Exodus From the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth (17 page)

Even more importantly for logistics, San Antonio was located more than a hundred miles from the Gulf coast. Copano, southeast of Goliad, near the mouth of the San Antonio River, had served as a port for supplies, volunteers, and arms in 1835, which were primarily shipped from New Orleans. The nearest port to San Antonio was located at Dimmitt’s Landing on Lavaca Bay, northeast of Copano, which was linked to the Gulf of Mexico. Supplies from New Orleans also landed at this key logistical point.

Because the San Antonio River was too small to navigate, supplies and munitions destined for San Antonio had to be hauled by wagon or oxcart overland. This was a time-consuming process over dusty summer and muddy spring roads. This, combined with the fact that the United States and its Gulf ports were more than a hundred miles away, made a lengthy defensive stand at the southern end of the Great Plains logistically untenable to support.

In early 1836, manpower from the United States had yet to flood into Texas. Any volunteers, almost all without horses, who landed on the coast had to march inland to San Antonio over a route that a relative handful of Mexican troops, especially cavalry, could easily block. As east Texas settlements were so far to the northeast near the Louisiana border, newly arriving United States volunteers were too far away from San Antonio. Moreover, the “Old Texians” naturally preferred to defend their east Texas settlements than the frontier so far forward.
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Perhaps the greatest defensive liability that doomed the Alamo was the fact that, by eary 1836, Alamo garrison members were mostly novices at war. Like the majority of the fort’s young officers, Captain Carey, who was Colonel Neill’s top lieutenant, attempted to learn the ways of war on the job, but not enough time remained. As he penned in a letter: “As I have not been a graduate of West Point, I must study military affairs now for I am rejoiced at the opportunity to do something for myself.”
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However, Neill, Bowie, and then Travis remained overly optimistic. All expected ample Tejano support if Santa Anna’s army arrived. In a letter to Houston, Neill wrote on January 14 how they could expect “great aid from the citizens of this town,” if Santa Anna marched on San Antonio. The many Tejano volunteers who fought against General Cós in 1835 only reinforced this widespread idea of Tejano support for the small Alamo garrison until it was far too late. But unlike in early 1836, the common people of San Antonio had not been in jeopardy or at risk in late 1835, as they would be if Santa Anna arrived with vengeance on his mind.
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Béxar citizens who fought beside General Cós’s troops included members of the local San Antonio Tejano militia, Presidial Cavalry Company of Béxar. Francisco Esparza was one of these Tejano militiamen. After General Cós’ surrender, they were allowed to leave with his force, after signing paroles. Ironically, however, the local Tejano militia of San Antonio was allowed to disperse and return to their Béxar homes, despite having battled against the Texans. The victors’ benevolence would come back to haunt them. When Santa Anna reached San Antonio, this militia unit would be reactivated to join his army.
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Clearly, Bowie’s and Neill’s decision to defend San Antonio was also folly because of the realities of dual demographics. After all, San Antonio was the heart and center of Hispanic Texas, while the AngloCeltic settlements—and hence the potential reservoir of reinforcements—were far away in east Texas. While Texas had become more than three-quarters Anglo-Celtic by 1830, garrison members now found themselves the only Americans in the town, except for two residents. The majority of the Tejano population would remain either neutral or covertly anti-American, providing support, including invaluable intelligence, to Santa Anna. The intelligence was crucial, revealing the considerable weaknesses of both the undersized garrison and the Alamo as a defensive structure. Jameson, a perceptive and increasingly cynical engineer—who suspected that the garrison would be abandoned by most Tejanos in San Antonio—realized as much. As he penned to Governor Smith on January 18, 1836: “I believe they know our situation as well as we do ourselves.”
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In addition, another forgotten factor that contributed to the garrison’s weakness, especially in terms of discipline, was the well-known seductive lure of the pretty Tejano women and young girls with their dark beauty and exotic good looks. Unlike in Nacogdoches, where the Tejano population and the Anglo-Celts remained segregated in largely separate worlds with “no social intercourse,” wrote a surprised William F. Gray, who had recently arrived in Texas, San Antonio was the exact opposite. Perhaps the isolated frontier setting played a role in fueling greater interaction between the two people. But for whatever reason, San Antonio was the place where Anglo-Celts and Tejanos openly and freely mixed on a scale unseen elsewhere in Texas.

