Exodus From the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth (47 page)

Santa Anna, however, was determined that there would be no escape from the Alamo. The Mexican cavalry had therefore been placed in and around the Alameda to ensure that no garrison members reached the Gonzales Road. Then he had ordered his elite cavalry troops to form in an expansive ring around the Alamo to guard against any breakouts.
³⁰

More important in tactical terms, Santa Anna had cleverly kept the highest concentration of General Sesma’s cavalry out-of-sight of the garrison, perhaps so that defenders would be more likely to attempt their escape. As a young, impressionable cavalryman who had chosen the utterly-ruthless General Arredondo as his mentor, Santa Anna had been part of the hard-riding Mexican horsemen who played a key role in slaughtering American and Tejano revolutionaries at the 1813 battle of Medina, after their battle-lines were smashed and flight resulted: an earlier Zacatecas formula for success. In many ways, the essence of Santa Anna as a military commander had been forged on that day. Especially now on this early morning, Santa Anna never forgot the Medina’s bloody lessons, which called for the same brutality to destroy the current dream of a Texas Republic and its believers.
³¹

Unfortunately for the Alamo’s would-be escapees, it was already too late for the 62 men who by this time had slipped out of the palisade. Ironically, as de la Pena emphasized, “Travis could have managed to escape during the first few nights [of the siege], when vigilance was much less,” but now it was much too late but to die lonely deaths far from home and families.
³²

Santa Anna had deliberately kept his cavalry out-of-sight at the Alameda so that anyone fleeing the Alamo would continue to believe that a chance of escape existed. And because it was yet half-dark, the desperate young men and boys who fled through the palisade sally port never realized that some of Santa Anna’s finest combat troops were before them, awaiting their arrival with what they feared the most: the cavalrymen’s long lances.

Contrary to the time-honored tradition of the mythical Alamo, it was not so much the Alamo’s walls that were the real trap for the defenders, but in fact the clever tactical trap laid by Santa Anna
outside
the fort. Along with the concentration of cavalry in and around the Alameda, the ring of Mexican horse-soldiers around the Alamo to eliminate escape had been formed in the darkness, so that garrison members did not know of their deployment.

With high hopes for survival, the 62 soldiers continued to emerge through the sally port of the palisade at the church’s southwest corner. So eager were these men to depart that they left behind not only an everdwindling band of comrades but the flag of the New Orleans Greys. In a hurry to escape detection by any soldados who had advanced into the Alamo courtyard, the escapees then jumped over the ditch and struggled through the abatis of felled timber—that pointed the other way—in the first faint light of day that began to illuminate the scene of massacre. Once over the abatis of felled mesquite and larger cottonwood trees and limbs, the escapees reformed into line on the open ground opposite the church’s southeast corner. These men now wisely remained close together for protection, knowing that a concentrated volley might deter any pursuers. Then, in a sprint for life, they dashed forward on the double into the open beyond the Alamo’s immediate confines with discipline that would soon astound awaiting Mexican cavalrymen.

After all, these detested northamericano “rebels” were long considered nothing but an unruly rabble by Mexico’s military elite. Therefore, from the Alameda’s relatively high ground, General Sesma could hardly believe his eyes in the first faint glimmer of morning light, which now revealed the escape attempt. A faint glow on the horizon indicated that they had lost their gamble to reach the Gonzales Road under cover of darkness. As General Sesma wrote in his March 11 report to Santa Anna: “Many of them believed their retreat was secure as they left the fort from the right [the southeast], and so many came out that they marched organized on the plains . . . .”
³³

In another missive, Sesma summarized the exact tactical sequence that caused this sizeable flight of defenders: “When the fire began and the enemy was dislodged from their first line of fortifications [the north wall] many of them had believed that they could find a place of safety by leaving the fort on the right [and] Indeed, a sufficient number of them came forth that [they] ran in an organized manner towards the unobstructed flatland . . . ” Hardly believing his eyes, Sergeant Manuel Loranca, of the Dolores Cavalry Regiment, stationed around the Alameda, never forgot the sight with the dawn’s first light that revealed from the environs around the Alamo, now shrouded in a rising cloud of sulphurous battle smoke, how some “Sixty-two Texians [had] sallied from the east side of the fort . . . .”
³⁴

