Three Roads to the Alamo

by William C. Davis

  Starr brought much to the practice, including a nice store of new law texts, including Archbold's pleadings, Crabbe's English law, Peake on Evidence, and other references on criminal and civil law, Louisiana statutes, a Spanish legal digest, and more.23 That alone was helpful, but Starr's energy proved even more useful, as he went to work quickly settling the accumulated unfinished business.24 It would have been a boon if Starr could have addressed some of Travis's own personal business as well, for his debts and other affairs had been just as much neglected. He owed a fair bit of money, $850 here, $100 there, his $80 house rental, another $112 for board for himself and a Mexican he employed, and more. He owed a little to Moseley Baker, had accepted responsibility for a debt of Noah Smithwick's, and even gave his note for $600 for the purchase of a slave woman, perhaps to help in caring for Charles and his house. He also owned other slaves. One named Joe he kept with him as a personal servant, but there was the man John, who needed to be hired out. The total of his financial affairs was not too great for a man of Travis's means by now, but he could not afford to neglect such things.25 The oldest piece of unfinished business on his personal docket finally reached resolution now, and he possibly learned of it this month while still in San Felipe, or else he certainly knew it was in train. The previous November 27 his former colleague the lawyer Arthur Bagby in Claiborne, now in the Alabama legislature, arose and presented the record and proceedings in the “case of Rosanna E. Travis against William B. Travis.” It went to the committee on divorce and alimony, and they shortly reported a bill to effect the divorce. On January 8, 1836 the senate passed the bill, and the next day the house did likewise. As of January 9, 1836, by Act no. 115, five years of matrimonial limbo came to an end with the decree that “said Rosanna E. Travis be henceforth divorced from her husband.”26

  Certainly Travis knew it was coming, as he and Rosanna no doubt continued to correspond insofar as necessary because of the children, and Travis also kept in touch with William Cato. If he felt any delight or relief at the prospect of final divorce, whenever or if ever he got the news, there was no time for celebration other than a brief visit to Rebecca to assure her that soon they could wed. There was too much else to do. Indeed, with the demands of his official duty, he largely had to forgo his personal life. As opportunity afforded he continued to encourage Protestant preachers coming to San Felipe, and actually came out and denounced the enforced Catholicism of the past as part of the tyranny of a “bigotted clergy.”27 He still promoted education in Texas, gladly providing public endorsements of Miss L.A. McHenry's Montville Boarding School for Young Ladies.28 It helped that the academy shared quarters about forty miles northwest of San Felipe in the home of David Ayers, a good friend whom Travis recommended on January 3, 1836, to be appointed comptroller of the treasury in the provisional government.29 Moreover, Miss McHenry taught more than just young ladies. She taught the Ayers children, too, and Travis now enrolled his son, Charles, under her tutelage. Travis even found time, perhaps one evening at Peyton's or Winburn's, to sit quietly for a few minute with his friend Wiley Martin, currently political chief for the Brazos department but keeping his office in San Felipe. Martin had a Tennessee gazetteer, and on one of its empty flyleaves he sketched a rough, but not unpleasant portrait of Travis, the only likeness from life ever made.30

  The inevitable politics certainly attracted some of Travis's fleeting attention, and almost ensnared him in the most divisive issue of the day. On January 22 the council issued orders that all official papers be forcibly taken from Smith's possession as part of the attempt to impeach him. It named twelve men to perform the task, but nine of them, Travis included, refused, and that greatly reduced what little regard he still felt for the council or any of its pet projects.31 Much as he loved political life, the unseemly infighting in San Felipe just now must have made him yearn to take the field.

  Time and events conspired to force Travis to leave long before he was ready, regardless of his wishes. On the same day that the announcement of his new partnership appeared in the local press, the Telegraph and Texas Register published a January 14 letter from Neill at Béxar with the news that Mexicans were certainly going to advance on San Antonio.32 Meanwhile Houston had advised Governor Smith of the growing crisis on January 17, intimating the necessity of concentrating all available troops on the frontier, and a few days later San Felipe received Green Jameson's January 18 statement of the condition of the garrison at Béxar. Travis already had orders from he council to leave as soon as he raised his company. No specific destination had been stated, but the intent was Matamoros, and on January 9 the council rescinded those instructions. On January 21 however, Smith gave him a definite order to collect one hundred volunteers and leave for Béxar as soon as possible. In fact he had a mere twenty-six men, but he must leave now, and he must go to the relief of San Antonio.33

  As soon as Travis got his orders that day he began buying whatever he could for the trip: flour, tin pans, twine, a pair of leggings and spurs, a powder flask for his pistols, a new bridle, blankets and a tent, and even a flag.34 He had expected to be able to leave in two days, but delays in securing provisions detained him until January 24 before he finally packed his own necessaries in old leather saddlebags with “Wm Barret Travis” on the flaps in his own handwriting, and put the command on the road. Riding along with him as a personal aide was young Charles Despallier, the brother of Bowie's old associate from Opelousas. They got only as far as Beeson's Ferry on the Colorado, twenty miles west of San Felipe.35 There for the next few days he halted his men, while he and perhaps a few others rode some distance through the countryside visiting every available merchant to buy more provisions, a horse for one of his men, and even saddles and bridles. Along the way he also forcibly took into the service one animal without payment, and then virtually impressed a man into the company to ride the beast, paying the enlistment bounty out of his own pocket. Travis had received only $100 from the government to cover expenses for the journey, and as a result charged much of what he bought to his personal credit, totaling at least $143.36

