The first respondent was Tapley Holland, who leaped the line at a bound, exclaiming, “I am ready to die for my country!” His example was instantly followed by every man in the file, with the exception of Rose. Manifest enthusiasm was universal and tremendous. Every sick man that could walk arose from his bunk and tottered across the line. Col. Bowie, who could not leave his bed, said, “Boys, I am not able to go to you, but I wish some of you would be so kind as to remove my cot over there.” Four men instantly ran to the cot, and, each lifting a corner, carried it across the line. Then every sick man that could not walk made the same request, and had his bunk removed in like manner.
Rose, too, was deeply affected, but differently from his companions. He stood till every man but himself had crossed the line. A consciousness of the real situation overpowered him. He sank upon the ground, covered his face, and yielded to his own reflections. For a time he was unconscious of what was transpiring around him. A bright idea came to his relief; he spoke the Mexican dialect very fluently, and could he once get safely out of the fort he might easily pass for a Mexican and effect an escape. He looked over the area of the fort; every sick man’s berth was at its wonted place; every effective soldier was at his post, as if waiting orders; he felt as if dreaming.
He directed a searching glance at the cot of Col. Bowie. There lay his gallant friend. Col. David Crockett was leaning over the cot, conversing with its occupant in an undertone. After a few seconds Bowie looked at Rose and said, “You seem not to be willing to die with us, Rose.” “No,” said Rose, “I am not prepared to die, and shall not do so if I can avoid it.” Then Crockett also looked at him, and said, “You may as well conclude to die with us, old man, for escape is impossible.”
Rose made no reply, but looked up at the top of the wall. “I have often done worse than to climb that wall,” he thought. Suiting the action to the thought he sprang up, seized his wallet of unwashed clothes, and ascended the wall. Standing on its top, he looked down within to take a last view of his dying friends. They were all now in motion, but what they were doing he heeded not. Overpowered by his feelings he looked away and saw them no more.
Looking down without, he was amazed at the scene of death that met his gaze. From the wall to a considerable distance beyond the ground was literally covered with slaughtered Mexicans and pools of blood.
He viewed this horrid scene but a moment. He threw down his wallet and leaped after it; he alighted on his feet, but the momentum of the spring threw him sprawling upon his stomach in a puddle of blood. After several seconds he recovered his breath, he rose and took up his wallet; it had fallen open and several garments had rolled out upon the blood. He hurriedly thrust them back, without trying to cleanse them of the coagulated blood which adhered to them. Then, throwing the wallet across his shoulders he walked rapidly away.
He took the road which led down the river around a bend to the ford, and through the town by the church. He waded the river at the ford and passed through the town. He saw no person in town, but the doors were all closed, and San Antonio appeared as a deserted city.
After passing through town he turned down the river. A stillness as of death prevailed. When he had gone about a quarter of a mile below the town his ears where saluted by the thunder of the bombardment, which was then renewed. That thunder continued to remind him that his friends were true to their cause, by a continual roar, with but slight intervals, until a little before sunrise on the morning of the sixth, when it ceased and he heard it no more.
At twilight he recrossed the river on a footlog about three miles below town. He then directed his course eastwardly towards the Guadalupe river, carefully bearing to the right [south] to avoid the Gonzales road.
On the night of the third he traveled all night, but made but little progress as his way was interrupted by large tracts of Cactus or prickly pear which constantly gored him with thorns and forced him out of his course. On the morning of the fourth he was in a wretched plight for traveling, for his legs were full of thorns and very sore. The thorns were very painful, and continued to work deeper into the flesh till they produced chronic sores, which are supposed to have terminated his life.
Profiting by experience, he traveled no more at night, but on the two evenings following he made his bed on the soft mesquite grass. On the sixth of March he crossed the Guadalupe by rolling a seasoned log into the water and padding across with his hands. He afterwards crossed the Colorado in the same manner.
