Exodus From the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth (51 page)

Cavalry Brigade commander General Juan de Andrade reported how the Dolores Cavalry Regiment lost one killed and three wounded in this second contest far from the Alamo’s walls. Indeed, the fighting grew so intense in wiping out the second group of escapees that General Sesma described in his March 11 report how, “I feared that they might be driven back [and therefore] I sent in a captain of the Rio Grande unit [because] some men were really protected as by a parapet in that position and therefore were determined to sell very dear their lives.”
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By this time, the systematic, but quite messy, elimination of the first two escape groups—more than half of the Alamo garrison—was all but complete. Small, isolated pockets of resistance had yet to be wiped out, however. Besides the first two large groups of men who attempted to escape from a living hell, some Alamo defenders, caught in the confusing chaos of the nightmarish fighting, made their own individual attempts. With noise and rising layers of battle smoke providing a screen, individual garrison members slipped beyond the Alamo’s walls in futile bids to escape. For instance, one account described four defenders who “bolted over one of the compound walls” to escape the slaughter. All but one were killed by the lethal Mexican cavalry, which pounced on these hapless soldiers like a hawk after a dying rabbit.
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One of the desperate soldiers who tried to reach safety was the Alamo’s quartermaster, Eliel Melton, age 38. The Georgia-born merchant from the community named Nashville-on-the-Brazos (because so many Tennesseans called it home) was a successful merchant before making the fatal decision to become a Texas soldier. He had survived the 1835 assault that resulted in San Antonio’s capture, but this time he would not be so fortunate. Refusing to die inside the Alamo and knowing that the only chance for survival meant flight rather than fight, Melton belatedly sprang from the compound’s confines. He went out by way of the timbered palisade, after the organized group of 62 had already departed and while the Mexicans were yet focused on reducing stubborn resistance in the Long Barracks. He hoped against hope to evade the omnipresent Mexican dragoons and lancers to be reunited with his pretty, aristocratic Tejano wife, Juana. And, not far behind the fast-moving lieutenant, who bolted for his life, a “few others followed, and together they raced pell-mell into the graying dawn.”
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Never forgetting the quartermaster’s desperate bid for freedom, Susanna Dickinson, who saw relatively little, described how “During the engagement, one Milton, jumped over the ramparts & was killed.”
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Another defender jumped to his death from the top of the church, falling around 22 feet to the ground below. This well-publicized incident has made relatively little sense to historians because it resulted in not one but two deaths. The most accepted theory has been that the act was suicide. But suicide was highly improbable because the man—long thought to have been Captain Dickinson— had a child in his arms. Consequently, this incident has been described as the “most bizarre story of the Alamo,” remaining one of the battle’s mysteries. However, a rather simple, but logical, explanation exists.

The most sensible explanation was that Captain Dickinson, if this was the jumper as so long believed, was attempting to follow those men who had streamed out of the palisade by way of the gate at the church’s southwest corner. After all, he had stayed at his position at Fortin de Cós as long as possible helping to protect the escapees with his artillery fire from the church’s rear. And he had leaped down near the chapel’s southwest corner, where stood the palisade’s sally port, in full view of many Mexicans now in the plaza and courtyard. By this time the Mexicans, with bayonets flashing and vengeance in their eyes, had gained entry into the church, driving him to his desperate escape attempt. Since he had his “young son in his arms,” in de la Pena’s words, this incident only makes sense if he was attempting to save not only himself but his son, and this meant following those who had dashed out through the palisade.
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But all later escapees, following upon the heels of the first 62 men and second group of 50 soldiers who fled, had even less chance for survival, with the cavalry now fully alerted and waiting. In some amazement, Santa Anna described how “a large number” of garrison members met their deaths from his cavalry “in the immediate areas” outside the Alamo’s walls.

