Alamo Traces

by Thomas Ricks Lindley

  Then, Wardlaw may have had other reasons for rejecting Williams’s study. According to Miss Jane Smoot, Williams’s niece: “After her [Williams’s] death I myself (one of her closest relatives) took her contract with him [Wardlaw] to [a] personal appointment in his office to ask him to carry on with their signed agreement. Mr. Wardlaw said that the public pulse had changed and that the University of Texas could no longer make as much money by printing scholarly works as it could profit from entertaining material, so he did not wish to honor his own contract.” One would think that if Wardlaw did not want to publish Williams’s work because of serious scholarship problems, it is doubtful he would have expressed that opinion to Smoot, a grieving relative. Also, it was and is the goal of a university press to publish scholarly works; even some that fail to make a profit, provided the work is important and the research is sound.9

  A few years later writer Walter Lord encountered the Williams study while researching the Alamo for A Time To Stand. From that experience he wrote:

  The most widely known academic work is Amelia Williams’ Ph.D. thesis. . . . it has been the leading authority for dozens of subsequent articles and books. Miss Williams did indeed amass a mountain of material, but in a way her thesis has been the worst thing that ever happened to the history of the Alamo. Not because she did so little work, but because she did so much. The sheer bulk of her research has discouraged later students from checking up on her and has led them all too often to take her statements at face value.

  This is dangerous. As evidence supporting a Bonham-Travis friendship, for instance, she quotes from an alleged letter written by Travis urging Bonham to come to Texas. Actually her quotation is a paraphrase of a reminiscence by Bonham’s nephew, recounting the family tradition.

  Sometimes Miss Williams relies on pure trash. For example, she uses Frank Templeton’s trivial novel Margaret Ballentine or The Fall of the Alamo as her source for making defender Hiram J. Williamson a West Point man, when any check of the Point’s Register of Graduates and Former Cadets would show he never attended.

  Most curious is her personal aversion to Travis, which has much to do with the rather priggish picture of him that exists today and which was especially evident in Laurence Harvey’s portrayal in the recent John Wayne film. Miss Williams could get quite upset about Travis, as evinced by a letter she wrote her professor Samuel Asbury in 1933. From Travis’s failure to mention Bowie in his desperate appeals for help, she declared she detected what she considered a mean streak, “a cruel, vindictive nature.”10

  Thomas Lloyd Miller was the next researcher to discover problems with Williams’s scholarship. Miller observed: “Her list contains the names of eight Mexican-Texians; but more recent scholarship reveals that two of the eight names of Spanish-Texans, as well as the names of three Anglo-Texans should be stricken from the Alamo roll.”11

  Richard G. Santos is another historian who had a problem with Williams’s defender list. In a footnote in Santa Anna’s Campaign Against Texas 1835-1836, he observed: “This author has chosen to review and analyze only those figures given by people in San Antonio during or immediately after the siege and fall of the Alamo. For other figures not necessarily based on reliable sources but seemingly accepted in some circles, see Amelia Williams’ ‘Critical Study of the Siege of the Alamo. . . .’ ”12

  Miller’s discovery and Santos’s opinion would not have surprised historian Harbart Davenport, who appraised the dissertation for Williams before its submission to Dr. Barker’s committee. His first criticism was: “In preparing her corrected roster of those who fell at the Alamo, Miss Williams incorrectly estimated the weight of the evidence contained in the bounty, donation and headright [Texas land grant documents] files in the [Texas General] Land office, as compared with the copies of the muster rolls preserved in the same archive.” As will be explained later, this error had a telling effect on the accurateness of Williams’s Alamo list.13

  Dr. Paul Hutton, an acclaimed historian at the University of New Mexico, was the first academic scholar to publicly condemn Williams’s scholarship. He wrote:

  The line between the Alamo of fact and the Alamo of popular fancy is often blurred. While there has been an amazingly large body of historical and popular literature generated on the battle, there has never been an adequate serious study of it by a professional academic historian. Thus competent popular historians such as Walter Lord, who has written the best book on the battle, have not had the usual body of solid secondary materials to draw upon when writing. The academic work usually cited as the best study of the battle and its heroes, Amelia Williams’s doctoral dissertation, is of stunningly poor quality. Academic historians have thus deserted the field, leaving the battle to the popularizers and propagandists.

