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

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  In the end, and like Mexican dead at both the Alamo and San Jacinto, the Alamo’s forgotten victims were the hundreds of loved ones and family members these young men had left behind not only in Texas but all across the United States and Europe. In this sense, the Alamo’s saddest legacy lived on for generations, including seemingly endless legal complications. An example was when a grieving Elizabeth Rowe petitioned “Probate Court of Gonzales Co. . . . for letters of adm. in 2 cases [regarding the estate] of her late former husband James GEORGE, who died at the Alamo, and also in [the] case of her bro[ther] William DEARDUFF, who also died in same battle.” 12

  Private James George, age 34, was one of the ill-fated Gonzales Rangers reinforcements who had voluntarily ridden into the death-trap on March 1. He had married pretty Elizabeth Dearduff on February 29, 1821. George’s team of oxen had transported the little “Come and Take It” cannon of Gonzales that had helped to spark a war when Neill fired the first shot of the Texas Revolution in early October 1835. George’s brother-in-law was Tennessee-born William Dearduff, who had settled in the DeWitt Colony. Both men had served in the Gonzales Ranging Company before meeting their Maker at the Alamo. 13

  Even from faraway Germany came a property claim for a family member who had died at the Alamo. In December 1838, “John Jacob MATHERN of Frankfort, Germany, seeks succ[essor] of [the] est[ate] of Peter MATTERN, who was killed at the Alamo in March 1836.” 14

  Meanwhile, in a strange, perplexing irony, the young men and boys who had been needlessly sacrificed at the Alamo continued to be forgotten by a victorious Texas for decades after San Jacinto. Life had seemingly moved on for everyone, as Texas and her people enjoyed a boom period of growth, development, and prosperity. Land speculation, unrestricted immigration from the United States, and securing the most fertile lands for development took precedence in Texas after San Jacinto. No one had much time to contemplate the Alamo’s meaning or the lost defenders who had so easily slipped from memory. After all, this was now a time to look ahead, not backward. As appearing in the November 16, 1836 issue of The Telegraph and Texas Register, a special committee voted down a resolution for a $500 donation for the “relief for Mrs. Susannah DICKINSON and her child by late Lt. DICKINSON who fell at the Alamo.” 15

  Even Travis’ slave, Joe, who had survived the Alamo, became a hunted fugitive after he escaped from a new master in the less racially tolerant environment of post-San Jacinto Texas. As revealed in the May 26, 1837 issue of The Telegraph and Texas Register: a “$50 reward will be given for delivering to me on Bailey’s Prairie, 7 miles from Columbia, a Negro man named JOE, belonging to . . . the late Wm. Barret TRAVIS, who ranaway [sic] and took with him a Mexican, two horses, saddles and Bridles. This Negro was in the Alamo with his master when it was taken, and was the only man from the colonies not put to death.” 16 Only later, with the beginning of the rise of the mythical Alamo that captured the national imagination, would Susannah Dickinson and Joe become revered as Alamo survivors. But clearly such was not the case immediately after the Alamo’s fall.

  While Alamo garrison members would eventually be transformed into honored heroes, the average Mexican soldados who gave their lives for their republic on March 6, 1836 were largely forgotten by their own nation. In 1836, Lieutenant Colonel José Juan Sánchez-Navarro, an aspiring poet who served on General Cós’ staff, proposed the erection of a stately monument to honor the Mexicans who gave their lives to reclaim part of the national homeland. He not only sketched the monument’s design but also wrote, on March 6, a poem that contained inspiring words in a tribute to be chiseled in stone:

  The bodies lying here were inspired by souls, since ascended to heaven, to savor the glory they’d gained by the deeds they’d done on earth.

  Their last human tribute they paid, with no fear of death at the end, for the patriots death, far from death, is transition to far greater life.” 17

  However, the proposed monument would never be erected in memory of the Mexican soldados who fought and died at the Alamo in order to preserve their country’s integrity and to save the fragile Mexican union of states. Therefore, only the memory of what these young men of the Republic of Mexico had accomplished at the Alamo remained vivid in the minds of those who fought there. Ironically, like the defenders who they had so systematically slaughtered on March 6, the final resting place of Republic of Mexico soldados lies not in their native homeland to be honored but in obscurity in San Antonio.