Moving quickly to save themselves in the half-light before the sun inched higher over the eastern horizon to more fully reveal their desperate flight, the immediate objective of this “organized” escape attempt was the relatively high, open ground of the Alameda and the Gonzales Road. Simple survival now depended upon the men reaching the Alameda to the southeast. Here, the alluring sight of the picturesque twin rows of cottonwood trees—like an oasis on the prairie in the halflight—was now barely illuminated.
³⁵

These Texas men and United States volunteers very likely were also making an attempt to reach the high ground to make a defensive stand on this natural perch that dominated the lower-lying Alamo. Here, from good cover provided by the cottonwood trees, they could at least defend themselves and fight Indian-style. After all, throughout the siege, some Alamo defenders had wanted to escape the Alamo to fight in the open. The diminutive, red-haired jockey, Henry Warnell, a 24-year-old artilleryman of Captain Carey’s “Invincibles,” who either deserted his cannon or never reached it in the first place that morning, was very likely one of these escapees. A sharp horse trader from Arkansas who had settled in Bastrop, Texas, he had earlier expressed a common sentiment among garrison members by saying, “I’d much rather be out in that open prairie [as] I don’t like to be penned in like this.”
³⁶

Well known as much for his love of chewing tobacco as riding horses, Warnell was one of the few fortunate defenders destined to survive not only the fighting, but also the flight from the Alamo. It is not known which group of escapees he departed with on this bloody morning. Or perhaps he went out individually on his own without being seen, slipping by Mexican cavalrymen. But the best chance for him to have escaped the death-trap was with the first group that dashed from the palisade, because the Mexicans would be better prepared for later escape attempts in more daylight. In addition, and contrary to the mythical story that he “deserted” the garrison before the assault, Rose also very likely “would have been among those that ran,” especially the 62 soldiers who had suddenly emerged from the palisade’s sally port.
³⁷

The flight of this largest group of garrison members—more than a third of the garrison—was very likely as much a maneuver to reposition themselves to gain some slight tactical advantage to defend themselves as it was a bid for eventual freedom to escape down the Gonzales Road. This possibility was indicated by the relative discipline of those marching out from the palisade. Amazingly, from the beginning and thereafter, this escape attempt was not a wild flight but the departure of an “organized” force of garrison members, who were fully prepared to do more fighting but in a new place, preferably high ground, of their own choosing. And because a Mexican encampment, now vacated with the general attack well underway, was nearby, perhaps this large group of men, now low of ammunition, desired to capture the Matamoros Battalion’s camp in the Alameda area to secure black powder.
³⁸

Of course, no one knows how much, if any, ammunition the soldiers of this formation yet possessed. Throughout the siege, black powder supplies were low, and by March 6 the amount was far lower, resulting in a “scarcity of ammunition.” To secure additional ammunition, therefore, black powder rather than shot, was a top priority by this time. Even killing Mexican soldiers met along the way would have meant gaining black powder from their cartridge boxes.

Additionally a Mexican artillery emplacement had been seen earlier in the Alameda area. This position might have been targeted for capture because these men, especially if nearly out of ammunition, knew that black powder would have been available for the guns. Hence, this artillery emplacement might have been deliberately targeted by this first group of escapees, who “ran in an organized manner,” and seemingly with purpose beyond that of escape, from the Alamo.
³⁹

In addition, freshly dug trenches were now located in the area in and around the Alameda. These had been dug by the Matamoros Battalion’s soldados to protect their encampment during the siege, and in case the Alamo garrison attempted to reach the Gonzales Road. For thirteen days of siege, the defenders had viewed these earthworks being dug by Mexican troops, who were just out of lethal killing range of even the Long Rifle. These light works up ahead were now empty, with the Matamoros Battalion in action. However, even as the morning’s first light descended upon the land and with visibility yet low, especially on the lower ground near the church’s rear, the escapees failed to realize that Santa Anna’s cavalrymen were in position up ahead. Not even the brightly colored banderolas, or the pennons, of the Vera Cruz lancers could yet be seen.