  Those who have written on the battle, for the most part, have simply repeated false stories told before in books, articles, and newspaper accounts. The written historical record is a sad one.14

  Hutton’s critical bullet is on target, but he failed to cut the bull’s eye. The “stunningly poor quality” of Williams’s study involves much more than sloppy research. Time and space does not allow for a litany of every error, probable fabrication, and unfounded conclusion thus far discovered by this writer. The following examples, however, should adequately illustrate the unreliability of the Williams study and the reasons for it.

  William B. Travis’s Death

  Travis’s death has not generated controversy and debate equal to that of David Crockett’s last minutes. There are, however, several versions of the Alamo commander’s death. In 1928, previous to the completion of her dissertation, Williams accepted the version that is in vogue today. She wrote: “Concerning the death of the celebrated Travis, Crockett, Bowie, [and] Bonham, my conclusions backed by documentary evidence are: Travis fell while manning a cannon at [the] north west wall of [the] large area.”15

  In the following years, Williams, apparently without benefit of new evidence, changed her mind and validated the suicide version of Travis’s death. She claimed: “Both Anselmo Borgarra (also found Bogarra), the messenger from the Mexicans at San Antonio to [Juan N.] Seguin at Gonzales, and Antonio Perez, their messenger to [Jose Antonio] Navarro and [Jose Francisco] Ruiz at San Felipe, reported that Travis shot himself when he saw the Mexicans pouring over the walls of the Alamo and realized all hope of saving his men was gone.” Thus Williams concluded: “The fact that Travis’s only wound was a pistol shot through the forehead, together with all attending circumstances, makes the reports carried by Borgarra and Perez seem very plausible.”16

  A review of the sources shows that Perez made no Alamo report at Gonzales, at least none that has survived. He was on a mission to inform Tejanos about Santa Anna’s offer of pardons to all who would pledge allegiance to the centralist government. Perez found Bergara (the correct spelling) at the Jose Flores ranch. Bergara was there to escort Andres Barcena to safety at Beeson’s on the Colorado River. Barcena was the man who entered Gonzales with Bergara. Perez arrived at Gonzales later and reported the pardon offer to Sam Houston. In regard to Travis’s death, Bergara, who had obtained most of his information from Perez, only said: “Travis killed himself.” The source reports no claim of Travis having shot himself in the forehead because enemy soldiers were “pouring over the walls of the Alamo and . . . all hope of saving his men was gone.” That allegation appears to have come from Williams, not the source material.17

  Nevertheless, Williams did have one source that claimed Travis had shot himself. Speaking to the unsupported story she attributed to Bergara and Perez, Williams wrote: “These reports have been ignored or discredited by all writers of Texas history, but there is evidence that some of Travis’s closest friends believed them in 1836. On March 28, 1836, Andrew Briscoe gave an account of the fall of the Alamo to the editor of the New Orleans Post and Union in which he said: ‘The brave and gallant Travis, to prevent his falling into the hands of the enemy, shot himself.’ This account was copied by the Arkansas Gaz
ette, April 12, 1836.”18

  Firstly, Briscoe’s letter was written on March 16 and first appeared in the Red River Herald. The unsubstantiated story did not appear in the April 12, 1836 issue of the Arkansas Gazette as claimed by Williams. Secondly, Briscoe and Travis were well acquainted, but the one letter does not support Williams’s conclusion that “some of Travis’s closest friends” believed he committed suicide. For that claim she would have needed at least one more letter from a Travis friend that reported the same data as the Briscoe missive. As it is, the Briscoe document only shows that Briscoe may have believed a suicide rumor that was circulating about Travis. Briscoe’s alleged reason (to not be captured) for the supposed suicide is different from the one (all hope of saving his men was gone) Williams attributed to Bergara and Perez. Also, Houston wrote a friend that it was rumored that Travis had stabbed himself to prevent capture, which contradicts Briscoe’s claim of Travis shooting himself. The Houston version also suggests that someone may have seen a bayonet, knife, or sword wound on Travis’s body.19

  Another description of Travis’s death is found in a report attributed to Joe, Travis’s slave, who was sleeping near his master when the alarm was first sounded in the Alamo on the morning of March 6.

