Exodus From the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth (42 page)

Even if the men of the Alamo did not speak Spanish, they could guess the meaning of the war-cry, while Tejano defenders could already understand the frantic commands of shouting Mexican officers. Most of all, no defender could forget the sight of that red flag waving over the church, and what it signified. Like so many garrison members, romantic-minded Micajah Autry, a crusty War of 1812 veteran compared to the beardless youths around him, who was yet an idealistic dreamer at over forty, was about to fulfill his promise, or death wish at the Alamo. In one of his final letters to his wife, Martha, he wrote, “I am determined to provide for you a home or perish.”
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From beginning to end, relatively feeble resistance in the face of the overpowering onslaught was all but inevitable. The lack of effective leadership, careful coordination of the defense, and command incohesiveness that had been evident for so long now rose to the fore. Inexperienced novices in the ways of war, Alamo garrison members were also divided by race (Tejano verus Anglo-Celts); nationality (Americans verus Europeans); regional difference (North versus South); the direction of Texas’ future, (pro-Constitution of 1824 verus pro-independence); regulars and volunteers; native Texians versus United States volunteers; leadership (Travis versus Bowie); and even along political party lines (Whigs verus Jacksonian Democrats). These considerable differences helped to ensure that the garrison would act anything like a cohesive force—after all they were citizen-soldiers and volunteers—rather than as disciplined soldiers.

Along with Santa Anna’s hard-hitting, stealthy tactics, a host of factors, including Travis’ death, plagued the garrison to prevent a unified defense, paving the way for panic and a complete rout. As in any such divided military organization, especially one caught unprepared during a nocturnal surprise attack, such internal differences and divisions were only magnified under the stress of battle, rising to the fore at the moment of crisis. One of the great Alamo myths was that the garrison— which never previously faced a combat situation—fought and died as one in a well-coordinated, tenacious defensive effort.

Instead, what relatively little resistance offered to the Mexican attackers easily broke down under the shock of an onrushing enemy who so quickly descended upon them in overwhelming numbers. What few tentative, belated defensive efforts that existed, therefore, fragmented even further in the noise, fear and panic—a natural, if not inevitable, development under the circumstances. In fact, a majority of the Alamo garrison offered little, if any, resistance—the antithesis of the fabled last stand.

This undeniable reality of a lack of a unified and organized defensive effort was explained in the first official account of the Alamo’s fall. Significantly, in his report written for the Mexican Minister of War and Navy, Santa Anna himself explained how “there was a large number [of defenders] that still had not been able to engage” the attackers, because they had not gone to the north wall, but fled toward the compound’s south side, now free of attackers.
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Like other officers, Captain Baugh, could not organize effective resistance now that he was the acting senior commander.
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In desperation, this former New Orleans Grey continued to attempt to rally riflemen beyond the relative handful of soldiers who had attempted to take defensive positions. But in the dark and confusion, like his predecessor, there was little that he could do.

