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

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  Since their March 1 arrival, the Gonzales volunteers had been almost certainly appalled by the deplorable conditions inside the Alamo: the lack of ammunition; the relatively few defenders; the fort’s overwhelming size; the Mexican Army’s might; sinking morale among the garrison with each passing day; the considerable deep divisions among leaders and men; the lack of thorough defensive preparations; no reinforcements from Goliad; and prospect of torture before execution if captured or wounded, as proclaimed by the no quarter flag.

  The Gonzales volunteers were very likely early to realize that their presence made absolutely no difference at the Alamo, and that they would only lengthen the list of dead. Worst of all, dying a soldier’s death in San Antonio might well seal the fate of families at home, for everyone knew that Santa Anna would next march to Gonzales, the westernmost Anglo-Celtic community in Texas, after the Alamo fell. Long vulnerable and isolated, Gonzales already had been burned to the ground by Indians, and now it was sure to happen again when a vengeful Santa Anna arrived.

  Consequently, the 32 soldiers from Gonzales would have been especially eager to make the attempt to bolt from the Alamo to gain the Gonzales Road to eventually reach their homes and families. Given these factors, instead of having raised the garrison’s morale, the distinct possibility exists that these Gonzales volunteers might have been among the most vocal advocates of breaking out of the Alamo. Therefore, at the timbered palisade, 32 Gonzales men may well have made up the first group of escapees who prepared to move out in an organized, disciplined manner, as if by deliberate, premeditated design. Gonzales soldiers like George Kimbell and teenager John Benjamin Kellogg, who had married only the year before the former wife of Alamo defender Thomas R. Miller, possessed double reasons to flee since both their wives were now pregnant. (More than twice Kellogg’s age and the wealthiest man in Gonzales, Miller might well have delighted in having seen his upstart rival, evidently handsome and robust, already killed this morning in hell.)

  Also perhaps with this group of 62 men at the palisade’s rear were the three Tennessee-born Taylor brothers of Liberty, Texas, 22-year-old James, George, age 20, and Edward Taylor, age 24. Since kids back in the Volunteer State, they had always stuck together, especially in a crisis. They certainly now realized what an impact the devastating news of the loss of three sons would have on their parents, Anson and Elizabeth, bestowing them with another strong motivation to escape.

  With a no-quarter flag flying high in the morning’s fading darkness and the Deguello blaring from bugles and regimental bands, the plan of escape called for an initial break-out through the small sally port, where the wooden palisade met the southwest corner of the church, in an attempt to gain the Gonzales Road. Sandwiched between the church and the low barracks, this weakest point along the entire Alamo perimeter offered an ideal escape route. Then a swift march eastward could reach safety and meet Houston’s reinforcements now gathering in the east to come to the Alamo’s relief, or so they believed.

  Consequently, 62 men began to form in an ad hoc but organized formation that seemed to indicate some prior planning, because such discipline under stress was a characteristic lacking in such untrained, inexperienced troops when in the process of being overrun. Despite the utter shock of the surprise attack, deafening noise, and chaotic confusion, the first organized formation of garrison members now took shape at the palisade. An escalating sense of desperation and fast-fleeting hopes for survival guaranteed that these unruly volunteers, who could hardly form a straight line or take an officer’s order without endless questions prior to the attack, fell into a neat formation that would have impressed even Travis.

  Many of these men—a large percentage of the entire Alamo garrison—perhaps never fired a shot from either the walls or the plaza area, since they had hastened to the palisade in such short order. Even Santa Anna, an experienced commander who had fought against Spanish, Mexicans, and Indians, was incredulous at the garrison’s relatively feeble resistance. He wrote how “a large number” of the Alamo garrison never fought in the conflict. 24

  Assembled in tight ranks in an organized manner that perhaps indicated not only previous planning but also that some discipline had been instilled by Lieutenant Tony Finch, a regular United States Army veteran who had served as the garrison’s drill master earlier that winter, the formation of 62 soldiers prepared to move out. These men were about to march away from the struggle continuing to roar in the Long Barracks, slipping away from their doomed comrades, including the relative handful of artillerymen yet working their guns at the church’s rear. On command, these men now marched rapidly through the Alamo’s sally port, a relatively small opening at the left end of the low wooden palisade. A perfect opportunity for escape now existed, because it was still dark and no Mexicans stood before the southern perimeter at the time. As important, the eastern edge of the timbered palisade offered the second best point—after the main gate near the south wall’s center—for a large number of garrison members to escape the compound.

