The Blood of Heroes: The 13-Day Struggle for the Alamo--and the Sacrifice That Forged a Nation (58 page)

Biographical details about Benjamin Harris are from “Documents of the Texian Revolution,”
Alamo Journal
142 (September 2006), and Newell,
History of the Revolution in Texas,
p. 88.

The weak condition of the north wall is noted in two letters written by a man named John Sowers Brooks, who was stationed at Goliad. The first is to James Hagarty, written on March 9, 1836: “He [Santa Anna] has erected a battery within 400 yards of the Alamo, and every shot goes through it” (reprinted in Hansen, pp. 605–6), and the second is to A. H. Brooks, written on March 10, 1836: “Every shot goes through the walls” (reprinted in Hansen, pp. 606–7). Brooks was repeating information heard from a courier from the Alamo—likely James L. Allen.

That the Alamo defenders could see ladders being constructed is noted in John Sutherland’s draft account, reprinted in Hansen, p. 179.

For a discussion of Ben Milam’s line in the dirt, see notes for chapter 6, above.

Biographical details regarding Louis “Moses” Rose can be found in Blake, “Rose and His Escape from the Alamo,” part of which is reprinted in Hansen, pp. 274–82, and Zuber, “The Escape of Rose from the Alamo,” reprinted in Hansen, pp. 245–50. See also the Afterword for a discussion and analysis of the evidence for the line. In an interview conducted in September 1877, Susanna Dickinson said: “Col. Almonte (Mexican) told me that the man who had deserted the evening before [March 5, the night before the attack] had also been Killed & that if I wished to satisfy myself of the fact that I could see the body, still lying there, which I declined” (reprinted in Hansen, p. 48).

Crockett’s request for a clean change of clothes is related in Dr. J. H. Barnard’s June 9, 1836, letter from Velasco, published in the August 26, 1836,
Missouri Argus,
in which he states of the Alamo battle: “The Americans fought to the last, and were killed to a man. There were several friends who were saved, and who informed me that the men, with the full prospect of death before them, were always lively and cheerful, particularly Crockett, who kept up their spirits by his wit and humor. The night before the storming, he called for his clothes that had been washed, stating that he expected to be killed the next day, and wished to die in clean clothes, that they might give him a decent burial.” (Thanks to Kevin Young for generously providing a copy of this item.)

Details of the men entrusting their valuables to the women, and Bettie being allowed to stay with the women, are in file 3 (Notes, Handwritten, Interview with Enrique Esparza), box 2M129 (Descendants of Gregorio Esparza), Adina de Zavala Papers, BCAH.

For a discussion of the ring that Travis gave to Angelina, see Hansen, p. 62.

Susanna Dickinson related that Robert Evans was given orders to set fire to the gunpowder; her accounts are reprinted in Hansen, pp. 55 and 59. She is also the source for the story of Bonham sharing some tea with Almeron Dickinson’s mess, in an account she gave to Bonham’s younger brother, Milledge Luke Bonham, reprinted in Hansen, p. 706.

The final column assignments and deployments are discussed in Tom Kailbourn’s unpublished “Concordance Comparing Troop Assignments per Column in Alamo Assault,” as well as in several other sources. José Juan Sánchez’s two map indexes (1836–39 and 1840)—as translated in Ivey, “¡Viva la Patria es nuestro el Alamo!”—describe slightly different final column assignments, but the San Luis Potosí battalion daybook (original translation by Gregg Dimmick, revisions by Tom Kailbourn) lists the assignments I have used here. The fact that only four line companies of the San Luis Potosí battalion were present in Béxar was ascertained by Kailbourn from a report on officers who passed in review in Béxar in March 1836, found in Expediente 1713, SEDENA files, beginning on p. 528, online at
www.archivohistorico2010.sedena.gob.mx/busqueda/busqueda.php
(accessed December 13, 2011).

De la Peña’s final thoughts on the battle can be found in
With Santa Anna in Texas,
pp. 46–47.

S
IXTEEN
: “T
HAT
T
ERRIBLE
B
UGLE
C
ALL OF
D
EATH
”

The title phrase is from de la Peña,
With Santa Anna in Texas,
p. 47, as is the de la Peña epigraph, p. 51.