Of course, what was ultimately most exciting for the Alamo’s soldiers, these graceful Tejano women acted, danced, and flirted in a more open manner than the straight-laced, Bible-reading Anglo-Celtic women the soldiers had left behind in the United States, where the Puritan ethic dominated. What was most intoxicating for these young soldiers so far from home were “the seductive fandango, a style of dance more provocative than the American volunteers would have been accustomed to [and] They were riveted by the pulsing beat, the foot stomping, and swirling dresses of the exotic women,” of the finest Tejano families of San Antonio.
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Naturally, as young men, some Alamo defenders were motivated by simple lust or more calculating ambitions relating to the opposite sex. The more dashing Anglo-Celtics, especially the ladies’ men, desired to emulate Bowie’s social and financial success in marrying a teenage, blonde-haired beauty from one of San Antonio’s leading Tejano families distinguished by elegance, wealth, and aristocratic tastes. Bowie’s father-in-law, Don Juan Martin de Veramendi, was the tax collector and mayor of Béxar. He also served as the governor of the combined state of Coahuila-Texas in 1832. Fluent in Spanish, enamored with Tejano culture, and fully accepted by the leading Tejano families, Bowie married the young Ursula in April 1831. He had easily adjusted to Tejano life in San Antonio, little realizing that he had little time to live, fated to die in the town he loved so much.
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One Alamo defender who came to Texas with the hopes of marrying a woman of wealth was Dolphin Ward Floyd of Gonzales. As revealed in a letter, ever since leaving his North Carolina home in November 1825, Floyd had always “intended Marrying some old Rich widow that she might Die directly & then he would be independent” for the rest of his days. However, the ambitions of this young North “Carolina farm boy” would be unfulfilled because, even though he had succeeded in marrying a Gonzales widow, Ester Berry House, who he married in Gonzales in late April 1832, Floyd himself met a premature end at the Alamo.
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But a garrison member could also have a “young Mexican girl” as a mistress without marriage. Instead of busily preparing for war, life in San Antonio for the garrison was little more than one big party for funloving, hard-drinking young men like Irishman William Malone, a rowdy teenager, and Henry Warnell, red-haired and freckle-faced (an unusual, appealing look to some Tejanos), who were both artillery privates of Captain Carey’s “Invincibles.” Week after week during the late winter of 1836, beautiful Tejano women took away—easily surrendered of course—the energies, focus, and priorities of these young men, who were lonely when far from their native homelands and families. Relaxed social interaction and romance was much more fun than strengthening an old Spanish mission, especially if Santa Anna marched up the Gulf coast and bypassed San Antonio. Along with much alcohol, mescal, and tequila, the music-filled fandangos—fiestas and dances with their historic cultural roots in peasant festivals of medieval Spain—brought out lingering inhibitions among the American boys far from home.

One young officer smitten by the abundant charms of the local Tejano women was thirty-year-old Captain Carey. With little concern about class, cultural, or racial distinctions, he fell in love with his Tejano housekeeper. Following Bowie’s example, the captain from Baltimore wanted to marry her without question, but ran into unexpected resistance that caught him by surprise. Carey wrote in a letter, in regard to Tejano women, how “in time of peace the ladies would gladly embrace the offer or accept the hand of an officer, but in these war times they would too soon become a widow.”
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Already knowing that a large Mexican Army was about to march on San Antonio with the intention of killing every Anglo-Celtic soldier present, these Tejano ladies naturally knew it would be unwise to marry a garrison member. Harsh reprisals would almost certainly be forthcoming when Santa Anna arrived. In addition, bachelor Americans making love to Tejano daughters and sisters was an unsettling prospect to their devoutly religious fathers, mothers, and brothers, who embraced traditional Catholic family values. Young Protestant soldiers of fortune, especially those who were worldly, on the make, or with relatively little means, were not a Tejano father’s fondest desire for his daughters, especially if young and innocent.

