A Time to Stand (11 page)

Out the road they trotted. Now up the slope about a mile and a half from town. At last they were at the top, where they could see down the other side.

At first glance, it must have looked like a million Mexicans there in the thickets just over the crest. Sutherland later estimated 1,500; actually there could not have been more than 369. But there were enough. The sentry was right; the enemy had come. These were his cavalry, waiting for orders in a long restless line.

Gulping in the sight of the polished armor, Smith and Sutherland wheeled around and took off for town. Suddenly a terrific jolt, and Sutherland found himself flying through the air. His horse slipped in the mud, pitched him forward, and landed on top of his legs. Smith raced back, untangled the
mess, and they were off again. Slithering, sliding, they frantically galloped down the road. Up in the church tower the vindicated sentry saw them coming, again began clanging his bell.

“Give me the baby! Jump on behind and ask me no questions,” Captain Almeron Dickinson told his wife Susannah, as he rushed to his quarters in the Musquiz home. She handed him little Angelina, climbed up behind his saddle, and the three of them headed off. The bridge already looked dangerous—some commotion down Potrero Street—so Dickinson guided his horse across the ford, then turned up through the outlying huts and shacks to the gate of the Alamo.

Jim Bowie had the same idea. His adored Ursula was gone, but her adopted sisters Juana and Gertrudis were still at the Veramendi house—he must get them to safety. Juana especially must have been glad to see him. A young widow with a baby, she had remarried Dr. Horace Alsbury of Kentucky just a month ago, but now he was away when she needed him most. It was a situation made for Bowie—so loyal to his family and courtly to ladies. He rushed both girls to the Alamo.

Other Mexican women also streamed along with the sweating, shouting garrison—Trinidad Saucedo, a pretty teen-age girl … Petra Gonzales, an ancient crone. Half hidden in the crowd hurried Nat Lewis, carrying the cream of his stock. Antonio Fuentes was there too; it seemed a lifetime since his release from jail only ten days ago climaxed the feud between Travis and Bowie.

As the garrison swarmed up Potrero Street, across the footbridge, and on to the Alamo, the Mexican townspeople shook their heads. Some of them deeply wanted Santa Anna to win … most of them only prayed they could stay out of it … but all of them seemed somehow moved at the moment. Watching this ragged band—and knowing that the armed
might of His Excellency would soon sweep the town—it was hard not to feel a pang of sympathy. “Poor fellows,” a woman cried, “you will all be killed.”

Surging into the Alamo, the defenders found a most unusual sight: Sergeant William B. Ward was sober. Normally an inveterate drunkard, Ward was now cool and collected, looking after the guns that covered the main entrance. Curiously, he seemed to be the only person who knew what he was doing in the place.

Otherwise bedlam. On their way up Potrero Street the men had seized some thirty cattle, and now the air echoed with curses and moos as they herded the animals into the corral on the east side of the fort. Bowie and another squad were ransacking nearby huts … lugging in sacks of grain which they dropped in the rooms of the long barracks. The artillerymen, quartered here, were swearing as only artillerymen could. Men who had lost or misplaced their equipment were clamoring for Mexican surplus, loading themselves down with hardware they could never hope to use. The women and children, trembling and crying, were crowding into the rooms along the sides of the church. Here they would be safe—or as safe as could be expected, considering the Alamo’s entire supply of gunpowder was stored in the same rooms.

Looking on the scene, Nat Lewis had enough. Once again shouldering the best of his stock, he slipped out of the Alamo and headed east into the open country. So did two of the soldiers: Captain Dimitt and Lieutenant Nobles.

Undismayed, Travis worked in the headquarters room in the west wall. Time had run out, and still no reinforcements. Yet now that the enemy were really here, maybe somebody would do something. He scribbled another appeal to Colonel Fannin at Goliad, sent the message off with a young courier named Johnson.

A commotion outside, and Travis looked up to find David
Crockett and Dr. Sutherland clomping in. Crockett was supporting the doctor—his knee, wrenched when the horse fell on it, had stiffened and was now almost useless. Still, Sutherland could be used somehow. In fact, he was just the man to ride to Gonzales and rally the people there.

At this point, Crockett, fidgeting for some assignment himself, blurted out, “Colonel, here am I. Assign me to a position, and I and my twelve boys will try and defend it.”