  . . . Travis sprang up, seized his rifle and sword, and called to Joe to follow him. Joe took his gun and followed. Travis ran across the Alamo and mounted the wall, and called out to his men, “Come on, boys, the Mexicans are upon us, and we’ll give them Hell.” He discharged his gun; so did Joe. In an instant Travis was shot down. He fell within the wall, on the sloping ground, and sat up. The enemy twice applied their scaling ladders to the walls, and were twice beaten back. But this Joe did not well understand, for when his master fell he ran and ensconced himself in a house, from which he says he fired on them several times, after they got in. On the third attempt they succeeded in mounting the walls, and then poured over like sheep. . . . As Travis sat wounded on the ground General Mora, who was passing him made a blow at him with his sword, which Travis struck up, and ran his assailant through the body, and both died on the same spot.20

  The Joe story is similar to a Susanna Dickinson report of Travis’s death that was given at Gonzales and a few days later relayed to a Texas newspaper by John W. Smith, the Alamo storekeeper, and Andrew Ponton, the judge at Gonzales. Their description reads: “Col. Travis stood on the walls cheering his men, exclaiming, ‘Hurra, my boys!’ till he received a second shot [italics added], and fell; it is stated that a Mexican general, (Mora) then rushed upon him and lifted his sword to destroy his victim, who, collecting all his last expiring energies, directed a thrust at the former, which changed their relative positions; for the victim became the victor, and the remains of both descended to eternal sleep; but not alike to everlasting fame.” It is highly unlikely that Dickinson witnessed Travis’s death. Therefore, if her version is true or even partly true, she must have obtained the data from a Mexican officer. Also, it is important to understand that Joe did not witness Travis’s death. Joe left him sitting upright on the sloping ground.21

  Williams’s claim of a “pistol shot through the forehead” comes from her transformation of a statement made by Francisco Ruiz. In 1860 Ruiz declared: “On the north battery of the fortress lay the lifeless body of Col. Travis on the gun carriage, shot only in the forehead.” The claim of a “pistol shot through the forehead,” which suggests entry and exit wounds is not supported by the Ruiz evidence. Thus, it appears that because Travis had already discharged his rifle, Williams assumed that the only way he could have shot himself in the head was with a pistol. Which makes sense, except that neither a pistol wound nor a caliber size of the ball is mentioned in the Ruiz account. Also, Joe reported that Travis was only armed with a rifle and sword. Moreover, there is valid evidence that indicates Ruiz was not in Bexar on March 6, 1836. Therefore, he did not identify Travis’s body. If Travis had a wound someplace on his head, Ruiz obtained that information from somebody else who saw the body.22

  Santa Anna’s soldiers appear to have been firing “buck and ball” loads in their muskets. Thus, given Joe’s statement, Travis’s head wound, if he had one, may have been caused by a single buckshot pellet that did not cause immediate death. The Ruiz statement does not eliminate the possibility of a blade wound on Travis’s body, which might not have been as obvious as the head wound.23

  Furthermore, while there was no General Mora at the north wall, a “Colonel Esteban Mora” was one of the officers who “succeeded in gaining a foothold on the north side where the strife was bitterest, which encouraged the soldiers in their advance and resulted in their capture of the enemy’s artillery on that side.” Travis and Mora may have engaged in some kind of struggle. We just don’t know. Mora, however, was not killed in the March 6 attack of the Alamo. He died at San Jacinto.24

  Another Mexican report that throws new light on the older evidence is a letter that an unknown soldier wrote on March 7, 1836. The informant was a member of General Martin Perfecto de Cos’s column that attacked the north wall. He claimed that what he had seen was “at close range.” He wrote about Travis: “Their leader, named Travis, died like a brave man with his rifle in his hand at the back of a cannon.” The soldier may have witnessed Travis’s death, but that is not certain. He may have only seen Travis’s body and assumed he “died like a brave man” because the body was located where the fighting was the most intense. Still, if the Mexican soldier saw Travis’s body “with rifle in his hand,” that would seem to eliminate the suicide stories and the death struggle with Mora. If Travis had killed himself with a pistol or knife, he would have had one of those weapons in hand. If he had died in a death struggle with Mora, he would have had a sword in his hand.25