Therefore, the escalating social and sexual activity became an increasing source of tension between the Anglo-Celtic soldiers and Tejano males of San Antonio, from whom the Alamo defenders expected assistance when Santa Anna struck. Many Tejano males, such as Francisco Esparza, and especially those among the lower classes without economic ties to the Anglo-Celtic community, worried about the corruption of traditional Tejano values. Expressing traces of xenophobia that flourished like a cancer in Texas, seemingly among everyone, they believed in the cultural-racial-nationalist creed that was gaining popularity in Texas by early 1836: “Mexico for the Mexicans.”
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Week after week, a host of illusions continued to linger over the muddled thinking of the men stationed at San Antonio. Ironically, the Alamo garrison, including Travis, continued to be overconfident because they believed that the Tejano people of San Antonio would fully rally to their support. Thoroughly deluded, Jameson wrote in a letter on January 18: “We can rely on aid from the citizens of this town in the case of a siege.” But on March 3 on the siege’s tenth day, Travis would reveal the bitter truth of the untapped manpower source that was heavily counted upon to ensure the garrison’s survival: “The citizens of this municipality are all our enemies except those who have joined us.”
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Yet Colonel Neill had believed that the garrison could depend upon hundreds of Tejano fighting men from San Antonio, even though at this time the town only had a population of around 2,000. Bowie was also guilty of overestimating possible Tejano assistance, seeing more supporters than potential enemies or neutrals. Revealing that he was out of touch with reality, Neill expected that the garrison could count on the timely assistance of fully 80 percent of the Tejano male population. Ironically, not only was Neill completely wrong about future Tejano support, but he would be long gone from San Antonio by the time Santa Anna struck, almost as if having suddenly realized how his miscalculations spelled the end of the Alamo garrison’s existence.

Ample evidence that some Tejanos had assisted General Cós in the Alamo’s defense by firing on the attacking Americans, even killing Ben Milam it was thought by some Texans, was conveniently overlooked. Ironically, the Anglo-Celts naively placed their lives in the faith of two distinct people—both the settlers of east Texas and the Tejanos, both of whom were destined to fail them in the end. However, the Tejanos would remain mostly neutral because they were caught between opposing factions in a civil war. The only exceptions were the handful who either served in the Alamo garrison and those who provided intelligence to Santa Anna.
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One key indication of which way the majority of Tejanos would go was early evident in the anti-Anglo-Celtic sentiment of their priest, Manuel Menchaca. In the tradition of Father Hidalgo, he was a warriorpriest who had led foraging raids on the ranches of pro-American Tejanos, including Juan Sequín. This nationalist priest might have been troubled by Protestants expressing disdain toward Catholicism, and certainly by the corruption of the good Catholic Tejano girls, who may have become pregnant, of his flock.
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By the early weeks of 1836, a good many Alamo garrison members had not only been seduced by the expansive beauty of this land that could make them a quick fortune, but also by the alluring Tejano women, the comforting promise of Tejano male assistance, and a vibrant, fun-loving Tejano culture. Like Bowie, many single Alamo garrison members were thoroughly charmed, not only by the ladies but by the richness of Tejano culture. As never before, the young Anglo-Celtic men and boys basked in the greater openness, friendlessness, and courtesies of Tejano life. Already smitten, Virginia-born John William Smith had married pretty María de Jesús Curbelo, and had long made San Antonio his home.

Month after month, Alamo garrison members spent their time drinking, dancing at fandangos, courting, and attempting to romance both the aristocratic Tejano women dressed in the latest styles of New Orleans (and, hence, Paris) styles, and lower class Tejano girls in peasant garb, while enjoying exotic Tejano dishes of corn tamales and enchiladas filled with beans, spices, and corn. Older Tejano women, including the mother of Gregorio and Enrique Esparza, “sold many tamales and beans” to garrison members. The men also basked in the relatively warm winter weather, with plenty of bright sunshine. Such developments played a role in reducing the overall vigilance, while fueling complacency that steadily eroded what little morale remained among largely inexperience men in arms.
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Not surprisingly, discipline among the Anglo-Celtic garrison in San Antonio had broken down by early 1836. No longer were soldiers drilling or training, sharpening their skills to meet the enemy. A frustrated Jameson could only lament in a January letter: “The officers of every department do more work than the men and also stand guard, and act as patrol every night.” And with a classic understatement, a diplomatic Jameson, as if not to blemish the reputations of his fellow officers, merely commented with sullen resignation: “We have had loose discipline.”
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