Travis had just the place—the diagonal palisade of stakes and earth that ran from the church to the low barracks on the south side. It was the soft spot in the defense, but it wouldn’t be nearly as weak with the world’s greatest hunters behind it.

Now back to Sutherland. Again the pen raced over the paper—short, crisp, almost breathless sentences:

The enemy in large force is in sight. We want men and provisions. Send them to us. We have 150 men and are determined to defend the Alamo to the last. Give us assistance.

Folding the paper, Travis addressed it to “Andrew Ponton, Judge, Gonzales.” Then, his dramatic instinct suddenly taking over, he impulsively crossed it out and wrote instead, “To any of the inhabitants of Texas.”

Sutherland left shortly after 3
P.M.,
soon fell in with John W. Smith, who had been off closing his house in town. Smith was also going to Gonzales—to recruit some reinforcements— so the two men rode along together. Reaching a small ford, they glanced back for a last look at San Antonio. The very sight froze them in their tracks: pouring into Military Plaza, their breastplates gleaming in the afternoon sun, were the advance units of Santa Anna’s cavalry.

As Smith and Sutherland watched in fascination,
storekeeper Nat Lewis unexpectedly panted up. He was on foot, loaded down with saddlebags, and paused only to greet them briefly. Next day he was still going when he met Antonio Menchaca, a friendly Mexican. Asked by Menchaca why he hadn’t stayed at the Alamo, Lewis succinctly summed up his philosophy: “I am not a fighting man, I’m a businessman.”

Smith and Sutherland hurried on too. Fearing Mexican scouts, they first followed the unused old Goliad road, then took to the open prairie. They did their best to keep out of sight, winding through the mesquite thickets, always bearing east toward Gonzales. Sutherland’s leg hurt terribly, and by the time they reached Salado Creek, he could hardly bear the pain. In fact, he was on the point of turning back when from the direction of the Alamo there came the distant, heavy boom of a cannon.

A cannon shot can mean different things. To Sutherland it meant to forget about going back—the fort must now be surrounded. To another horseman not far away, the same shot meant only to reach the Alamo as fast as possible. James Butler Bonham was returning from his unsuccessful attempt to get help from Fannin at Goliad. He was in no particular hurry, and that afternoon was prospecting a little land along the way. But that distant boom started him moving again. Meeting courier Johnson carrying Travis’ latest message to Goliad, Bonham learned that the Mexicans had finally arrived and were probably opening fire. Bonham spurred his horse and rode all the harder for the Alamo.

Johnson continued toward Goliad. There was no time to lose, for the appeal he carried was urgent indeed. Signed by both Travis and Bowie, it declared:

We have removed all our men into the Alamo, where we will make such resistance as is due to our honour, and that of the country, until we can get assistance
from you, which we expect you to forward immediately. In this extremity, we hope you will send us all the men you can spare promptly. We have one hundred and forty-six men, who are determined never to retreat. We have but little provisions, but enough to serve us till you and your men arrive. We deem it unnecessary to repeat to a brave officer, who knows his duty, that we call on him for assistance.

Perhaps because Fannin was the land of officer “who knows his duty,” Goliad seemed in better shape than ever. The men knew their jobs; their spirits were high. In a burst of enthusiasm they even held a lottery to pick a good name for their fort. “Milam” and “Independence” both had some backing, but “Defiance” was the name finally drawn from the wheel.

So now Fannin waited in Fort Defiance for whatever the future might bring. At last his men were ready for anything. The night before—February 22—he had written Lieutenant Governor Robinson, “I am now happy to say that I have got them quite well satisfied, and being well-disciplined, and doing good work.”

It was much farther down in the letter that he also confided to his friend, “I am not desirous of retaining the present, or receiving any other appointment in the army. … I am a better judge of my military abilities than others, and if I am qualified to command an Army, I have not found it out.”

F
OR
G
ENERAL
S
ANTA
A
NNA
, the day was looking better after a somewhat shaky start. The previous night he had sent Sesma and the dragoons forward in another attempt to take the enemy by surprise. But the fool halted at 7
A.M.
on the Alazan—only a mile and a half from town—fearing, of all things, an attack by the Texans.