There is no primary source to definitively support the playing of the
degüello
save for one account by a certain Madame Candelaria (Hansen, p. 303), and it is highly unlikely that she was in the Alamo during the battle. But she could certainly have heard it from Béxar. Additionally, Reuben Potter, the first serious student of the battle, claimed that the air was played, and he talked to Juan Seguín (and several others who may have heard of its playing from residents of the city) as well as officers and enlisted men of the Mexican army who were present at the battle (Hansen, p. 701). It is clear that the Mexican regimental bands played martial music throughout the siege and during the March 6 assault, and researcher Kevin Young wrote that “Mexican cavalry manuals of the 1840s carried the bugle call, El Deguello, which was to be blown at the climax of a cavalry charge to signify no quarter to the enemy” (Young, “Finding a Face”). Young has also pointed out to me that the
degüello
is mentioned in an 1824 cavalry manual,
Reglamento para el ejercicio y maniobras de la caballeria
(Mexico: Martin Rivera, 1824).

The presence of rockets was noted by several observers, including Ben (both in Newell,
History of the Revolution in Texas,
p. 88, and Colonel Edward Stiff,
The Texan Emigrant
[Cincinnati, OH: George Conclin, 1840], p. 314) and Susanna Dickinson (Hansen, p. 47). That the Mexican army possessed signal rockets and used them is evidenced by a quote in Samuel Maverick’s diary entry for November 8, 1835, during the siege of Béxar, in which he notes the Mexican army firing them off (Green,
Samuel Maverick, Texan,
p. 37).

Travis’s actions during the battle, and his rallying cry as he stood upon the north wall, was remembered by Joe in his account, reprinted in Hansen, p. 74. The location of Travis’s body was described by Francisco Ruíz in his “Fall of the Alamo,” originally appearing in the 1860
Texas Almanac
and reprinted in Hansen, pp. 500-501. This placement of Travis’s body, and thus the site of his death, is reinforced by Reuben Potter’s “Attack and Defence of the Alamo” in the
San Luis Advocate
of November 18, 1840, the existence of which has been overlooked by modern scholars, though the eminent Texas historian Eugene Barker wrote a summary of it that is among his papers (Alamo File, box 2B120, Eugene Campbell Barker Papers, BCAH). An incomplete copy of the article is part of the holdings of the BCAH, though the issue is not included on the microfilm copy of the newspaper’s files. Unfortunately, the actual text of the pertinent part of the article is missing due to a large tear, but this is Barker’s summary: “Heard different stories as to where Travis fell, the most [illegible] says that he was found dead at breach of a gun near where right column entered.” Earlier in the article, Potter’s description of the attack makes fairly clear that what he designates as the right column was the column led by Colonel Duque toward the northeast part of the north wall. Potter in the story claimed to have talked to several members of the Mexican army present during the attack, and it is doubtful that he had visited Béxar at this point, making it unlikely that his source was Ruíz, whose account confirming Travis’s position would not appear until twenty years later.

De la Peña’s quote regarding the trail of wounded and dead left by the columns is in
With Santa Anna in Texas,
p. 47. The anonymous author of the newsletter account of the battle published in
El Mosquito Mexicano
on April 5, 1836, remembered Cós shouting “Arriba!” De la Peña’s quote about the disorder in the Mexican ranks is in
With Santa Anna in Texas,
p. 48. “Muerte a los Tejanos!” was heard by
bexareño
Juan Vargas and related in a 1910 interview reprinted in Hansen, p. 538.

Ruíz, in “Fall of the Alamo,” reprinted in Hansen, p. 500–501, locates Crockett’s body “toward the west, and in the small fort opposite the city.” Early Alamo researcher Reuben Potter, who claimed to have talked to several members of the Mexican army (including some officers) who participated in the attack, also located Crockett in the area: “Crockett’s body was found, not in an angle of the fort, but in a one-gun battery which overtopped the center of the west wall, where his remains were identified by Mr. Ruiz, a citizen of San Antonio, whom Santa Anna, immediately after the action, sent for and ordered to point out the slain leaders of the garrison” (
Magazine of American History,
February 1884, p. 177). Two and a half years later, Potter wrote a letter to the editors of another magazine,
The Century,
to correct some facts about Crockett that had previously appeared in that magazine. Wrote the editors: “Captain Reuben M. Potter, U.S.A., writing to correct some statements in an account of the fall of the Alamo that appeared in an article on General Sam Houston, in
The Century
for August, 1884, states that Crockett was killed by a bullet shot while at his post on the outworks of the fort, and was one of the first to fall” (
The Century,
October 1886).