[On landing, after ascending a bluff, he found himself a deserted house, at which he found plenty of provisions and cooking vessels. There he took his first nourishment after leaving the Alamo. Travel had caused the thorns to work so deep in his flesh that he could not bear the pain of pulling them out, and he had become lame. There he rested two or three days, hoping that his lameness would subside, but it rather grew worse. Thenceforth he traveled on roads, subsisting, except in the instance to be noted, on provisions which he found in deserted houses. The families were retreating before the threatened advance of the enemy, and between the Guadalupe and Colorado every family on his route had left home. Between the Colorado and the Brazos he found only one family at home. With them he stayed during a considerable time; but probably from want of knowledge or skill, they did nothing to relieve his sore legs. While he was with them, two travelers of whom he had no previous knowledge, called and lodged during a night. The landlord entertained them with an account of Rose’s escape. They seemed to be much interested in the account; but, on the next morning, just as they were leaving they obtained a private interview with the landlord, and told him that they lived in Nacogdoches and knew this Frenchman, Rose; that he was a man of very bad character, that he was an imposter, and had never seen the Alamo, and that he (the landlord), for the honor of his family, ought to ship him immediately. I judged that they, themselves, were bad men, and tendered this pretended friendly advice to their landlord, hoping thereby, to induce him not to charge them for their lodging. After their departure, the landlord told Rose what the men had said of him, and he determined never again to tell that he had been in the Alamo. This was during Houston’s retreat from the Colorado, and several squads of deserters from the army overtook and passed Rose. The first of these told him that an impostor by the name of Rose had imposed himself upon an old gentleman as being escaped from the Alamo, but that two men from Rose’s home had informed the old gentleman of the imposition, and he had promptly driven the impostor from his premises. Succeeding squads told the same story, and before reaching the Brazos, Rose heard this caricature of part of his own history four times, but he did not tell any of his informants that he was the man, nor that his name was Rose. Years later, I learned that the report of his reputed imposition preceded him to Nacogdoches, and that several malicious persons there circulated the slander. I further learned that, not being able to disprove it by eyewitnesses, he was averse to talking on the subject. This reticence, though natural to a slandered man who could not positively prove his innocence, was imprudent. The people of Nacogdoches knew that he had been in the Alamo, but his sullenness exacted a suspicion that he was not merely an impostor, but a deserter and traitor. As I shall yet show, he at one place exhibited conclusive evidence of his innocence, yet his stubborn reticence caused his adventures to be forgotten, and this, I judge, was what prevented his escape from being recorded in the early histories of Texas.
After crossing the Brazos Rose found several families at home, and from them obtained direction to my father’s residence.]
He continued his journey toilsomely, tediously and painfully for several weeks, in which time he encountered many hardships and dangers which for want of space can not be inserted here. He finally arrived at the residence of my father on Lake Creek, in what is now Grimes County.
My parents had seen, in the Telegraph and Texas Register, a partial list of those who had fallen at the Alamo, and in it observed the name of Rose. Having not heard of his escape, they had no doubt that he had died with
his companions. On his arrival, my father recognized him instantly, and exclaimed, “My God! Rose, is this you, or is it your ghost?” “This is Rose, and not a ghost,” was the reply.
My mother caused her washing servant to open Rose’s wallet, in her presence, and found some of the garments glued together with the blood in which they had fallen when thrown from the Alamo.
My parents also examined his legs, and by the use of forceps extracted an incredible number of cactus thorns, some of them an inch and a half in length, each of which drew out a lump of flesh and was followed by a stream of blood. Salve [which my mother made] was applied to his sores and they soon began to heal.
Rose remained at my father’s between two and three weeks, during which time his sores improved rapidly, and he hoped to be well. He then left for home. We had reliable information of him but once after his departure. He had arrived at his home in Nacogdoches, but traveling on foot had caused his legs to inflame anew, and his sores had grown so much worse that his friends thought that he could not live many months. That was the last we heard of him.
During his stay at my father’s Rose related to my parents an account of what transpired in the Alamo before he left it, of his escape, and of what befell him afterwards, and at their request he rehearsed it several times (till my mother could have repeated it as well as he). Most of the minutia here recorded were elicited by particular inquiries. In the following June I returned home from the Texas army, and my parents several times rehearsed the whole account to me.