  By January 28 Travis was still on the Colorado, having moved twenty miles upstream to Burnham's Ferry, where he made much more substantial purchases.37 He seemed to be delaying, in part perhaps because of exhaustion, for he had not gotten a full night's sleep since leaving San Felipe. His spirits sank deeper and deeper as the days passed, and he would have given much to be free of this assignment. Then no sooner did he reach Burnham's than eight of his men deserted, taking three horses and two guns with them. “I have done every thing in my power to get ready to march to the relief of Béxar,” he groaned in a letter to Smith that morning. Shortages of animals and equipment, desertions, everything seemed to conspire to retard his progress. Even with last-minute enlistments and impressments, he only counted thirty men in his command. He gave strong hints that he would prefer to be ordered to return to San Felipe, for he could accomplish nothing for the good of Béxar with this little command. Indeed, it may have been as much the fear of looking foolish—a lieutenant colonel leading a “legion” of thirty—that lay behind his disillusionment. “I shall however, go no & do my duty, if I am sacrificed,” he said. “Our affairs are gloomy indeed. The people are cold & indifferent. They are worn down & exhausted with the war.” Without money to enlist men and equip them properly, he feared the cause might be hopeless. “The patriotism of a few has done much; but that is becoming worn down.” Hoping that Houston might be persuaded to call a halt to his seemingly pointless expedition, Travis asked Smith to show him the letter if the general was in San Felipe.38

  Travis intended to press on that afternoon but seemed unable to get the command or himself moving, and was still there the next day. He wrote to Smith yet again, this time making his wishes unmistakable. This expedition was pointless. “I must beg that your excellency will recall the order for me to go on to Béxar in command of so few men,” he pleaded. “I am unwilling to risk my reputation (which is ever dear to a soldier) by
going off into the enemie's country with such little means, so few men, & them too badly equipped.” And now he revealed just how much of his displeasure turned on his own pride and dignity, pleading that this little command only merited a captain, not a lieutenant colonel. If Smith or Houston so desired, he would be happy to “visit” Béxar or any other post to consult with the officers in command, “but I do not feel disposed to go to command a squad of men, & without the means of carrying on a campaign.” He would be more useful back in San Felipe recruiting than on this fool's errand. If Smith did not give him orders relieving him of this assignment, he threatened to resign, and to emphasize the gravity of the situation he sent his quartermaster to Smith to explain in person.39

  Travis's attitude did not do him credit. In his exhaustion and frustration, there reemerged that other part of his personality that he had done so much to outgrow—the petulant, priggish, even self-pitying and decidedly immature Travis. Now, for all of his months of patriotic exhortations to everyone else that no sacrifice was too great for the cause of Texas, he found his own pride more important to him than his duty, and even presumed to bargain with his superiors. To ease his frustration, while here at Burnham's he took the opportunity to make the twenty-five-mile ride north to Montville to see his son. It was a brief visit, perhaps, but a pleasant one. Travis read for a time in the Ayers home, until little Charles came up to him and whispered into his father's ear that he wanted fifty cents. “My son, what do you want with four-bits?” asked Travis. “To buy a bottle of molasses from Mrs. Scott to make some candy,” the six-year-old replied. Travis handed him the coin, but it fell to the floor and rolled away, Charles running after it until it was safely in his palm. That evening, after Travis rode back to Burnham's Charles and the other children had their candy, and his father had at least one pleasant memory from this dispiriting journey.40

  Travis left Burnham's about February 1 and moved south to the main road for Gonzales. He had formed the men with him now into a company under Capt. John Forsyth, and originally intended to keep them pressing on toward Béxar, while he would himself wait at Gonzales or some other point on the road to receive orders. But then he apparently changed his mind and actually left the command to ride ahead independently, a lone rider being able to move faster than a company with its impedimenta. Perhaps he decided to proceed to Béxar to see the situation for himself, without waiting for Forsyth and the men. Travis may have met a courier from Neill along the way, carrying the Béxar commander's January 28 dispatch with the news that two thousand Mexicans were seen massing on the Rio Grande, preparing to invade. Neill certainly needed Travis and his company to reconnoiter south along the anticipated route of invasion, as well as to harass the Mexican supply lines.41 Learning this from the courier could have induced Travis to hurry ahead to see the situation. Before leaving Gonzales he sent Despallier back to San Felipe with a dispatch presumably telling Smith where he would be.42 When Forsyth reached Gonzales on February 2, Travis had probably already left. Indeed, traveling that evening under a full moon, by then he was only hours away from Béxar.43

