Exodus From the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth (40 page)

But what was not harmless was when Colonel Amat, unaware that Romero’s and Cós’ troops were now in front of him, ordered his reserves to halt and fire volleys, which cut down many soldados massed and milling together in a crowd at the north wall. If fired high, these volleys would have shot soldados off ladders and while scaling the wall by hand. In the darkness, Santa Anna, who also had no idea that Cós and Romero’s columns had swung from their designated attack points to hit the north wall, had made a mistake in throwing in his reserves and at the wrong wall to make widespread fratricide all but inevitable.

The vast majority of Mexican attackers fell to friendly fire in the dark and confusion, and not fire from the Alamo’s defenders. Indeed, in total less than half a dozen artillery pieces—perhaps only two from the church guns, one protecting the lunette at the main gate, and two at the north wall—were likely the only cannon fired in defense of the sprawling perimeter that surrounded the nearly three acres of the Alamo’s vast interior space—a most feeble result from the garrison’s greatest advantage and strength, its artillery arsenal. Indeed, Sergeant Nunez, of Dúque’s column, was surprised how, “the cannonading from the Alamo was heard no more” and hardly before it had begun.

Along the southern perimeter, the cannon at the palisade and in the lunette only unleashed perhaps as few as two shots because it was yet dark and no targets existed to fire at, after Colonel Morales column veered away to the west to escape the wrath of the lunette’s artillery pieces. This left the entire southern perimeter free of attackers in its immediate front. At the stone house located just outside the southwest corner of the Alamo, Morales’ relative handful of men continued to remain behind cover to maintain a steady fire for some time, ensuring that the defenders’ attention on the south remained on them, while Santa Anna’s knock-out blow was delivered along the north wall.
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One of the strangest developments during the assault, unforeseen by either side, was that the Alamo’s presumably strongest asset—its artillery—had an unintended detrimental effect on the defensive effort by causing two unplanned maneuvers: first, by driving Romero’s column to the northeast corner of the weak north wall, which was the decisive point; and second, by forcing Colonel Morales’ column to a new position, the stone house, from which it eventually assaulted and overran the Alamo’s southwest corner.
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By focusing the defenders’ attention on the south wall entrance, thanks to Morales’ attack, prospects for the attackers’ success were now only heightened at the north wall. Perhaps from the moment that he was awakened, therefore, Travis, like those soldiers who failed, either deliberately or because they weren’t ready, to rush to the walls, realized that all was lost. In fact, Travis had accepted the Alamo’s fall for some time, and now it was happening ever so swiftly right before his eyes.

Even in the darkness, he might have seen how relatively few of his men had followed him in making the long, lonely sprint to the north wall. After having been caught by surprise, most of the Alamo garrison was yet consumed by a swirl of confusion, if not panic, after having awakened to a nightmare. Simply no time existed for officers to either rally the garrison or get them into their assigned defensive position to offer a solid resistance along the northern perimeter. More soldados gained the north wall’s top with relative ease and without encountering serious resistance, rendering moot the limited artillery fire and Colonel Travis’ best efforts. What relatively few riflemen reached the north wall could not sustain effective fire, and they were vulnerable targets to the massed throng below them, in having to expose themselves when firing over the wall.
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The confusion among the newly awakened garrison members could not have been greater by this time. De la Pena recalled how all was pandemonium, “with desperate, terrible cries of alarm in a language we did not understand.”
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With north wall resistance relatively light, meanwhile, Cuba-born General Juan Valentín Almador, a sprightly age 55, led his cheering soldados of the Toluca Battalion of Dúque’s column over the top of the north wall, where the three light cannon of Fortin Terán were manned by only a few gunners. Most significant, he and his triumphant men then opened a “postern gate” to allow a flood of attackers to pour into the darkened plaza. Because of the weak defense and the relatively short duration of the fighting inside the compound this morning—perhaps as little as twenty minutes—this gate was opened much sooner than has been described or acknowledged by historians, who have embraced the traditional concepts of the mythical Alamo without question. The early opening of the gate allowed for a much quicker entry into the plaza for hundreds of Santa Anna’s men, negating the disadvantage of the relatively few number of ladders. Therefore, more soldados gained entry into the Alamo through this gate rather than scaling the wall. Prior intelligence of the Alamo’s interior would have bestowed knowledge of this gate and its exact location—almost certainly another reason why the north wall was the principal objective this morning.