  Under the care of Father Refugio de la Garza, the Mexican dead were buried by Santa Anna’s soldiers—and not by Tejanos of San Antonio as often assumed—in the Catholic burial ground known as Campo Santo, or the town cemetery on San Antonio’s western edge. In addition, some fallen local Tejano soldiers from Santa Anna’s permanent “battalion of the Alamo” were buried by wives and family members in this cemetery. For instance, the name of one deceased local Mexican soldier—Lieutenant Jose Maria Alcala—was faithfully recorded and documented by Father Garza of San Fernando Cathedral. 18

  But not all Mexican dead received a decent burial in the town’s cemetery. According to Francisco Antonio Ruiz, whose father signed the Texas Declaration of Independence at Washington-on-the-Brazos on March 2, 1836: “The dead Mexicans of Santa Anna were taken to the graveyard but, not having sufficient room for them, I ordered some of them to be thrown in the river.” 19 In corroboration, de la Pena recorded how only the “greater part of our dead were buried by their comrades” in the Catholic cemetery of San Antonio. 20

  For some time, few Texans looked to the Alameda site with any sense of reverence. John Sutherland described the irony of how “the bones of the Texians, as remained, lay for nearly a year upon the ground, while the ashes floated upon the breeze [because] There was no friend to collect or preserve” the remains. More than a year after the Alamo’s fall, Colonel Juan Sequín, as reported in the The Telegraph and Texas Register, “paid final honors of war to the remains of the Alamo heroes; ashes were found in three separate places.” 21

  Long before the fabrication of Alamo mythology to create an enduring romantic legend, Colonel Sequín reported that at “each of the three spots . . . ashes were found,” including two located on either side of the Alameda to mark the places near where perhaps the majority of the Alamo garrison had died. 22 Unfortunately, today the exact locations of the funeral pyres and what little may remain of the Alamo defenders have been lost to historians, preservationists, and archeologists. The final resting place of these men are known only to God. 23

  After reaping an easy victory at relatively little cost, the slaughter of the Alamo garrison only fueled Santa Anna’s confidence to new heights. Nothing else was left to do but mop-up resistance, if any remained, across Texas—or so it seemed to Santa Anna. Crushing revolution in Texas was going to be Zacatecas all over again. However, Santa Anna’s overconfidence and disdain for the Anglo-Celtic fighting man, including the legendary rifleman, was destined to prove to be his undoing. Even before scoring one victory after another in Texas during this campaign, he had boasted to the French ambassador in Mexico City: “If the Americans do not behave themselves I will march across their country and plant the Mexican flag in Washington.” 24

  Not only Santa Anna, but also the civil and military officials in Mexico City believed that the Texas campaign of 1836 had already been won with the Alamo’s fall. From Mexico City and with the Alamo’s capture in mind, Lucas Alaman penned with delight how: “Senor Santa Anna has so prevailed over the Anglo-American colonists who have rebelled in Texas that we may consider the matter over and done with.” 25

  People across the Mexican republic basked in the belief that the conquest of all Texas was now inevitable. In a cathartic scene that symbolized the emotionalism surrounding the issue of Texas, Secretary of War Tornel and Mexican Congressional members symbolically stomped upon the trophy—the blue, silk flag of the New Orleans Greys that Santa Anna had sent back to Mexico City to demonstrate that the Texas insurrection was not only fueled prima
rily from the United States but also could be easily crushed by his Army of Operations. 26 With the Alamo’s fall and the Goliad disaster occurring hardly before the 1836 Texas campaign had begun, a wave of panic swept Texas, and shock waves reverberated throughout the United States. Written by a citizen of New Orleans, a letter published in the Troy Daily Whig from Texas predicted a grim future for Texas arms: “The garrisons of La Bahia, or Goliad, as well as that of San Antonio, have been cut off almost to a man. Houston, with a small force, much exaggerated I imagine, is falling back behind the Colorado [River]. My opinion is, they will be nearly exterminated! It has become a war of fanaticism.” 27