Nevertheless, Captain Baugh and others continued frantic efforts to arouse and organize the riflemen from their isolated sleeping quarters in various buildings of the Alamo compound, after Baugh had already alerted those in the two-story Long Barracks. Indeed, for too long this morning when time was of the essence, the captain had urgently attempted to arouse some “of the defenders out of their sleep immediately, but others, in their fatigue-induced slumber, awoke slowly and were confused” under the shock of the surprise attack.
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By this time additional dazed soldiers had emerged from the darkness of their warm barracks and sleeping rooms only to encounter the chaos, tumult, and confusion that was swirling around the Alamo’s plaza like a tornado. Enrique Esparza later recalled, “I ran out to the [church] courtyard from a deep sleep.”
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Indeed, there simply was no time to rally the men, so complete was the Mexican success in overrunning the north wall before the garrison could be aroused.
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It had now become a desperate situation of every man for himself. In the midst of the Mexicans surging over the wall in the darkness, a wave of panic naturally swept through the defenders, who deserted firing positions along the perimeter and fled back into the plaza.
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After Travis died, the few defenders, mostly artillerymen who had been so easily overpowered at the north wall, fled through the plaza and toward the Long Barracks to escape the onslaught. As if the convergence of three attack columns before the north wall was not enough to overpower the resistance there, the few defenders there had also been flanked on their left when Cós’ troops overran the Alamo’s northwest corner. This position had been bolstered by an artillery platform and two cannon—dubbed Fortin de Condelle—but had been easily overwhelmed.
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Therefore, what few men who continued to race from the Long Barracks and other sleeping quarters to go to the north wall, if that was the case, were now met in the Alamo plaza by onrushing Mexicans, who had already scaled the wall or entered its postern gate. Ironically, more actual fighting now took place not on the wall but in the open plaza, where even less chance for the garrison’s survival existed. Amid wreaths of sulphurous smoke that hung heavy over the plaza, further obscuring visibility, these close-range encounters were nightmarish, with Mexican troops using their bayonets with brutal effectiveness.
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Stunned garrison members who continued to emerge from their sleeping quarters were shocked to suddenly see a good many swarthy men—in general smaller than the Anglo-Celts—in dark blue uniforms. To the startled defenders now caught in the plaza, these fighting men from Mexico emerged like phantoms out of the blackness, charging across the plaza toward the south wall. Equally unnerving was the fact that the onrushing Mexicans were yelling like banshees and flashing bayonets, while officers shouted orders in a language they could not understand. Sensing a victory had already been won, these soldados now fought far more aggressively than the overconfident garrison members had ever believed possible.

Therefore, besides that of the surprise attack and the Mexicans already swarming through the plaza, yet another shock further stunned the Alamo defenders by this time: the warrior-like qualities and the courage exhibited by the attacking soldados. Now inside the plaza, these fighting men from Mexico defied so many ugly racial stereotypes about their lack of combat prowess and courage. Consequently, the sense of terror among the Alamo defenders only rose to new heights. These developments were indicated by the words of de la Pena, who wrote how thoroughly the dazed defenders were “terrified,” when swiftly overpowered by the Mexican onslaught in the plaza. As among the relatively few defenders who had initially rallied in time to attempt to fight back, this ever-escalating shock and panic was contagious to the newly-aroused troops yet spilling forth and into the plaza’s dark expanse, after emerging from buildings along the perimeter.
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Besides the surprise, the absolute swiftness of the Mexican advance in getting over the north wall stunned the Alamo men, sending them reeling. Indeed, as explained by Johnson who had learned the truth firsthand of the Mexican’s rapid success from the victors not long after the fighting, “This all passed within a few minutes after the garrison [was] driven from the thin manned outer defences, whose early loss was inevitable.”
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Indeed, thanks to having set up ladders along the north wall “before the Garrison were aroused to resistance” and with the Alamo’s walls virtually defenseless, the vigorous rush of the Mexican troops up and over the barrier and then through the plaza was most of all distinguished by its swiftness. Survivor Susanna Dickinson, reinforcing the prevalent racial image of an onrushing tide of barbarians, later spoke of “the Aztec horde [which] came on like the swoop of a whirlwind.”
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The fact that some Americans were armed with Kentucky Long Rifles now worked to their disadvantage during the clash in the plaza. Historians have long assumed that these legendary rifles were the defenders’ best assets. But in the confused darkness of the open plaza, these feared weapons of the western frontier were all but useless at the critical moment. Especially, now in the dark-shrouded plaza, the Long Rifle—the range of which Santa Anna had already thoroughly negated by his surprise attack at night—proved largely ineffective because of its small caliber. Feared since the American Revolution, this frontier weapon was more ideally suited for hunting game no larger than a white-tailed deer, while proving totally unsuitable to resist swarming attackers practically atop the defenders in the darkness. Travis and some other garrison members knew as much, carrying double-barrel shotguns.

With the Mexicans rushing upon the startled garrison members in the open plaza, what was now needed for any chance of hurling back this initial wave of attackers was a close-range volley from shotguns loaded with deadly “buck and ball.” Shotguns were the only weapon that would have been effective at close range. A deliberately aimed shot from a Kentucky or Pennsylvania Long Rifle at an attacking Mexican, especially in the blackness when visibility was yet almost zero, was of little value.