Other key officers who played leading roles in overrunning the north wall were General Pedro Ampudia, Colonel Esteban Mora, and Lieutenant Colonel Marcial Aguirre. Surging forward with Almador’s troops in overrunning the battery and the north wall, Colonel Romulo Diaz de la Vega led his Zapadores into the plaza. In part because fratricide had been so high and due to their discipline, these reserves of Sappers and Grenadiers, or granaderos, also led the way over the north wall and through the gate. Quite literally, the floodgates to the Alamo were opened for more than 1,000 troops of three columns. Now, according to Joe, the Mexicans came over the north wall and through the gate in a perfect herd “like sheep.”
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For all practical purposes, the struggle for possession of the Alamo was over hardly before it had begun, primarily because the surprise had been so complete. For instance, the undeniable reality of this no-win situation was revealed by the words of Enrique Esparza, whose father, Gregorio, was one of the few Tejano defenders from San Antonio. The thorough surprise of the Alamo garrison was evident when Enrique’s mother, who was awakened by shouting outside—she evidently had been sleeping in a building close to the north wall or near a window, and had to yell to her sleeping husband in the artillery barracks—that the Mexicans were already pouring over the walls: “Gregorio, the soldiers have jumped the wall. The fight’s begun.”
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A short time later, Enrique Esparza related the confused horror that faced the newly awoken garrison: “We could hear the Mexican officers shouting to the men to jump over [the north wall and] It was so dark that we couldn’t see anything.”
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Thereafter, as Enrique continued, the bitter “end came suddenly and almost unexpectedly and with a rush. It came at night and when all was dark [and] Our men [had no chance because] Their ammunition was very low. That of many was entirely spent. Santa Anna must have known this, for his men had been able . . . to make several breeches in the walls [while] Many slept. Few there were who were awake. Even those on guard besides the breeches in the walls dozed.”
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No disciplined volleys were forthcoming from the Alamo defenders, because they had been unable to wake up, organize in time, and reach assigned defensive positions to mass their already limited firepower. There was no real organized or united resistance of any duration along the north wall during the initial phase of the steamrolling Mexican attack. This development can explain why the reserves of the Sapper Battalion lost the lowest number of both officers and men—only 1 officer killed and 3 wounded—of any attacking unit despite leading the breakthrough over the wall. Since the Sappers helped to lead the way over the top and even into the plaza, fratricide might well have claimed these officers. This very likely was also the fate of many of Dúque’s officers, such as Captain Don José María Macotela, who fell mortally wounded not long after he took over for Colonel Dúque who also was felled. Both Macotela and Dúque were wounded “in the vicinity of the enemy parapets” along the north wall, while Mexicans below them were firing upward and around them blindly in the night, resulting in what de la Pena lamented as the “destruction among ourselves” in the blackness.
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A man of considerable pride, vanity, and a strong sense of honor, Colonel Travis evidently already felt the shame of having failed as the Alamo’s commander in terms of rallying the defenders and galvanizing a solid defense, which was now clearly doomed. In fact, he had been long consumed by a “certain fatalism,” while possessing a strange sense of being about to be ”sacrificed,” as if having a portent of his own death.
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Not only was the Alamo already all but overrun, but relatively little resistance had been offered to the Mexican tide. For a man like the Byronic-minded Travis, who considered himself an honorable Southern soldier-gentleman, this prospect of an inglorious defeat was the ultimate humiliation, and quite unlike what he had ever read in Walter Scott’s romantic novels. What was now happening at the Alamo had nothing to do with romance or the heroic. Santa Anna had brought a merciless reality to the young Alamo commander in the pitch-blackness. Now there were no knights on horseback, chivalric gestures between gentlemanly opponents, beautiful ladies in waiting, and heroism for the ages.

Instead, in the blinding darkness and gut-wrenching panic, there were now only hundreds of vengeful Mexicans swarming forward to exterminate every American and Texan soldier they could find. Like his dazed men who were overwhelmed as much as he was, Travis had realized for some time that his fondest images of a by-gone age had been mere illusionary fantasies. Instead, as revealed in his March 3, letter, Travis had all but accepted that he and his men were about to be “sacrificed to the vengeance of a Gothic enemy” bent on the garrison’s total annihilation.

