Mexico had placed their trust in their aristocratic commander and his tactical wisdom: a faith that would not be betrayed on March 6. But more important, Santa Anna had his young soldados highly motivated and ready for action. They now tightly gripped their heavy Brown Bess muskets—known as the morena licha—as Santa Anna had ordered, “All armaments [to be] in good shape—especially the bayonets.” 83

  Meanwhile, the young men from Missouri, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania probably wished that they were far from the Alamo deathtrap and safe in their homes far away from San
Antonio. While the Mexican soldados froze in the late winter night, garrison members slept in utter exhaustion. No longer deluded by unrealistic visions of reaping glory against Santa Anna’s troops, these naive amateurs of war slept. It was almost as if the Alamo had become a warm, soothing place—or so it seemed—for garrison members, with sleeping quarters providing them shelter from both Santa Anna’s wrath and the bitter cold. All of their previous dreams and ambitions of getting rich from suddenly gaining thousands of acres of Texas land and becoming wealthy gentlemen planters, owning gangs of slaves, and pursuing lucrative careers were no longer important to the men at the Alamo.

  Thanks to the Army of Operation’s arrival, their lives had been suddenly pushed to the edge of oblivion, mocking youthful ambitions of profiting by the quickest means. Indeed, this shortcut to acquiring land had meant that far greater risks had to be taken, and with stakes much higher than they had originally imagined. Like a wild gambler, so the Alamo’s soldiers had gambled everything on one throw of the dice, just as Santa Anna had gambled on cornering them in the old Spanish mission and catching them by surprise

  With sleep the top priority, both vigilance and defensive preparations were at an all-time low among the garrison this early morning. Therefore the muskets, Long Rifles, and other weapons and accouterments were either stacked in corners or by their owner’s side. Except for several pickets stationed outside the walls in the trenches, seemingly everyone in the Alamo was asleep by the early hours of March 6. For the garrison members it would be their very last, as they were now on the verge of meeting their Maker. Travis made his final rounds of the silent, seemingly empty Spanish mission-turned-fort. He must have been relieved that the incessant artillery bombardment had halted the previous afternoon. But neither Travis nor his men—alike novices to the ways of conventional warfare—suspected that Santa Anna’s clever stratagem of an orchestrated silence was actually the lull before the storm.

  Hour after hour in the cold darkness, not a single garrison member detected any unusual activity or indications of an impending Mexican assault. The handful of ragtag pickets stationed outside the Alamo was also oblivious to what was happening around them. Now situated in the low-lying, cold trenches amid the slight valley of the San Antonio River, they lacked a good vantage point to not only see anything before them, but also to hear what was happening on the surrounding prairie. But just as important as the lack of vigilance among the defenders was the fact that the Mexican troops continued to display an iron discipline, keeping perfectly quiet hour after hour out in the open.

  Meanwhile, seasoned Mexican officers moved silently down the lengthy assault formations poised in the silent prairie, preparing their men for the attack one last time. The upcoming attack before dawn posed a stiff challenge for these soldados. Nothing proved more difficult than unleashing a tactical offensive at nighttime with little—if any—visibility, as on this cloudy, winter night.

  To maximize chances for success, Santa Anna had already made a number of well-calculated decisions: excluding recruits and selecting only his best troops from the Matamoros, San Luis Potosi, Jiménez, Toluca, Zapadores, and Aldama Battalions, and including a tactical reserve of crack troopsfor the attack. Each of these battle-ready battalions possessed six fusilier companies that served as the army’s “solid backbone,” and a company of cazadores, or light infantry, who were the army’s best riflemen. All of these seasoned soldados now wore shoes or sandals so that they would utter no sound during the final sprint across the prairie. After all, advancing soldiers stepping on cactus, rocks, or on each other’s feet would raise yelps of pain that might alert the garrison. Ladders had been distributed among the assault units of each column, instead of making the mistake of assigning a single unit with that important responsibility, which had played a role in sabotaging the British assault on Jackson’s line at the battle of New Orleans.

  Commanded by officers—both junior and senior—from upperclass Creole families, the best trained and drilled troops about to be unleashed were the permanentes, or the regulars, around which this largely conscript army had been created. However even the raw recruit, or the lowly peasant, was a tough, hardy fighting man, only too familiar with sacrifice, hardship, and suffering. And as in the past, these soldados were guaranteed to fight even harder than usual because they now faced invaders of a different race, culture, and religion on their own soil.

  As the young men from Mexico continued to shiver from the biting cold of the open prairie, final orders from the officers to prepare for Santa Anna’s signal to begin the attack made some soldados more apprehensive, yet all the while they continued to remain perfectly silently in neat formations from 3:00 a.m. to almost 5:00 a.m. Sneezes and coughs were muffled as much as possible by shirt and uniform coat sleeves in the biting cold of early morning.