Santa Anna’s quote describing the “extraordinary” scene is from his March 6, 1836, letter to Tornel reporting the taking of the Alamo, reprinted in Hansen, p. 341.

De la Peña mistakenly claimed a blond defender in the courtyard was Travis in
With Santa Anna in Texas,
p. 50. Potter, in his 1878 account, recounted the Texians on the west wall who turned their cannon around to fire upon the Mexicans in the courtyard (reprinted in Hansen, p. 702).

Almeron Dickinson’s last words to his wife were remembered by her in an interview conducted before 1874 and published in Morphis,
History of Texas,
pp. 174–77. Her description of Galba Fuqua and his broken jaw appears in Sowell,
Rangers and Pioneers,
pp. 138–39.

In his 1840 article “Attack and Defence of the Alamo,” Reuben Potter provides some details of the battle that were not included in his later accounts, including that of the Texian chased down by two lancers and killed.

Several Mexican sources support this late breakout. In Ramírez y Sesma’s March 11 report to Santa Anna, reprinted in Hansen, pp. 369–70, he describes three separate breakouts, though the number of escapees is provided for only one group (“about fifty”). Manuel Loranca, a sergeant in Ramírez y Sesma’s Vanguard Brigade, says in an 1878 newspaper article that “sixty-two Texans who sallied from the east side of the fort, were received by the Lancers and all killed…. These were all killed by the lance, except one, who ensconced himself under a brush and it was necessary to shoot him” (June 23 or 28, 1878,
San Antonio Daily Express,
reprinted in Hansen, p. 475). These retreating defenders are also mentioned in the San Luis Potosí daybook: “Regiment of Dolores.
Presidiales
and pickets of the regiments of Tampico and Veracruz under the command of General Ramírez, who spread out during the campaign in order to pursue the dispersed [Texians], of whom they killed 68” (de la Peña Papers, BCAH, translated by Gregg Dimmick and Tom Kailbourn). Additional references without specific numbers are in Almonte’s diary: “At half past 5 the attack or assault was made, and continued until 6 A.M. when the enemy attempted in vain to fly, but they were overtaken and
put to the sword
” (Asbury, “The Private Journal,” p. 23); de la Peña,
With Santa Anna in Texas
: “Those of the enemy who tried to escape fell victims to the sabers of the cavalry, which had been drawn up for this purpose, but even as they fled they defended themselves” (p. 52); Sánchez, who in an anonymously written letter refers to “the ones who sought safety in flight” (published in the April 5, 1836,
El Mosquito Mexicano
and reprinted in Hansen, pp. 486–87), and who, in the legend for his 1840 map of the battle, writes of the palisade: “At this point, some colonists attempted to escape” (reprinted in Nelson,
The Alamo,
p. 59); and, finally, Santa Anna himself, in his March 6, 1836, battle report: “a great many who had escaped the bayonets of the infantry, fell in the vicinity under the sabres of the cavalry” (reprinted in Hansen, p. 341).

Sánchez’s 1836 map of the Alamo and its legend, in which he writes, “Barracks for the troops. Col. José María Romero with the Battalions ‘Jimenez’ y ‘Matamoros’ assaulted and entered,” is reprinted in Nelson,
The Alamo,
p. 58.

The scene of the cannon firing into the hospital is from an interview with Mexican soldier Francisco Becerra, reprinted in Hansen, p. 457.

The taking of the Alamo flag is related in Lamego,
The Siege and Taking of the Alamo,
p. 38, and by de la Peña in Borroel,
The J. Sanchez Garza Introduction,
p. 24. See also Groneman, “The Taking of the Alamo Flag.”