Three Roads to the Alamo

by William C. Davis

  Bowie kept strong pickets out during the night, and also put seven men in the bell tower of the mission. Unfortunately, after a quiet night, the first glimmers of dawn revealed a dense fog that made chances of detecting any approaching Mexicans very slim. About an hour after first daylight Henry Karnes, doing picket duty, suddenly saw beneath the fog the legs of a Mexican horse carrying a cavalry scout at the same time that the mounted man discovered him. Each fired at the other, awakening Bowie's command to the imminent prospect of a fight. Thanks to the fog, he could not see the Mexicans, either their numbers or their positions, but as the mist gradually cleared it became evident that he was in a terrible spot he had not anticipated. Mexican infantry, with one cannon, had crossed the river below them undetected and were now advancing toward them, with a fair opportunity to surround them in their bend of the river, while enemy cavalry were on the La Bahía on the other side, cutting off any chance of escape.

  Bowie's men rushed to their arms and simply sat out the desultory firing from the foe as they waited for the fog to lift. “When the fog rose it was apparent to all that we were surrounded and a desperate fight was inevitable,” he said a few days later. He shifted Fannin's company downstream slightly, and moved his own wing as well, increasing the advantage they would have of a crossfire if the Mexicans advanced into their bend on the stream, as well as making it possible for one wing to reinforce the other more readily if necessary, without having to run directly across the open ground between the wings. Once in position he set the men to clearing the low brush and vines along the foot of the riverbank so they could move back and forth without hindrance, and at the same time had them cut steps into the earth on the six-to-ten-foot bank so they could stand on them to fire out into the plain, and then step back down to reload. Fortunately the enemy commander seemed in no hurry to press the attack and gave them plenty of time to make their preparations. For Bowie it was the San Saba fight all over again, hurriedly preparing the ground for a desperate defense while surrounded.82

  Finally Fannin saw infantry supported by artillery approaching the right of his line at about 8.00 A.M. A single Texian rifle fired toward the line, and at once the firing became general. The Mexicans gave well-disciplined volleys, while Bowie's Texians fought largely as individuals, each man choosing his target and firing as he felt sure, then stepping below the brow of the bank to reload in safety while another man stepped up the bank to take his place. After no more than ten minutes the Mexicans brought up their brass cannon and sent a charge of canister—a scatter load—toward their line, and then sounded the assault. “As if by magic,” said Bowie, a Texian volley turned back the infantry and brought down or dispersed the gunners at the cannon. Twice more the Mexicans tried again, only to be turned back, Bowie all the while walking along his line steadying the men, telling them to stay cool and choose their targets carefully.83 As the canister loads flew through the trees overhead, clipping pecans and sending them falling among the Texians, some men actually stopped to eat them, as Bowie kept pacing back and forth, calling out for them to keep under cover and reserve their fire.84 Between each attempted enemy charge, Bowie had his men moving secretly to their right beneath the bank, every step bringing them closer to the cannon. After the third repulse, as the infantry regrouped in the distance and a brave party of artillerymen tried to reload the gun for another discharge, Bowie decided the Texians were close enough and urged the men on to “the cannon and Victory.” The Texians went up and over the bank and rushed forward, taking the field piece in an instant and turning it around and loosing a charge of canister at the Mexican infantry that put them to flight. Mexican cavalry brought up another cannon at some distance and loosed a few ineffective rounds, but the fight was done for that day. Incredibly, having started the morning surrounded, Bowie, by his coolness and timing, his men's marksmanship, and their excellent choice of position, finished as the victor on the field, with a cannon as a trophy.85

  Bowie was nothing if not boastful. A few days later he would proclaim that “thus a detachment of ninety two men gained a most decisive Victory over the main Army of the Central Government—having at least an advantage of numbers in their favor of four to one.” In a way he was right, for the Mexicans had about 475 men on the field, but really only the two hundred infantry and a smattering of cavalry actually took part. Still they outnumbered the Texians just about 2 to 1, but Bowie's excellent position and the greater range of the Texians' hunting rifles over the Mexican brown Bess muskets made all the difference. The Mexicans suffered at least sixty casualties, with more than a fourth of them killed or mortally wounded. Bowie lost only one man wounded, and poor Richard Andrews—once a client of Travis's—dead. That night they buried him under the pecan trees and fired a volley over his grave, including a shot from the captured cannon.86

  There was no denying that it was a great moment. James Bowie had won the first real battle of the revolution.