  Despite that the men were cold and with blistered feet from the rapid march north, with some soldados in various stages of sickness, Mexico’s highly motivated fighting men maintained their composure. Knowing the importance of his troops reaching the Alamo’s walls as quickly as possible, Santa Anna had ordered them not to wear either “overcoats or blankets, nor anything that may impede the rapidity of their motions.” This was an adroit decision, which the British, despite being seasoned veterans of the Peninsular War, had failed to make at the battle of New Orleans, slowing their assault across the cold, January plain of Chalmette.

  Troops of five companies of crack Mexican Grenadiers were yet dressed in summer uniforms of white cotton. Santa Anna had placed these men in reserve. Not a single Mexican had been detected by lookouts atop the roofs of the buildings, especially the Long Barracks. But more significant to facilitate Santa Anna’s tactical plan were the winter winds, which blew away from the Alamo, masking the slightest sounds emitting from deployed soldiers ready to sprint forward upon cue. Seemingly, even nature herself had conspired against the Alamo garrison at this time. 84

  Equally prepared for the upcoming fight were General Sesma’s cavalrymen and lancers, the finest soldiers of Santa Anna’s Army. As quietly as possible, these troopers had saddled-up their horses around 3:00 a.m. With the veil of darkness concealing their movements and the wind blanketing their sounds, hundreds of Mexican cavalrymen rode slowly into the night to take up their new assigned positions. The horsemen began to fall into formation under and around the cottonwoods trees of the “Alameda.” As directed by Santa Anna, General Sesma established his cavalry headquarters in the saddle. Here, southeast of the Alamo on elevated ground near Gonzales Road, he was in a good position to maneuver his cavalrymen once the sun rose.

  Commanding the 280-man Permanente Regiment of the Dolores Cavalry, General Don Ventura Mora carefully aligned a section of Sesma’s cavalry in the thick cover that bordered the river. Meanwhile, at the Alameda proper, Sesma deployed most of his horse soldiers in a lengthy line in the blackness. It was now the horse soldiers’ mission, especially those of the elite lancers of the Dolores Cavalry regiment, “to prevent the possibility of an escape” from the Alamo.

  Clearly, as Santa Anna envisioned, the most likely target of any escapees would be the Gonzales Road that led east to safety. Here, in Sergeant Manuel Lorcana’s words, “a squadron of Lancers [of the Vera Cruz regiment], flanked by a ditch [the irrigation ditch that ran south, passing behind the church and leading to the Gonzales Road just below the west end of the Alameda], to cut off the retreat at the time of the assault.” Sesma and his troopers knew that Santa Anna wanted no survivors. By making such well-placed cavalry deployments, Santa Anna revealed that he knew his opponents quite well, fully anticipating escape attempts from the indefensible Spanish mission, which was bound to be overwhelmed swiftly if everything went according to plan. 85

  And if any troops of Santa Anna’s Army could fulfill the generalissimo’s desire for no survivors, it was Sesma’s veteran cavalrymen. These crack horsemen were well trained, highly disciplined, and natural killers, mirroring the qualities of their hard-bitten commander
. Sesma and his cavalry division, especially the Vera Cruz Lancers, had been Santa Anna’s iron fist in the Zacatecas victory, when they had eased around the militiamen’s right flank and attacked an unwary opponent from the rear. This tactical envelopment led to the easy rout of hundreds of Zacatecas militiamen and their systematic slaughter. Above all, these Vera Cruz horsemen who took position near the Gonzales Road were proud of their favorite tool of destruction, the lance. 86

  Indeed, Santa Anna’s cavalrymen, now mounted on relatively fresh horses requisitioned on the push north, could ride down a rabbit, deer, or man with relative ease, especially on the open prairie. Not even the finest Anglo-Celtic horseman in Texas could compare to an experienced Mexican or Tejano on horseback. Therefore, the worst nightmare for an Alamo garrison member would be to get caught out on the open prairie by Mexican horse soldiers—especially the elite lancers with their murderous weapons of death.

  During the early morning hours of March 6, among the most vigilant Mexican soldiers were those who now stood beside a Congreve rocket battery that had been erected on the night of March 4, within musket range of the Alamo’s north wall. But in keeping with Santa Anna’s orders, alert Mexican artillerymen of the north battery would receive no orders this early morning to open fire from their commanderin-chief. To maximize surprise and to catch the slumbering garrison completely by surprise, Santa Anna wanted no artillery bombardment, as was customary, before a general attack.

  But unlike the idle Mexican cannoneers who remained motionless in the darkness, the anxious rocket battery men awaited Santa Anna’s word to fire a rocket to signal the attack. After all, Santa Anna wanted no bugle calls to echo through the night that would alert the Alamo garrison to the assault. The rocket, about to be fired in Texas for the first time in history, was now a Mexican secret weapon, even though they had been in use for sometime. (Not only were rockets used in the Napoleonic Wars, but also during the War of 1812 where they were immortalized in the words of America’s national anthem: “By the rockets’ red glare.”)