[God had endowed my mother with close observation and extraordinary memory and I had inherited them. Hence what Rose had stated became stamped upon her memory and mine. I admired the sentiments of Travis’ speech even as they had come to me third-handed and not in the speaker’s own language. I regretted the apparent impossibility of the speech being preserved for posterity. In 1871 I determined to commit it to paper and try by rearrangement of its disconnected parts to restore its form as a speech. I had enjoyed a slight personal acquaintance with Colonel Travis, had heard repetitions of some of his remarks as a lawyer before courts, and had read printed copies of some of his dispatches from the Alamo. After refreshing my memory by repeated conversations with my mother, I wrote the sentiments of the speech in what I imagined to be Travis’s style, but was careful not to change the sense. I devoted several weeks of time to successive rewritings and transpositions of the parts of that speech. This done, I was surprised at the geometrical neatness with which the parts fitted together.]
Of course it is not pretended that Col. Travis’ speech is reported literally, but the ideas are precisely those he advanced, and most of the language is also nearly the same.
Hoping that this letter may meet your approval and be interesting to your readers. I am, gentlemen, most respectfully, your humble correspondent,
W. P. Zuber
Prairie Plains, Grimes County, Texas, May 9, 1871
I have carefully examined the foregoing letter of my son, William P. Zuber, and feel that I can endorse it with the greatest propriety. The arrival of Moses Rose at our residence, his condition when he came, what transpired during his stay, and the tidings that we afterwards heard of him, are correctly stated. The part which purports to be Rose’s statement of what he saw and heard in the Alamo, of his escape, and of what befell him afterwards is precisely the substance of what Rose stated to my husband and myself.
Mary Ann Zuber19
If one does not have a detailed knowledge of how the Alamo was garrisoned, the events that surrounded its fall, and the Texas landscape in 1836, the Rose story may seem conceivable and truthful. On the other hand, a number of Alamo-knowledgeable individuals have accepted the story without serious examination. Lon Tinkle, author of 13 Days to Glory: The Siege of the Alamo, wrote that the Zuber tale was “of all the incomplete and unproved stories about the Alamo, the most dramatic and most plausible.” The story is certainly dramatic. Plausible is another story. But then one must forgive Tinkle; his goal appears to have been the creation of an exciting and heroic narrative, not an authoritative history. Had Tinkle been more careful he might have seen that the Zuber chronicle contains a number of elements that defy reason and historical fact.20
More recently Alan C. Huffines, a graduate student, observed: “At some time on the evening of March 5, Travis may have assembled the garrison and told them what he believed was about to happen. Then in true federalist fashion he offered the defenders a choice: to stand and fight or leave. The decision was up to them. The accounts dealing with this event are presented here, but their validity is still challenged. Historians generally do not want to believe that something this melodramatic happened. There are three choices here: (1) All are experiencing mass-hallucination, (2) They are lying, (3) They are telling the truth.” Mr. Huffines gives the impression that he believes in number three.21
In line with Huffines’s observation, author, teacher, and living-historian J. R. Edmondson wrote in his book, The Alamo Story, “The debate [about Moses Rose] goes on. . . . Ultimately Travis’s line must remain a legend. It can neither be proven nor disproved.