  At this especially weak point between the church and the southern perimeter of walls and buildings, the wooden palisade covered a front of around 100 feet. It extended from the church’s southwest corner to the east end of the south wall, a narrow building like so much of the perimeter. This palisade was a relatively low barrier consisting of two parallel rows—about six feet apart and with earth packed in between— of upright cedar logs that stood about six to seven feet high. Outside this timbered palisade, defended by at least one gun, perhaps two, of relatively small caliber in the center, was a ditch with an abatis of felled trees before it. This obstacle for advancing infantry had been set in place by Cós’ troops the previous year. 25

  Very likely every man of this sizeable escape column knew what lay just beyond on higher ground to the southeast: the Alameda. The Alameda’s western end was about 300 yards distant, while its eastern end was around 400 yards. It was named for a double row of tall, majestic Rio Grande cottonwood trees, now bare of leaves and wearing their dull, brown winter appearance but with light gray bark, that lined both sides of the Gonzales Road. Perched on relatively high ground with the Alamo nestled in the lowest point of the shallow river valley below, the Alameda overlooked the compound now wreathed in battle-smoke and echoing with sounds of fury. Most important for the escapees, the Gonzales Road led to the even higher ground of Powder House Hill, located on the distant eastern horizon, rising above the grassy, windswept prairie like a beacon to soldiers desperate to escape a living nightmare. And, of course, these men fully realized that the town of Gonzales and safety lay down this dusty road to the east.

  One central Alamo myth holds that the compound was surrounded and attacked by Mexican troops on all sides, making any escape of defenders impossible. But in reality, this was not the case: in fact, because three of the four assault columns had concentrated at the north wall, this left most of the Alamo’s perimeter wide open, on the east, south, and west. This erroneous assumption—not seriously questioned before—lies at the heart of the last stand myth, serving as a primary reason why the escape of so many garrison members has seemed like an unimaginable, unrealistic possibility to both historians and buffs for so long.

  Another assumption that bolstered the last stand mythology was that defenders at the palisade and the south wall abandoned their position to assist in the north wall’s defense. But very likely many of these men at the palisade and other south wall sectors did not race north across the plaza to defend Fortin Teran, but in fact remained in place. In addition, other newly aroused soldiers assigned to the north wall might have gone in the other direction, or south, after emerging from their sleeping quarters in the Long Barracks. When Cós’ troops swarmed over the north end of the west wall, or the northwest corner at Fortin Condelle, they also entered the compound through buildings at the northern end of the west wall with the aid of tools, like axes, because resistance was so “surprisingly light.” This development would seem to indicate that these west wall
defenders had likewise fled across the plaza to join the first group of escapees, avoiding the risk of getting cut off from attackers pouring over the north wall and through the plaza.

  Fast-moving tactical developments provided several opportunities for Alamo men to escape but none more than at the palisade and the south wall. And Santa Anna had realized as much from the beginning, employing his cavalry in an attempt to eliminate escapes at these points by placing his cavalry at the Alameda. After all, Colonel Morales’ column was too small to achieve any gains along the southern perimeter. Instead, Morales’ troops had pushed along the perimeter and then attacked west to strike the Alamo’s southwest corner, opening up a lengthy avenue and gaping hole for potential escape for defenders not only from the palisade’s sally port, but also eventually from the lunette protecting the main gate.

  After overrunning the southwest corner, Morales’ troops joined in the attack on the Long Barracks, leaving these two exit points wide open. Escape was now possible for the 62 men, because of all points along the Alamo’s extensive perimeter, the palisade was the most accessible entry-exist point, thanks to the sally port, or gate, by the corner of the church.