He was still there at 12:30
P.M.,
when the rest of the army came up. Then another two hours lost, while plans were remade and troops realigned for a general advance.

They finally got under way at 2:30
P.M.,
moving down both the Presidio and Laredo roads. By now the Texans of course knew they were coming, and as Santa Anna’s skirmishers approached, a group of defenders appeared at the edge of town. They hoisted a Mexican tricolor with two stars in the middle—standing for Texas and Coahuila as separate states. It was a gesture of loyalty to the old Constitution of 1824, and probably meant that the men belonged to Seguin’s militia—about the only people left on either side who still thought the revolution could be settled this way.

Santa Anna’s advance guard ignored them. Sweeping steadily forward, the Mexicans were soon in the Campo Santo burial ground; His Excellency himself rode in the lead. The
little knot of defenders lowered their flag and retired to the Alamo.

So the “perfidious foreigners” were routed. It was 1813 all over again. The skirmishers, the polished dragoons, the dusty ranks of white-clad infantry drove on. They splashed across San Pedro Creek … fanned out over the town … and were pouring into Military Plaza by 3
P.M.

Little Juan Indalencio could hear the band coming. Like all small boys, he rushed toward the music and came face to face with a tuba so big it looked like the mouth of an alligator. Terrified, he turned and ran home. Juan Diaz, son of the San Fernando caretaker, heard the music too … watched the band march into Main Plaza, followed by standard-bearers carrying the massed battle flags of Mexico. No legalistic pair of stars here; rather the angry, vengeful eagle of the proud Central Government.

But the flag that caught all eyes was no national emblem at all. High in the church tower a group of soldiers flung out a great red banner that flapped and snapped in the afternoon breeze—easily visible to the men in the Alamo some 800 yards away. That was important, for this blood-red flag was the traditional Mexican symbol of no quarter—no surrender—no mercy.

A moment’s silence. Then the Alamo’s 18-pounder thundered with a roar that shook the town … echoed through the nearby hills … reverberated over the distant prairies—reaching Bonham, Johnson, Sutherland and Smith, the fleeing townspeople, anyone else within miles. A cannon ball skimmed harmlessly into town, hitting no one—yet everyone—for it was a clear message of defiance addressed to them all.

But unexpectedly there followed hours of inaction and indecision—proving once again that real battles are never set pieces, neatly staged, unfolding with proper dramatic pace. In the Alamo word spread that the Mexicans had sounded a
parley just before the cannon shot, and Bowie began wondering about the wisdom of defiance if there really was a chance for negotiation. Seizing the first paper in sight—page eight of an ordinary child’s copybook—he dashed off a note to the Mexicans. He explained, almost apologetically, that the garrison had fired before hearing that the Mexicans wanted a truce … now he was sending his aide “Benito” Jameson to find out if this was really so.

If Bowie was conciliatory, he still was determined. After ending his note with the salutation “God and the Mexican Federation,” he suddenly crossed it out and wrote instead, “God and Texas.” On this most basic of issues, Jim Bowie too was committed to independence.

Perhaps that was what made Santa Anna so angry. He refused to receive Jameson; he refused even to answer the note himself. (Who did these rebels think they were, offering to negotiate as equals?) Scornfully tossing the message to his aide, Colonel José Batres, Santa Anna told him to give it the reply it deserved. “The Mexican army,” Batres wrote, “cannot come to terms under any conditions with rebellious foreigners to whom there is no other recourse left, if they wish to save their lives, than to place themselves immediately at the disposal of the Supreme Government. …”

In other words, unconditional surrender. Jameson took the answer, headed back to the fort—but this was not the end of it. He was no sooner gone than another emissary emerged from the Alamo: this time Albert Martin, speaking for William Barret Travis.

No one ever knew why separate representatives came from each of the fort’s co-commanders. Juan Seguin, in the Alamo at the time, later said that Travis wanted no truck with the Mexicans … that he was furious when Bowie sent Jameson without consulting him. But this can only be half-right, for Travis too got in touch with the enemy. It seems more likely
that Travis was indeed angry with Bowie, but not so much for making his overture as for breaking their agreement to do everything together. Hence—in a gesture typical of this touchy, sensitive man—Travis’ own emissary appeared under his own flag of truce.