These words reveal that a fair number of other garrison members were killed as individual escapees and were not part of the two largest groups to flee the Alamo. Santa Anna’s words also indicate that the ever-tightening ring of Mexican cavalry and lancers had moved closer to the Alamo’s walls by this time, after witnessing the first two escape attempts, as preventive measures to ensure no more defensive stands from the irrigation ditch or any other cover. After all, for General Sesma’s cavalrymen and lancers, it proved far easier to kill escapees close to the walls as opposed to chasing them across the prairie, or in attempting to drive them out of the irrigation ditch and its surrounding vegetation.
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The final sizeable flight of Alamo defenders never got as far as the first two groups, because the Mexican cavalry and lancers had advanced so close to the Alamo’s walls, while awaiting more panic-stricken men to attempt to make a break for it. All the while, more than 100 musicians, including Fifer Apolinario Saldigna, but mostly drummers and “Horn players,” continued to play lively airs to mock an ugly slaughter of those remaining inside the compound and those yet alive on the open prairie.
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Meanwhile, one of the most heroic acts at the Alamo took place inside the doomed fort. Rather than the mythical heroics which have been endlessly embellished as part of the romanticized last stand mythology, Ireland-born Major Evans, though wounded, rose to the challenge. Like so many Irish revolutionaries before him, Evans was not running or giving up this morning, demonstrating a feisty Celtic-Gaelic fighting spirit. In fact, he was determined to take as many Mexican soldiers with him as possible. With his last thoughts perhaps on his beloved Ireland and with a flaming torch in hand, Evans made a dash for the powder magazine. With the black powder reserves located at the southwest and northwest corners of the church, the Green Islander attempted to blow-up the remaining supply. But the 36-year-old was shot down before he fulfilled his mission. Ironically, a soldier not born in either Texas or America, but across the sea, gave his life in one of the most heroic actions on that March 6 morning.
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While the two fights were dying down by this time between the groups of escapees and the Mexican cavalry and lancers on the open prairie, yet another clash—the third, smallest, and last outside the Alamo this morning—was about to begin. General Sesma, from his vantage point from the high ground of the Alameda, now saw yet more defenders attempting to escape, “who were coming off the fort from the left . . . “
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This semicircular “fort” on the left was an earthen lunette or a “Semicircular palisade and narrow trench,” that was positioned near the west wall’s center. Here, on the wall that faced San Antonio, around 400 yards away across the San Antonio River, this lunette—smaller than the one protecting the main gate on the south wall—hugged the outer fort as the only entry and exit point of pickets along the sprawling west wall, not far from Travis’ headquarters.
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As along the southern perimeter for the first two groups of escapes, the western perimeter had been devoid of attackers for some time, allowing an opportunity for a handful of survivors to make a dash for safety. Indeed, from the assault’s beginning, General Cós’ column had veered away from the west wall in overrunning Fort Condelle at the Alamo’s northwest corner and then pushed into the plaza to attack the Long Barracks and church. With the main attack on the north wall and with Morales’ belated strike at the Alamo’s southwest corner, almost the entire length of the west wall had remained wide open, especially the lunette, which became a natural exit point. With Cós and Morales having struck at opposite corners of the western wall—the Alamo’s longest walled side—most of its length had been attack-free longer than any perimeter. This tactical development resulted in some defenders, who had not retired back into the plaza, remaining in place in buildings along the western perimeter until forced to flee out the lunette when Mexicans gained the plaza behind them or after the Long Barracks was finally overpowered. Men fleeing the western lunette naturally made for the brush, trees, and cover along the nearby San Antonio River, which offered a better chance for survival than the open prairie around the Alameda.