  18

  TRAVIS

  1835

  God knows what we are to do! I am determined, for one, to go with my countrymen; “right or wrong, sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish,” I am with them.

  WILLIAM B. TRAVIS, JULY 30, 1835

  “There are two things which a man particularly guards in this world,” William Barret Travis wrote on April 11, 1835. “Himself & his hobby horse. And you had as well attack the one as the other.”1 Texas had become Travis's “hobby horse” by the end of 1834, and yet he all but disappeared from public view during the first two seasons of 1835, as if he had joined the sun in its trip behind the moon during that eclipse and simply never came out. Certainly he stayed out of active politics, having learned that public sentiment did not match his own, and being wise enough to wait until it did before he tried to shine again. Instead, for a time he concentrated on that alternative to the hobby horse—himself. His post as secretary of the ayuntamiento expired at the end of 1834, freeing him to fix all his energies on his practice, though he closely watched local elections just the same, supporting what he called the “Austin Ticket,” those candidates supportive of Stephen Austin.2

  In fact, with business prospering, he formed a partnership with T. Willis Nibbs in January, 1835, in order to extend the practice to the court in Columbia as well as San Felipe, and devoted much of the next several months to his trade. When he looked at the announcement of the new partnership, he could hardly miss in the same issue of the Brazoria Texas Republican one of the current popular anecdotes about David Crockett, borrowed from the eastern press.3 Travis's friend and business associate Robert Wilson finally got the steamboat built, and on January 8 the Cayuga made its first trip up the Brazos to San Felipe, an event redolent with promise for investors.4 Travis also expanded his personal land holdings when he went to Mina, also known as Bastrop, on the Colorado, about seventy miles west of San Felipe, and applied for and received a headright for a league of land in Ben Milam's colony north of San Antonio. Williamson gave him the papers for the land on April 9, and the next day Travis took the required oath, attesting that “my station is that of a widower, and that with my family I have entered the country for the purpose of locating myself therein permanently.” He promised to put his league under cultivation, and attested also that he was a lawyer, a Christian, and aged twenty-six.5

  At least part of that was true. Travis was a Christian and a lawyer, but he was twenty-five that April and certainly lacked either the temperament or the inclination to become a farmer on his new league of land. He must have acquired it simply because it was available and cheap, with an eye to possible future sale. As yet there was not so much as a settlement in Milam's colony, most of it wild country traversed by Bowie in his San Saba adventures. And Travis was no “widower,” as apparently he had been claiming for years. He and Rosanna were still very much married. Yet by April 10 he expected to be able properly to speak of intentions for his “family” very soon, for the land application was surely only a prelude to a long ride to Brazoria. Arriving there aroun
d April 13 or 14, he met his family. Rosanna came to Brazoria, possibly to visit friends but more likely to have a final face-to-face settlement of affairs with her husband, and most probably Travis knew in advance of her coming. He went there to meet her and found that the years of separation had softened the rancor on both sides. They talked amicably, agreed finally that Rosanna should go ahead and commence the divorce proceedings, and Travis probably gave her an unequivocal written statement that he intended never to return to her, for her lawyer to use in filing the case. Then they discussed the children, both of whom Rosanna had brought with her. It was the first time Travis ever saw his daughter, Susan Isabella, now approaching four years old, and the first time in four years that he had seen his boy, Charles, a lad Kuykendall described as “a lively, prattling little fellow.” Now Rosanna honored her agreement to let Travis have their son to raise. That done, little remained to be said. On April 16 Travis lifted little Charles up behind him on his saddle and rode back to San Felipe, never to see Rosanna or his daughter again.6