Worst of all, these weapons could not be enhanced with what the defenders now needed most—bayonets—to fend off the foremost attackers pouring through the plaza. In addition, and unlike the much sturdier British Brown Bess muskets carried by Santa Anna’s men, the Kentucky Long Rifle was even unworthy as a club in close quarter fighting. Indeed, compared to the heavier Napoleonic muskets, this slight hunters’ rifle “was more fragile and [therefore] it could not be used as effectively in extremity as a club.”
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When defenders met attackers headlong in the plaza’s blackness, the Long Rifle only helped to ensure an additional lack of firm resistance, because it took so long to reload, especially during the heat of battle. After the first shot from a Long Rifle, Travis’ men would have to spend nearly a minute loading the weapon, elegant in its craftsmanship and design, even under ideal conditions. In the darkness, panic, and clamor of the steamrolling Mexican attack, nervous fingers took even longer to reload their weapons. Dazed garrison members caught in the open plaza were quickly dispatched, either bayoneted, shot, or knocked down by a musket-butt by the fast-moving Mexican soldados racing from north to south toward the Long Barracks and church. Some of Travis’ soldiers died grisly deaths from jabbing bayonets, while attempting to defend themselves with the day’s finest long-range weapon, when it was most likely empty, either never having been fired in the first place or after getting off only one shot.
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In contrast to the Long Rifle, the durable, smooth-bore musket of the Mexican soldier, was a heavy weapon of large caliber and much more reliable in close combat. The large .75 caliber round shot of this musket, that the British government obtained from the East India Company to confront Napoleon’s then seemingly invincible legions, could inflict terrible damage on its victims, unlike the Long Rifle’s small caliber ball.
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So in regard to the close-quarter fighting inside the Alamo’s walls, it was
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those Americans armed with the Long Rifle but the Mexicans who possessed a distinct advantage, because of their use of “buck and ball” cartridges in muskets. The buckshot-plus-bullet ammunition made the discharge from the Brown Bess almost like a mini-shotgun. Along with the well accepted fact of the general inaccuracy of the Napoleonic musket, this shotgun effect negated the lack of marksmanship training of the Mexican fighting men in Santa Anna’s ranks.
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Besides shortages of ammunition, one previously unexplored issue in regard to explaining why it took so long for Travis’ men to get ready for action and why the defenders’ resistance was so weak was because of the time that it took to get their firearms ready for action. If garrison members—mostly rookies without military experience—had kept their weapons loaded during the night in case of a surprise attack, their powder charges would have been of little use by early morning. For instance, when General Houston’s army learned of Santa Anna’s approach toward San Jacinto in April 1836, hundreds of soldiers would be forced out of necessity, even on a warm day, to fire their weapons in the air “to clear their barrels by blowing away the wetness,” so that they could reload their weapons with fresh powder charges.
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However, under immediate attack and surprised from a deep sleep, the Alamo men possessed little, if any, time this morning to fire off their old rounds in order to reload. Consequently, a good many defenders’ weapons, if they had kept them loaded through the cold night, could not be fired by the time of the attack. In addition, the firing mechanisms of flintlock muskets—unlike new model British muskets with waterproof flash pans—were not moisture-proof, preventing the flints causing sparks to ignite the firing pan and thus the powder charge in the barrel. In contrast, Santa Anna’s troops had possessed ample time to make sure their weapons were in proper working order before the attack was ordered. Naturally, a host of misfired weapons would have created even more panic among the defenders.

In the dark still shrouding the Alamo like a funeral pall, many garrison members were likely caught without loaded weapons and were defenseless when the swiftly advancing Mexicans descended upon them. These unfortunate men were either shot down, sabered, or bayoneted while either racing across the parade ground toward the north wall or in retiring south in an attempt to find shelter or a semblance of organized resistance. One account has claimed that Crockett was killed when “he crossed the fort’s parade ground.”
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Indeed, Andrea Castanon de Vallanueva described how Crockett “advanced from the Church building towards the wall or rampart running from the end of the stockade . . . when suddenly a volley was fired by the Mexicans [who had scaled the north wall] causing him to fall forward on his face, dead.”
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