  And the National Intelligencer lamented the fates of the remaining settlers in Texas: “It is a war of extermination. I am afraid, unless Uncle Sam gives them a helping hand, the Texians will be in a bad situation.” 28 And with some understatement, the stunned editor of the New Orleans True American could only write: “We learn by [river boat] passengers . . . that the war in Texas has at length assumed a serious character. Many of those who left this city, determined to lay down their lives in the cause of Texas, have bravely yielded them up at Béxar. Three young men from our office, we learn, are among the slain; the names of Captain William Blazeby and Private Robert [B.] Moore [of Blazeby’s infantry company] have been mentioned to us; that of the other we could not ascertain.” 29

  The initial reports of the Alamo disaster and the ruthless character of the war were hardly exaggerations. In Santa Anna’s own words, “In this war there are no prisoners.” Santa Anna had embraced the concept of ethnic cleansing as the ultimate solution for the long-existing Texas problem. Therefore, he was determined to sweep away every AngloCeltic man, woman, and child, both squatters and those of the colonies, from Texas soil. Quite simply, Santa Anna, and the Mexican Republic, “wanted a brown Texas, not a white one.” 30

  In early January 1836, a far-sighted Colonel Neill, who had wisely departed the Alamo before it was too late, had accurately predicted the harsh nature of this struggle for the heart and soul of Texas. He penned how Santa Anna and his invading army sought “to reduce the State [to what] it originally was in 1820,” before Anglo-Celtic colonization in Texas. 31

  But the heady optimism that surged through Mexico City over a successful 1836 campaign to win back Texas was short-lived, ending even before the spring rains had ceased. After General Houston’s impossible victory on the gulf coast plain at San Jacinto on April 21, 1836, and in regard to the citizens of Texas and the United States who now claimed Texas as their own, Colonel Pedro Delgado lamented Texas’s loss with a cynical, but honest, final evaluation: “Now they could, without danger, squabble over the league of land, or for the ownership of the land of plenty.” 32

  REQUIEM

  After Santa Anna’s vanguard force was crushed in a twenty-minute battle by Houston’s ad hoc army of volunteers, hundreds of families across Mexico, from Vera Cruz on the Gulf of Mexico to Acapulco on the Pacific, mourned for the sons, brothers, fathers, and husbands, who had been slaughtered along the San Jacinto River and Buffalo Bayou. Mexican and Indian peasant families from the Yucatan Peninsula and northern and central Mexico mourned for more than 600 fallen common soldiers, just like the aristocratic families of Mexico City and other leading Mexican cities who lamented lost officers who never returned home. Victims of a massacre that dwarfed that of March 6, Mexican dead at San Jacinto were more than three times as numerous as the dead of the Alamo garrison.

  Unlike the Alamo defenders who were cremated, the Mexican slain—all except the proud, chivalrous General Castrillon—were left unburied on San Jacinto’s killing field, rotting where they had fallen and picked apart by wild hogs, dogs, and turkey vultures. But even ugly battlefield deaths were a more dignified fate than that which befell some survivors of the decisive battle. Some African infantrymen of Santa Anna’s Army who survived the San Jacinto slaughter were sold into slavery by the victors. 33

  Meanwhile, despite never having been held accountable for the Alamo’s abandonment because of his belated foot-dragging when he was commander-in-chief of the Texas Regular Army, the surprising victory at San Jacinto vaulted Houston to the presidency of the Republic of Texas. He became a hero across the United States, reaping laurels and fame, while the sacrificed martyrs of the Alamo were forgotten. What was conveniently overlooked by Americans—both then and today—was the fact that Houston had played a major role in the Alamo fiasco from beginning to end. 34