  Having his son with him now made Travis think even more about his responsibilities. He purchased another piece of land south of San Felipe and bought a slave couple, no doubt to run his household and tend Charles while Travis was absent at court. He did what so many attorneys overlooked doing and made out his own will on May 25, providing that all of his estate go to his two children, to be managed by their guardians, Rosanna's brother William Cato for Susan, and James Butler of Alabama for Charles. Moreover, he stipulated that Charles be sent to college, and that his daughter receive an “ample and complete English education.” His friend Henry Smith would act as executor.7

  Having brought order to his own house, Travis inevitably could not stay out of Texas's family affairs for long. His friend David Burnet approached him late in January about seeking elective office, no doubt as a member of the ayuntamiento, or perhaps even alcalde, and Travis was self-aware enough to admit that the possibility tempted him. “I have never professed an indifference to the honors of official station,” he said, “and were I to do so now I should only make myself ridiculous.” In fact “in the republican cause there is no higher aim than that of office.” Moreover, as he remembered his studies of history and the evolution of the law, he drew from them the lesson that great changes in society took a long time and only came about because the men who advocated them sought and obtained offices from which to launch their movements.

  Certainly Travis saw a cause before him even as he wrote, and the lesson that history taught him there was that “the higher object of this contest” might not be obtained within the lifetime of a single man like himself.8 The cause, of course, was freedom for the imprisoned Austin, Texian independence from Coahuila, a return to the Constitution of 1824, and as an ultimate alternative, complete independence from Mexico. He stayed quiet these months in part in order not to damage prospects for Austin's freedom, but he remained ever alive to the rest of that “higher object.” Viewing events in Mexico, he all but abandoned Austin's continuing adherence to the country. The two peoples of Texas and Mexico simply differed too much, and as Texas continued to grow in population and wealth, it must inevitably resent the more being a vassal to Mexico City. At the least Texas must soon have its own legislature, “or she must take over of herself,” especially if they were to prevent the speculators from stripping the province of all its most valuable land.9

  It had come as wonderful news to Travis when the Mexican authorities finally released Austin from prison the previous December, but he remained on his bond not to leave Mexico City until the end of July. Meanwhile, though Travis tried to keep himself out of overt politics until Austin was safely away, he involved himself assiduously in those efforts to increase Texian prosperity that he foresaw would encourage a spirit of independence. Ironically, and probably inevitably, those efforts led him right back to politics. Never one of the speculating faction, he still inadvertently tied his name to theirs when he lent a new carriage from New Orleans to Sam Williams for a journey to Monclova that turned out to be part of the general speculating frenzy involving Bowie, Gen. John Mason, Frank Johnson, and others.10

  Travis involved himself directly in the affairs of Robert Wilson, his mill at Harrisburg, and his steamboat, however. Wilson's mill sat idle, thanks to the interference of Mexican customs authorities, whose rigid enforcement of the law led them to seize Wilson's goods from the ship bringing his supplies from New Orleans. “I am vexed and contrite,” Wilson complained to him. Speaking for himself and his partners and others in Harrisburg, he added that “if something is not done Texas is gone.” Nor did he stop there. “We are determined not to stand It,” he declared, even if it meant a clash with the Mexicans. “A few we can kill and that with a fine good will.”11