  Ironically, Santa Anna’s forces had not attacked the low palisade, which was the Alamo’s weakest link. Such a seemingly incomprehensible tactical error might have caused a perplexed de la Pena to complain how his aristocratic Creole commander-in-chief was simply not “a wise general.” 26

  Instead of having targeted the palisade with a heavy column, three of Santa Anna’s columns had converged on the north wall, which was a strongpoint in comparison. From a strictly tactical viewpoint, therefore, Santa Anna’s plan of assault seemed to make little sense. After all, why would the main focus of Santa Anna’s attack be on the north wall, where the guns of both Forts Teran and Condelle stood defending a position that had been repeatedly strengthened, when the Alamo’s opposite side, the southern, was the weakest point along the entire perimeter? In the past, historians have merely dismissed Santa Anna’s tactical errors and miscalculations during the attack as simply yet another example, like at San Jacinto, of inferior generalship. But was this really the case?

  Many have assumed that because Crockett and his Tennessee riflemen—once again the magical aura of the Long Rifle dominated—were stationed at the palisade, Santa Anna had been afraid to attack this point. Consequently, the mythology grew that the palisade provided the Alamo’s most staunch defense that morning, when in fact it saw little initial action, because Morales’ column did not target the palisade but the main gate, simply bypassing the position.

  But has this casual denunciation of Santa Anna’s tactical abilities really been well founded? Would an imaginative, audacious general who had achieved so much success in the past now so seriously blunder in his plan to storm the Alamo? Perhaps in the end, it had been no tactical error committed by Santa Anna in sending his smallest group of attackers—a mere 100 to 125 men of his “Scouting Companies” under Colonel Morales—against the southern perimeter. 27

  First, thanks to leaked solid and timely information, Santa Anna was already aware of the garrison’s desperate plan to attempt to flee the next night. This was one primary reason why he had attacked that early morning instead of starving out the garrison with a more lengthy siege, or waiting for the arrival of his larger caliber artillery to simply batter down the Alamo’s walls. In fact, the distinct possibly exists that Santa Anna committed no tactical blunder at all, and that his apparently glaring omission may have been part of the generalissimo’s calculated, deliberate plan. It may have been no coincidence that the palisade was left open as a tempting avenue of escape, since Santa Anna had placed his lancers in the exact position, around the Alameda, for exactly the eventuality that occurred—the initial exodus from the Alamo from a palisade free of attackers. 28

  Santa Anna, therefore, quite likely laid a clever trap for the demoralized garrison to either die in the Alamo or attempt an escape: a choice that was simple under the circumstances. The best avenue—the little gate at the low palisade—by which a large number of survivors could escape was left largely open. Most likely, the cagey Santa Anna, who yet thought like the cavalryman that at heart he was, desired most of all to get a large percentage of his enemy out in the open, where they could easily be cut to pieces by his horse-soldiers, who he had set in place for such an eventuality. By a large percentage of the garrison choosing flight to fight, the Mexican commander could negate not only the Alamo’s defensive arrangements and the garrison’s Long Rifles, but also the largest concentration of artillery between New Orleans and Mexico City. If this was indeed the case as evidence suggests, then such a clever scheme worked to perfection that morning.

  Such a well-conceived tactical plan is attested in the diary of Josiah Gregg, who recorded his conversations with Don Jose Antonio Navarro, who told him that Santa Anna had deliberately “left the eastern side of the fortification free, in hopes the Texans would escape.” Either Gregg misunderstood, or perhaps the translation was erroneous, because Navarro most likely meant the southeastern side, because Colonel Romero’s column—much larger than Morales’ column—had been selected to strike the eastern perimeter. But because of the exodus from the Alamo, what Navarro almost certainly meant to confer was that the southwest corner of the church at the palisade had been deliberately left open. 29

  As dawn was about to break on that hellish March 6, an organized group of 62 men prepared to march out of the Alamo under the shroud of darkness. They began to file swiftly through the sally port, while the vast majority of Santa Anna’s troops remained busy, rooting out defenders in the Long Barracks, the hospital, and other dark, dank buildings that had become death-traps for their defenders. In an orgy of killing, the Mexicans now “went from room to room looking for an American to kill.” But their sacrifice was not wasted. The struggle swirling around the Long Barracks and hospital allowed a large percentage of the garrison to assemble and take the inviting bait of an escape route left open by Santa Anna, if that was the case, while those still fighting tied up Santa Anna’s attackers and bought additional time—though unwittingly—for the evacuation through the palisade.