  For the young Republic of Mexico—even though she had yet to either fully realize or acknowledge the fact—Texas was lost forever and her national trauma would continue for generations in consequence. As if fearing as much, an angry Colonel Pedro Delgado, yet haunted by the San Jacinto slaughter, never forgot the sickening sight of the wild celebration among Texans on the first anniversary of the San Jacinto victory at Liberty, Texas, on April 21, 1837: “The ball was intended to commemorate the bloody 21st of April, 1836, on which day so many illustrious Mexicans were immolated.” 35

  CONCLUSION

  Like other nations around the world, many of America’s most revered historical episodes are in fact little more than myths such as the Alamo last stand. Indeed, in this regard, the mythology of the Alamo last stand has been no aberration or exception to the rule. In his classic work, Founding Myths: Stories that Hide Our Patriotic Past, Ray Raphael ably demonstrated how much of what Americans cherish most about the American Revolution and their nation’s founding are simply untrue. He emphasized how mythology rather than fact has dominated the historical memory of the American Revolution, thanks to a highly imaginative “invention of history” without the need for documentation or accuracy. Like the Alamo for the people of Texas, the young American nation had needed not only to invent itself but also to morally justify and explain its birth in violent revolution.

  In much the same way, the romanticized story of the Alamo’s last stand was created in a process of historical invention to produce a popular mythology. Consequently, instead of the true story of relatively weak resistance and flight among such a large percentage of the Alamo garrison, the epic last stand—with every man standing his ground to the bitter end—was created. According to the mythical Alamo, no defenders, save perhaps a craven individual or two, could have possibly attempted to escape, because it ran contrary to romantic notions of manhood, racial, and cultural superiority, and the alleged willing selfsacrifice of the garrison so that Texas would live.

  Most significant, such an extensive whitewashing of the Alamo’s darker side came almost immediately, regardless of the abundance of facts that indicated otherwise. When Santa Anna’s first battle report, written at 8:00 a.m. on March 6, became known across the United States and to the American press, no part of it triggered greater disbelief and outrage than the information that a good many Alamo garrison members had attempted to flee the Alamo and were cut down by Mexican cavalry outside its walls. For instance, in the May 12, 1836 issue of the Maryland Gazette, the outraged editor wrote: “The Gazette of the 23d March contains the official report of Santa Anna of the capture of the Alamo [and] He reports that after storming the Alamo . . . General Sesma followed the fugitives, who attempted to escape, few if any of whom, remain to tell the tale of their disaster! Was there ever exhibited on the part of a commander of an army such wanton and disgraceful misrepresentation! It is a matter of history that the whole garrison of the Alamo . . . was inhumanly put to the sword within its walls, instead of flying and being pursued by Sesma.” 36 Even at this time, barely two months after the Alamo’s capture, the myth of the heroic last stand had already grown larger than the facts.

  Clearly, in the same month that the Alamo fell a controversy had been born, though it has laid dormant for more than 170 years, while the less significant Crockett execution controversy has continued to dominate the attention of American historians, buffs, and scholars. But in truth no controversy should have existed at all in regard to the welldocumented exodus from the Alamo, because mor
e than half a dozen reliable and collaborating Mexican accounts of officers and enlisted men and others tell the truth of what really happened that morning.

  The relatively light Mexican losses, the high level of fratricide, and the fact that the soldados so easily and quickly overwhelmed a fortified position manned by a large number of cannon all indicated that resistance was surprisingly weak. In addition, the short amount of time— from around 5:30 a.m. to about 5:50—that it took for Mexican troops to overrun the Alamo can best be explained by the flight of so many garrison members.

  Therefore, the time-honored story of the last stand—the core of the mythical Alamo—has been the greatest of all Alamo legends, even as ample primary and secondary evidence have verified that it never happened as we have been led to believe. As embellished by generations of writers, journalists, painters, and historians, the traditional Alamo last stand was constructed for self-serving purposes beyond that of simply a good story—it was deliberately manufactured as a testament to an alleged Anglo-Celtic cultural and racial superiority, while obscuring the crucial roles played by slavery, land acquisition and speculation, and the fact that the conflict was only part of a much larger Mexican civil war. Indeed, the Alamo last stand was transformed into a historical “icon within an icon,” which has become a “sacred national myth.” 37