  The seizure by the ship Montezuma of the goods of several Texians besides Wilson, as well as holding up incoming passengers for indefinite periods, caused an uproar throughout Texas. Travis himself shared Wilson's outrage, and did not need to hear his threats to have similar thoughts of resistance. The acts of the customs officers at Anahuac who controlled the vessel he called nothing more than “piracies and robbings.” Texians should not and would not accept it passively. He had seen nothing in his four years in Texas that so much aroused the people. “All are for energetic resistance to the oppressions of a govt. That seems determined to destroy, to smash & to ruin us,” he told Burnet on May 21, and added that there was “not a dissenting voice as far as I know in this place.” While some put the seizures down to the arbitrariness of the Anahuac customs official, José Gonzales, backed by a company of soldiers commanded by Capt. Antonio Tenorio, Travis saw beyond the immediate to realize that the real problem lay in Mexico City. Having allowed the customs issue to lie dormant for some time now, the centralist regime of Santa Anna needed money and was determined to collect it. The days of relaxed smuggling or paying duties voluntarily were at an end. Moreover, Travis read in the Mexican press that the Mexican congress might soon consider acts to abolish citizenship for residents of Texas, and perhaps even to abrogate once more the April 6, 1830, law allowing immigration.

  It was definitely too much. “These are alarming circumstances,” he told Burnet. “Indeed we stand or fall now by ourselves.” While he prayed for unity, he also pondered the wisdom of calling for a convention, which could be seen as provocative, which might hurt Austin. Increasingly in private conversation with friends he argued that Texians ought to be more forceful in asserting their rights, but other heads responded that Austin could solve all their problems when he was among them once more. Yet by late April, Travis believed that Austin would never be allowed to leave Mexico so long as there was unrest. He was virtually a hostage to ensure good Texian behavior, and Travis wearied of that. In frustration he even suggested “let them [kill] him if they dare. A thousand of their contemptible red skins [would] be sacrificed” if Austin were slain. Never before did Travis exhibit anything suggesting any ethnic disdain for Mexicans, nor did he really now. His reference to “contemptible red skins” applied not to all Mexicans, but only to those who would injure Austin. Yet even that expression revealed his temper. “I have as much to lose by a revolution as most men in the country,” he told Burnet. “Yet, I wish to know, for whom I labor—whether for myself or a plundering robbing, autocratical, aristocratical jumbled up govt. which is in fact no govt. at all—one day a republic—one day a fanatical heptarchy, the next a military despotism—then a mixture of the evil qualities of all.” Even as he sought the views of others, his own were transparent.12 A visitor to Texas now found that in the troubled atmosphere “the inhabitants have a strong belief that Texas will at some future day become one of the United States,” but he disagreed. “It is more probable, that it will in time become an independent sovereignty.”13

  All it needed to ignite the seething cloud of unrest was a spark, and in a rare repetition of history, it came at Anahuac. The tension mounted there from the moment that Gonzales and Tenorio arrived. Res
entful colonists withheld supplies from Tenorio's small command and sabotaged the soldiers' attempts to construct a fort, and that only made the Mexicans the more resolute in performing their duty. Travis's and Bowie's friend Andrew Briscoe, a merchant in Anahuac, especially felt their severity, as Gonzales expected him to pay full taxes based on the kinds of articles he imported, whereas other Mexican customs collectors simply charged a lesser tonnage duty. When Gonzales left office in May and his successor arrived in early June, the policy did not change, and Briscoe's appeals for support, on top of the seizure of Wilson's mill equipment, finally brought some action.14

  On June 4 Travis, DeWitt Clinton Harris, and seventeen others joined Briscoe at Harrisburg for a meeting to determine what should be done. “We have come to the cool determination to submit to no more imposition of the kind that will prove ruinous to the country,” they resolved, “by destroying the commerce and stopping the emigration.” In a resolution that Travis himself probably drafted, they decided to “discharge” Tenorio and his soldiers and customs officials and send them back to Mexico. Unless something arose to alter their determination, they appointed June 6 at Harrisburg as the time and place for them to gather again, elect their officers, and march on Anahuac. The resolution did not necessarily imply violence, but the fear of it must have been sufficient that two days later many of those attending had changed their minds, though not Travis.15