Travis sensed that his good name and reputation—things that he cherished above all else—would now be stained forever, because he had failed to save his men or the Alamo, forever to be blamed for the failures of prior leadership. In the future, the Travis name would be linked to defeat, humiliation, and disaster. Most galling for him personally was that all of his frantic pleas for assistance had been ignored. Both the government and people of Texas, for which he was about to sacrifice himself, had let him down, abandoning him and his handful of soldiers to their tragic fates. Colonel Travis had earlier despaired of this thorough abandonment, understanding how he and his command were about to be killed for no strategic gain or reason. Therefore, at this time, he was angry, frustrated, and disillusioned by a garrison of mostly volunteers who had long wanted to surrender, the apathy of Fannin and Houston who had not come to their aid, the equally uncaring Tejanos of San Antonio, and the selfish people of Texas who failed to assist him in his darkest hour.

He also had to grapple with his own failure to come to terms—in fact, insulting Santa Anna—when there was still the possibility of an honorable capitulation. Travis was very likely haunted by his own leadership failings that doomed himself and the garrison. And he doubtless also felt abandoned by those men who failed to rush to the north wall with him. He had long been concerned that the disgruntled garrison would surrender instead of fighting to the end like heroes of yore, and now that bitter suspicion appeared evident.

In his mind’s eye, Travis had most likely envisioned the climactic battle for the Alamo taking place in broad daylight, the Mexican army ponderously assembling in all its colorful splendor under the calm gazes of a garrison armed and ready at their posts along the walls. Then the fort’s artillery would blast huge gaps in the approaching enemy’s ranks while the garrison’s Long Rifles would deal steady execution. He had probably never imagined a sneak attack in the dark that would breach the walls before the garrison hardly had a chance to fight. And now he found himself practically alone, with no one to command, and no one to witness his heroism save hundreds of swarming Mexican soldados bent on his destruction.

Therefore, by this time, with the searing notes of the Deguello floating across the plain, and with the red no-quarter flag waving high on this night in hell, Travis evidently felt that he had only one recourse— suicide. As he stated in his March 3 letter, he was only too aware how Santa Anna’s attackers were “fighting under a blood-red flag, threatening to murder all prisoners,” eliminating any possibility of his survival.

In keeping with Travis’ Byronic temperament, he almost naturally would have considered suicide, with Mexicans closing in and perhaps even surrounding him by this time, especially if he had fallen wounded and become helpless. It would have been a rational act under the circumstances. The last thing that Travis now desired was to experience the ultimate disgrace and humiliation, if he was taken alive by the Mexicans, who were now all around him. Capture, torture, and death were now all but inevitable for Travis, and he knew it, if taken alive. And like no other garrison member, Travis was a marked man to Santa Anna. Because of his early defiance to Mexican authority and with his reputation as one of the most militant “War Hawks” in Texas since the early 1830s—a fact known even in Mexico City—Travis was one of the most wanted men north of the Rio Grande. As revealed in his letter, a revengeful Santa Anna was yet enraged over Travis “insulting” replies to him and refusal to come to terms.

At the age of only 26 and despite his short military career, Travis was perhaps the most infamous man at the Alamo, and as a strange fate would have it, also its commander. Since the siege’s beginning, in what became a duel of wills between two opposing leaders, Santa Anna was especially eager to do away with the troublesome young man from Alabama as much for personal as for political and military reasons. He had become “furious” with Travis’s failure to surrender. Therefore, a stern example had to be made and an unforgettable message sent to other Texas revolutionaries in the form of Travis’s death. As part of his overall plan to subjugate Texas, Santa Anna planned to execute all rebel leaders, and Travis would provide the initial example. An ugly death for young Travis would remind every rebel in Texas of the high price paid for those who stood in Santa Anna’s way. Therefore, Travis quite correctly expected that “at the very least, he and Bowie would be executed if they surrendered” or were captured by this merciless “Gothic” foe from the heart of Mexico. And by now, it had become painfully clear to one and all that the Alamo was in the process of being completely overwhelmed before an adequate defense could even be attempted.
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