With either Captain Baugh or another leading officer, perhaps even Crockett or Travis himself, leading the way, these 62 men not only escaped a death-trap but also now gained an opportunity—denied those inside the Alamo—to fight a defensive battle from cottonwood trees and trenches on ground, if gained, that commanded a wide area. Open prairie land below the Alameda offered attackers little, if any, cover, and was part of “the unobstructed flatland,” in General Sesma’s words.

Perhaps if a defensive stand could be made at the Alameda, and they could hold out on the high ground along the Gonzales Road, then they could buy time to eventually escape that night across the rolling prairie lands leading from San Antonio to Gonzales. But before reaching the Alameda to the southeast, the 62 men first had to cross around 300 yards of mostly open terrain to gain the western edge of the Alameda, its closest point. The only natural vegetation was underbrush and little, snarled mesquite trees and small cottonwood saplings that thrived in low-lying areas near water, in this case the deeply gorged aqueduct, or irrigation ditch, that ran roughly north-south along the Alamo’s eastern perimeter and perpendicular to its southern perimeter. This lengthy ditch—ironically part of the same irrigation network by which Colonel Morales’ column had advanced westward undetected to strike the Alamo’s southwest corner—flowed from the Alamo church’s rear to nearly the Alameda’s western end before crossing the Gonzales Road. General Sesma described the area around the irrigation ditch as “bushy and craggy ground” that was distinctive because the other surroundings were either open prairie or old cornfields without trees or underbrush.

Previous Alamo messengers, such as Missourian John W. Smith, age 44 and from the river town of Hannibal (birthplace of Mark Twain) on the Mississippi, and 28-year-old, Rhode Island-born Captain Albert Martin of Gonzales, had only escaped Santa Anna’s vigilant cavalry by first taking shelter in this irrigation ditch, slipping away undetected to reach the Alameda and the Gonzales Road. Since the siege’s beginning, the entire garrison was well aware of the Alamo’s best and most reliable escape route, which now could serve as shelter if the men were suddenly attacked on the open prairie. Indeed, this convenient ditch had served as the Alamo’s primary entry and exit point throughout the siege. Both then and now, only one simple formula for escape remained, and it was simply to generally follow “the irrigation ditch [and] then left, onto the Gonzales road.”
⁴⁰

Even many years later but blessed with a keen memory, Tejano Enrique Esparza recalled, “There was a ditch of running water back of the church.”
⁴¹
Generating a steady flow of brackish water from the San Antonio River, these old aqueducts had been dug by the Spanish as early as 1718, when the mission was founded, and irrigated the fields sufficiently to provide food in this dry region.
⁴²

Perhaps the shelter of the irrigation ditch had been part of the original plan of escape. However, this ditch had definitely become an ideal escape avenue because of two developments that occurred almost simultaneously: first, the sun had risen higher, and second, more important, now was positioned “on the east, a squadron of lancers, flanked by a ditch, to cut off the retreat at the time of the assault,” in the words of Sergeant Manuel Loranca of the Dolores Cavalry Regiment, who was stationed at the Alameda. Alerted to the lengthy line of lancers up ahead after the foremost soldiers of the escape column had crossed the little log foot-bridge over the irrigation ditch, these men naturally took full advantage of the position. The irrigation ditch provided good cover, thanks to the natural vegetation growing thickly alongside and because it was deeply gorged at a level of several feet or more. Best of all for the 62 men who had slipped out of the Alamo, this ditch led straight south toward the Alameda. Here, only a relatively short distance southeast of the timbered palisade, this sheltered avenue and natural ingress point, half-hidden by tangles of underbrush, offered the only shelter and place of concealment on the open prairie.

But this stealthy maneuver of pushing through the screen of brush by way of the aqueduct in an attempt to eventually gain the Alameda’s high ground did not go unnoticed by Santa Anna’s leading cavalryman. Thanks to his vantage point at the Alameda, General Sesma viewed the fast-moving drama being played out below him. He wrote how these 62 men, after having marched out of the compound and into the open now sought concealment in the saplings and underbrush lining the irrigation ditch, attempting “to take advantage of the nearby branal [sic]” in the half-light.
⁴³
(As used by General Sesma in this context, the Spanish word “brenal” meant ground that was overgrown with weeds, saplings, and underbrush.)