  Santa Anna, however, was determined that there would be no escape from the Alamo. The Mexican cavalry had therefore been placed in and around the Alameda to ensure that no garrison members reached the Gonzales Road. Then he had ordered his elite cavalry troops to form in an expansive ring around the Alamo to guard against any breakouts. 30

  More important in tactical terms, Santa Anna had cleverly kept the highest concentration of General Sesma’s cavalry out-of-sight of the garrison, perhaps so that defenders would be more likely to attempt their escape. As a young, impressionable cavalryman who had chosen the utterly-ruthless General Arredondo as his mentor, Santa Anna had been part of the hard-riding Mexican horsemen who played a key role in slaughtering American and Tejano revolutionaries at the 1813 battle of Medina, after their battle-lines were smashed and flight resulted: an earlier Zacatecas formula for success. In many ways, the essence of Santa Anna as a military commander had been forged on that day. Especially now on this early morning, Santa Anna never forgot the Medina’s bloody lessons, which called for the same brutality to destroy the current dream of a Texas Republic and its believers. 31

  Unfortunately for the Alamo’s would-be escapees, it was already too late for the 62 men who by this time had slipped out of the palisade. Ironically, as de la Pena emphasized, “Travis could have managed to escape during the first few nights [of the siege], when vigilance was much less,” but now it was much too late but to die lonely deaths far from home and families. 32

  Santa Anna had deliberately kept his cavalry out-of-sight at the Alameda so that anyone fleeing the Alamo would continue to believe that a chance of escape existed. And because it was yet half-dark, the desperate young men and boys who fled through the palisade sally port never realized that some of Santa Anna’s finest combat troops were before them, awaiting their arr
ival with what they feared the most: the cavalrymen’s long lances.

  Contrary to the time-honored tradition of the mythical Alamo, it was not so much the Alamo’s walls that were the real trap for the defenders, but in fact the clever tactical trap laid by Santa Annaoutside the fort. Along with the concentration of cavalry in and around the Alameda, the ring of Mexican horse-soldiers around the Alamo to eliminate escape had been formed in the darkness, so that garrison members did not know of their deployment.

  With high hopes for survival, the 62 soldiers continued to emerge through the sally port of the palisade at the church’s southwest corner. So eager were these men to depart that they left behind not only an everdwindling band of comrades but the flag of the New Orleans Greys. In a hurry to escape detection by any soldados who had advanced into the Alamo courtyard, the escapees then jumped over the ditch and struggled through the abatis of felled timber—that pointed the other way—in the first faint light of day that began to illuminate the scene of massacre. Once over the abatis of felled mesquite and larger cottonwood trees and limbs, the escapees reformed into line on the open ground opposite the church’s southeast corner. These men now wisely remained close together for protection, knowing that a concentrated volley might deter any pursuers. Then, in a sprint for life, they dashed forward on the double into the open beyond the Alamo’s immediate confines with discipline that would soon astound awaiting Mexican cavalrymen.

  After all, these detested northamericano “rebels” were long considered nothing but an unruly rabble by Mexico’s military elite. Therefore, from the Alameda’s relatively high ground, General Sesma could hardly believe his eyes in the first faint glimmer of morning light, which now revealed the escape attempt. A faint glow on the horizon indicated that they had lost their gamble to reach the Gonzales Road under cover of darkness. As General Sesma wrote in his March 11 report to Santa Anna: “Many of them believed their retreat was secure as they left the fort from the right [the southeast], and so many came out that they marched organized on the plains . . . .” 33