“But some seem overly eager to deny it.”22
In taking a close and cutting look at Zuber’s story, let us start with certain claims. First, the allegation that Travis said the Mexican army was flying a black flag of no quarter. That is incorrect. On March 3, 1836, in a letter to a friend, Travis wrote: “If independence is not declared, I shall lay down my arms and so will the men under my command. But under the flag of independence, we are ready to peril our lives a hundred times a day, and to drive away the monster who is fighting us under a blood-red flag, threatening to murder all prisoners and make Texas a waste desert.”23
Second, Zuber claimed that Moses Rose had never married. Jumping ahead a little, there is the question of Louis Rose. As will be fully explained in the next chapter, Louis is supposed to have been Moses. If that is the case, there is a conflict. Louis Rose’s 1835 character certificate reports that he entered Texas with a family. Either Zuber was (1) wrong in his claim that Rose was not married, (2) Moses Rose was not Louis Rose, (3) Louis was the head of a family that did not include a wife.24
Next, there is Rose’s alleged friendship with James Bowie and Rose’s arrival at the Alamo. Zuber wrote: “Rose was a warm friend of Col. James Bowie, accompanied or followed him to the Alamo in the fall of 1835, and continued with him till within three days of the fall of the fort.”25
James Bowie
Photo courtesy of Texas State Library and Archives Commission
Therefore, let us look at what Bowie did during the revolution previous to his arrival at the Alamo and see if Rose can be found in those activities. Bowie was in Nacogdoches in early October 1835. After having received only sixty-eight votes as a candidate for the Consultation, thus losing the election, he departed sometime between October 7 and 9 and returned to his home in San Antonio. William T. Austin, General Stephen F. Austin’s aide-de-camp, reported: “The army then took up the line of march and reached the Salado at day light on the morning of the [October] 20th inst. . . . Col. James Bowie joined the army last night during the march to this position, he had very lately left San Antonio, where he married & had resided for several years previously, this gentleman fully confirmed the information previously received in relation to the defensive preparations made by the enemy.”26
Bowie entered the army as a single individual and appears to have used his reputation and “force of personality” to obtain positions of authority. Austin gave him command of the army’s first division on October 22, 1835. Bowie resigned the command position on November 2 because of dissatisfaction with Austin’s leadership.27
Austin then appointed Bowie as his adjutant general on November 4. Austin probably made the move so he could keep a close eye on Bowie’s behavior. Two days later Austin reorganized the army, an act that included an election for a regimental commander to replace Colonel John W. Moore. Echoing his loss at Nacogdoches, Bowie received
5 votes out of the 527 that were cast. Bowie, obviously angry over the defeat and his inability to dominate Austin, resigned as Austin’s adjutant and left town. He joined Sam Houston at San Felipe. There he encountered Anson Jones, a future president of the Republic of Texas.28
Jones described the meeting with these words: “I was introduced to Bowie – he was dead drunk; to Houston – his appearance was anything but decent or respectable, and very much like that of a broken-down sot and debauchee. The first night after my arrival, I was kept awake nearly all night by a drunken carouse in the room over that in which I ‘camped.’ Dr. [Branch T.] Archer and Gen. Houston appeared to be the principal persons engaged in the orgy, to judge from the noise. What made the whole thing more unpleasant to me, was, that the whole burden of the conversation, so far as it was, at times, intelligible, appeared to be abuse and denunciation of a man for whom I had the highest respect, Gen. Stephen F. Austin, then in command before San Antonio de Bexar, for not breaking up the siege of that place, and retreating to the east of the Colorado.”29
In the end Bowie and Houston, being unable to take Austin’s army away from him, had to settle for second best. They had Austin taken away from the army. The Consultation selected Austin to represent Texas in the United States. Bowie returned to Bexar with the courier that carried the results of the Consultation to General Austin. George M. Patrick, the express rider, wrote: “Genl. Sam Houston had told me that Col. James Bowie would accompany me to San Antonio, [that] I must not leave him. When my papers were handed [to] me, I announced the fact at once to Genl. H. [that] my horse and myself had been ready all night, only waiting the delivery of the papers. [Houston replied, ] ‘But now, oh horrors, you must not leave, Patrick, Col. B. will be ready in 15 minutes.’ You [Moses Austin Bryan] have been tried in patience by drinking friends, but never more surely than I was tried on that occasion[.] Surely. After a painful lapse of about one hour the Col. with assistance was mounted. [Bowie said] ‘Now Patrick you have been kind enough to wait for me, keep up with me, and I guarantee to make up the lost time, never mind your horse, I have plenty of horses at De Wees on the Colorado.’ Good as his promise he made things quite lively enough for me.”30
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