  In total, the evidence about Travis’s death only supports a couple of conclusions. First, Travis did not shoot himself in the head or stab himself in the heart. Second, Travis was killed on one of the Alamo walls, next to a cannon. Remember, the T & T Register story claimed that Travis had been hit twice. The nature of the first wound is unknown, except that it did not appear to have killed Travis. The second wound knocked him down to a seated position on the sloping wall inside the fort but failed to kill him. Perhaps both wounds came from buckshot pellets. Had Travis been hit in the head with a musket or rifle ball, it is doubtful he would have remained seated on the slope. At that point Joe departed the scene. Travis must have moved from the sloping wall to a nearby cannon platform and received a third, fatal shot to his body. Or the killing wound may have come from a blade weapon of some kind.

  What of the death struggle story—where did it come from? It may have been a piece of contrived fiction to refute the stories that Travis had killed himself and to turn his death into a moral victory. Look at the report’s core element once again: “. . . it is stated that a Mexican general, (Mora) then rushed upon him, and lifted his sword to destroy his victim, who, collecting all his last expiring energies, directed a thrust at the former, which changed their relative positions; for the victim became the victor. . . .” The tale seems to be one of those archetypal Alamo stories that, using Travis and Mora as symbols, proclaim that even though the event was a Mexican victory, the Mexican loss was so great that in the end it was as much a defeat as victory.

  A second example of Williams changing the evidence to fit her interpretation of the events is found in her section on David Crockett’s alleged “Tennessee Mounted Volunteers.” She claimed: “Among the Comptroller Military Service Records, there are seven documents, all requisitions on the Provisional Government of Texas, signed by David Crockett and others of his band for board for a company of “Tennessee Mounted Volunteers” while they were resting at Washington and while they were on the way from that town to Bexar. These documents show that there were eighteen or more men in the company, including Colonel Crockett and Captain William B. Harrison, and that they went by the way of Gonzales to San Antonio.”26

  Williams used five documents to unite the Crockett and Harrison
units into a single company at Washington-on-the-Brazos. One of the documents is a claim written by Dr. William P. Smith on April 24, 1836. Williams’s published version of the Smith document reads:

  This is to certify that A. L. Harrison was a member of William B. Harrison’s company of Mounted Volunteers when that company left Washington for San Antonio about January 20, last. He fell sick and was likewise under my medical care as a surgeon in the army of Texas.27

  The actual Smith claim differs in two ways from what Williams reported. Smith wrote:

  This is to certify that A. L. Harrison was a member of Capt. William B. Harrison’s company of Mounted Volunteers when the company left Washington for San Antonio about the 15th of last January – Said A. L. Harrison was likewise under my medical care as surgeon in the Army of Texas.28

  Because Williams’s papers contain a correct transcription of the Smith affidavit in what appears to be Williams’s handwriting, it seems that she must have intentionally changed the wording of the document. First, she changed the date from “about the 15th of last January” to “about January 20, last.” She probably changed the date because Crockett was in Nacogdoches on January 15, 1836. Thus Harrison and Crockett could not have ridden together to San Antonio if Harrison had left Washington-on-the-Brazos while Crockett was still in Nacogdoches.29

  Williams’s second alteration expanded Smith’s statement of “Said A. L. Harrison was . . .” to “He fell sick and was . . .” Thus suggesting that Harrison became ill at Washington on or about January 20, 1836. This change appears to have been made to effect the understanding of a second A. L. Harrison document. According to Williams, Comptroller Military Service record 644 was a Colonel Sidney Sherman affidavit that reported that Harrison had lost a horse and gun in the service of Texas. Sherman wrote that the property had been appraised by “Captain W. B. Harrison, Col. Crockett, and Lieutenant Robert Campbell.” Sherman, however, did not state when and where the evaluation had taken place. Williams, by changing the Smith affidavit to show that A. L. Harrison was sick and did not go to the Alamo, eliminated the possibility that the horse and gun were appraised at San Antonio. Thus, with Williams’s versions of the documents, a reasonable interpretation would be that the evaluation most likely occurred sometime before Harrison’s unit arrived at Washington-on-the-Brazos and supported Williams’s claim that Captain W. B. Harrison and his men were members of Crockett’s command.30