Some evidence, from San Antonio’s mayor in 1836, Francisco Antonio Ruiz, indicated that Crockett might have been killed at the lunette located at the west wall’s midpoint. If so, this might well indicate that Crockett was shot and killed by Mexican cavalry, who were close to the wall by this time, while attempting to escape. Following the Mexican soldier’s practice of calling isolated strongpoints “forts,” Ruiz later claimed he saw Crockett’s body in “the small fort opposite the city,” which would have been the lunette at the west wall’s center. He also reported that Crockett’s body “was found in the west battery,” which indicated that at least one artillery piece was located in the lunette.
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But because the sun had risen higher to reveal a fuller view of the surrounding area, including the Alamo compound, the last flight of garrison members was the most ill-timed of the three sizeable attempts. By this time, the first two groups of Alamo escapees were either wiped out or in the process of being eliminated; consequently, an even larger percentage of Santa Anna’s cavalry was poised nearby, sabers drawn and lances at the ready, and closer to the walls after their bloody work in completing the destruction of the first groups of escapees. In General Sesma’s words: “Then the Superior Captains of Lieutenant Colonels of the Regiment of Dolores, Don Manuel Montellano, Don Jose Fato, and second lieutenant Don Jose Guijarro, were detained with another company in order to charge those who were coming off the fort from the left [the west wall lunette], and who were also killed by these officers and troops upon showing themselves, and whose companions had not exceeded them in anything.”
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In his March 11 report to Santa Anna, General Sesma complimented those who had escaped the Alamo only to meet a tragic fate outside of its walls: “It is in vain to show Your Excellency the desperate resistance of these men because you were in the middle of the risk dictating my orders and you were a witness who [saw] better than any other the deeds of each man.”
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Therefore, Sesma saw no need to exaggerate or embellish the cavalry’s role today if Santa Anna was also a witness. The general’s statement also indicated that Santa Anna was in the Alameda area. Most significant, therefore, Sesma had only described not only what he had seen in regard to the exodus from the Alamo, but also what Santa Anna had seen. This, of course, meant that the number of men he saw escaping was not an embellishment to make either himself or his men look like they accomplished more than was actually the case. (And unlike the de la Pena memoir, Sesma’s words came from an official battle report written only days after the Alamo’s capture, and not a politically inspired or biased document.)

Besides the factor of sheer panic, such a wide discrepancy between the number of escapees and Mexican cavalry losses has provided some evidence that a good many of the men—more than half the entire Alamo garrison—were out of ammunition by this time, which also might partly explain why they departed the Alamo in the first place. This scenario seems more likely with the last two groups of men who fled the Alamo rather than the first group, because of the tactical situation and time sequences.

When Mexican troops converged and struggled to kill the last defenders in the Long Barracks, hospital, and church, their attention became more focused on the Alamo’s eastern side. Combined with the confusion, deafening noise, and thick smoke of battle, this tactical development allowed a slight opportunity for the last group of survivors, probably mostly west wall defenders, to dash for safety by way of the lunette, and perhaps even the elevated position of the 18-pounder at the southwest corner, after Morales’ troops had descended upon the Long Barracks and the church. Of course, these three distinct flights of defenders only hastened the end of those who remained inside. So many men had fled the Alamo that many attacking Mexicans could not fathom what happened to all the defenders. A perplexed Lieutenant Colonel José Juan Sánchez-Navarro, not only a respected member of Cós’ staff but also a promising poet, wrote how “By six-thirty in the morning not a single enemy existed” in the Alamo. And Sergeant Felix Nunez of Dúque’s column, gained the distinct impression that “all the Americans had taken refuge in the church” by this time, because they could be seen nowhere else.
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It seemed to those Mexican soldiers now inside the Alamo that many garrison members had simply disappeared off the face of the earth—a mystery best explained by the mass exodus from the Alamo.

Knowing the bitter end was fast approaching, some survivors inside the buildings tried in vain to surrender to the swarm of Mexican soldiers. Some cornered defenders in the Long Barracks waved white cotton socks in futile attempts to surrender. Trapped inside the church from which there was no escape, Anthony Wolfe and one of his sons—the other had already been killed by bayonets or bullets, or both—attempted to escape, but in vain. Out of desperation, both leaped from the church’s top, very likely in a last-ditch attempt to join the exodus. But both young men of the Jewish faith were killed in a hail of bullets.
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Combined with having gained the element of surprise over the garrison even though it had long expected an assault, Santa Anna had effectively orchestrated the combined use of infantry and cavalry to reap success in what was essentially a night battle. Shortly after the fighting ended on March 6, therefore, Santa Anna boasted to the Mexican Minister of War and Navy how perhaps the majority of the Alamo garrison “fell under the sabers of the cavalry that was placed in that position just for this purpose [and] I am then able to guarantee that very few will have gone to notify their companions of the outcome.”
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