  When Travis rode into San Antonio on February 3 he got his first look at the town from the other side of the Mexican fortifications.44 Indeed, he may never have set foot in Béxar before now. What he found was a shabby place, all but denuded by Grant and Johnson of anything edible, rideable, or valuable, and a tired garrison of 120 volunteers remaining from the November-December siege, many of them not properly enlisted in the new volunteer forces and under no obligation to remain. The town's narrow streets ran crookedly back from the San Antonio River, lined on either side with plastered and white-washed one-story stone and adobe houses, and a number of rude mud hovels. In the center of town sat the Plaza de Armas, between Potrero and Dolorosa Streets, and just east of it was the Plaza de Las Yslas, where Soledad Street crossed the other two. One block north on Soledad was the Veramendi house, where Bowie now stayed, its garden backing down to the San Antonio River. Potrero continued on from Soledad some distance to a deep bend in the river, and on the other side, several hundred yards from the stream, sat the Alamo.

  Travis reported to Neill before doing anything else, learning the latest news of the Mexican army on the Rio Grande. Telling Neill that his company would not arrive for another day or two, Travis could do nothing about the reconnaissance work at the moment, and besides, Bowie or other may have been out doing the same work already. Travis took a room in the city, probably near headquarters on the Plaza de Las Yslas, and set about learning something of the post and the garrison.45 Naturally the first lesson was one in politics. This garrison was just as intensely politicized as any other group of Texians at the moment, though for a change they enjoyed a wonderful unanimity. The discordant and speculating elements had left with Grant and Johnson, and almost all of those remaining stood behind Governor Smith in his struggle with the council. They sent a resolution to that effect to Smith on January 26, and just two days before Travis's arrival held their election for delegates to represent them in the coming consultation to meet at Washington on March 1. In fact one of Travis's very first acts on arriving was to append his name to the petition of citizens and soldiers that Neill sent out February 4, asking the convention to seat their elected delegates, Samuel Maverick and Jesse Badgett.46 Travis himself signed almost at the very last, as lieutenant colonel of cavalry. Having neither rank nor command, Bowie signed immediately after him with just his name and nothing more.

  Now at last Travis and Bowie were to serve more intimately together, and in the next few days they became truly acquainted, probably for the first time. No doubt Bowie told Travis of the letter he sent Smith on February 2, stating his resolve and Neill's that they would not abandon the post, but would take a stand there, hoping to force the governor and council to send more reinforcements. The arrival of Travis and the coming of Forsyth and the rest of the cavalry on February 5 were a start, but they needed far more, and Travis fully agreed.47

  They got more a day or two after they prepared the petition for Maverick and Badgett. Someone brought Bowie a message that there were horsemen in the Mexican graveyard just west of town, and he and Menchaca immediately rode out in the rain to see who it might be. In fact it was David Crockett.48 Like the course of his life, his trail from Nacogdoches to Béxar had been a wandering one, seemingly oblivious of the manpower emergency in Neill's garrison. He left Nacogdoches in a large company on January 16, and their path on the La Bahía naturally brought them to Washington in a few days. By the time they arrived, there were just Crockett and four others, the rest either going on faster, or more likely lagging behind to hunt. His cousin John Harris was with him, along with Micajah Autry, Daniel Cloud, and B. Archer Thomas. Crockett himself took his time, probably exploring a bit of the country looking for likely headright claims while making his way in a desultory fashion. Only during his stay in Washington on January 22-24 did he get word—as Houston did—of Neill's situation at Béxar and the anticipated Mexican advance.49

  It may have been on learning this that Crockett himself left on January 24, leaving Thomas behind to catch up.50 Late that afternoon he approached the James Swisher home at Gay Hill, not far from Montville, spending a convivial night talking of hunting with his host, and joking about a shooting contest with his son John Swisher. Crockett captivated both father and son. “Few could eclipse him in conversation,” John remembered. “He was fond of talking, and had an ease and grace about him which, added to his strong natural sense and the fund of anecdotes that he had gathered, rendered him irrestible.” Many of the stories he told seemed to have no point, “were common place and amounted to nothing in themselves, but his inimitable way of telling them would convulse one with laughter.” Crockett stayed an extra night or two, and they rarely went to bed before midnight as he regaled his hosts with his tales. When Thomas caught up with him at last, they moved on toward Béxar.51

  Crockett traveled in simple riding clothes, no buckskins or Nimrod Wildfire regalia, but he m
ust still have looked a bit eccentric wearing an old top hat. The nights were cold in this season, and even the days occasionally, and an old beaver like that offered no warmth to the reddening ears of a man on horseback. He gladly traded the impractical headgear for a fur hat when he got the chance, and that kept him much the warmer on the balance of the ride.52 Thereafter he continued his gradual progress, toward Mina at first, then south to the main road to San Antonio, passing through Gonzales.53 He may have turned south for a time, thinking to join the volunteers gathering around Houston at Goliad, but ultimately spurred his horse toward Béxar until he arrived in a drizzle in that quiet graveyard.54