Three Roads to the Alamo
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38. Travis to Smith, January 28, 1836, Army Papers, Record Group 401, TXSL.
39. Travis to Smith, January 29, 1836, ibid.
40. A. J. Lee, “Some Recollections of Two Texas Pioneer Women,” Texas Methodist Quarterly 1 (January 1910): 209-10. McDonald, Travis, 130, places this event between Travis's illness on October 3 and his company's arrival at Béxar on or about October 18, a span of time which subsequent research would have to reduce to October 5 to 11, the period between his departure from San Felipe and his presence in Gonzales. Such a side trip then, in the urgency of the situation, is unlikely, but in any case it is virtually impossible for Travis to have visited Charles at the Montville school then for the simple reason that the school did not open until February 1, 1836 (San Felipe Telegraph and Texas Register, November 14, 1835). However, a visit in the last days of January 1836 would be consistent if Charles had been placed there shortly before its opening.
41. James C. Neill to Travis, January 28, 1836, Jenkins, PTR, vol. 4, 174-75.
42. Travis to smith, January 29, 1836, Army Papers, Record Group 401, TXSL.
43. This departs considerably from Lindley's conclusion in Alamo Traces, and it must be said is an interpolative conclusion that is certainly subject to debate. Lindley concludes that the company with Travis reached Gonzales by February 2 and remained there through February 4, the date of arrival being based on a average distance that mounted men could cover per day, and his conclusion seems sound. They only documents placing them in Gonzales, however, are two orders for payment dated February 4, both headed Gonzales and signed by Forsyth. It is significant however, that form the date the company left San Felipe, all such pay orders were signed either by Travis or his quartermaster Thomas Jackson, the two senior officers authorized to initiate such documents. Jackson left the company on January 29, which would mean that all such subsequent documents should have been signed by Travis if he was present. However, after that date all subsequent pay orders were signed by Forsyth until the company reached San Antonio. According to prior practice, Travis should have and would have signed them if he had been with the company. This suggests that he no longer traveled with the company from at least as early as February 1, the date of the first order signed by Forsyth. Consequently, even though Forsyth and the company were definitely in Gonzales on February 4, Travis was not, meaning that the February 3 date of arrival in San Antonio indicated by an entry in the John R. Jones statement as executor (Mixon, “Travis,” 442) is quite probably correct. The payment orders referred to will all be found in Lindley's essay, and are taken from the files for Samuel Leeper, J. W. E. Wallace, W. W. Arrington, William D. Lacy, Joseph Ehlinger, William Brookfield, Jesse Burnham, Thomas Chadoin, William A. Matthews, William Newland, and C. B. Stewart, Audited Military Claims, TXSL.
44. As started above, Travi's February 3 arrival is based upon a note of an expenditure that day in the Jones tabulation(Mixon, “Travis,” 442). It is possible that this is an error in transcription and should read February 5, in which case Lindley would be right in his assertion of an arrival on that date. Any decision on the issue rests solely on interpretation of very scanty and incomplete evidence.
45. Rodriguez, Memoirs, 8-9.
46. Memorial of Citizens & Soldiers of Béxar, n.d., Consultation Papers, TXSL. This document is almost certainly written and signed prior to February 5, the date often assigned to it (see Jenkins, PTR, vol. 4, 263-65). It is signed by every officer present in the garrison, yet Forsyth did not sign it. Since Lindley has conclusively established that Forsyth was in Gonzales as late as February 4, and could not have reached San Antonio until sometime February 5, the absence of his name establishes that his document was drafted and sent prior to his arrival, and therefore almost certainly either February 3 or 4, the latter seeming more likely. This being the case, it also present additional persuasive evidence that Travis arrived ahead of Forsyth and the company, and prior to February 5.
47. Bowie to Smith, February 2, 1836, Jenkins, PTR, vol. 4, 236-37.
48. Menchaca, Memoirs, 22. Menchaca, usually strikingly accurate, says that Corckett arrived January 13, which is impossible, since he was still in Nacogdoches then, and the error cannot be simply the wrong month, because Crockett was definitely in Béxar prior to February 13. Consequently, his memory of dates has failed him here, but there seems no reason to doubt the essence of his statement about the circumstances of Crockett's arrival. Hutton, introduction to Crockett, Narrative, xxx, says that Crockett arrived February 3 but offers no source to support this, and it seems too early. Even though not an officer, a man of his political importance would certainly have been asked to sign the February 4 memorial. Stanley J. Folmsbee and Anna Grace Catron, “David Crockett in Texas,” East Tennessee Historical Society Publications 30 (1958): 60, speculate that he arrived February 7 or 8, since the John Sutherland memoir says that Crockett came “in a few days—less than a week” after Travis's arrival. The first specific mention of him is Green Jameson's February 11, 1836, letter, cited below. Thomas Lindley has prepared a useful itinerary of Crockett's journey from Little Rock, and his conclusion is that he arrived in San Antonio probably on or around February 5. In the absence of any newer or more specific information, that is about as good a guess as is possible.
49. Certificate, January 23, 1836, David Crockett File, Audited Military Claims, Comptroller's Military Service Papers, TXSL.
50. Certificate, January 24, 1836 Crockett File, Audited Military Claims, ibid.
51. John M. Swisher, The Swisher Memoirs (San Antonio, 1932), 18-19.
52. “Life of Nathan Mitchell,” San Antonio Express, August 31, 1897.
53. Smithwick, Evolution, 117. In fact, nothing certain is known of Crockett's itinerary after he left Gay Hill. Smithwick is highly unreliable at times, and even though there are several other sources citing traditions that Crockett passed through Mina (now Bastrop), they could be erroneous (for instance, Frank Brown, Annals of Travis Country and the City of Austin [N.p., n.d.], 47). Lindley's itinerary maintains that Crockett was in the Goliad-Copano area, more than one hundred miles off the most direct route to Béxar. Lindley's evidence is a claim filed for an expense incurred by Peter Harper, who had been part of Crockett's contingent, the inference being that if Harper was near Goliad or Copano, then so was Crockett. This may be true, and it may not. Since the most direct road from Gay Hill to Béxar was the old Gotier Trace to its junction with the Medio road, then south across the Colorado to the San Antonio road and thence via Gonzales, this has been chosen as his most likely route.
54. It is worth noting survives to establish exactly what Crockett's orders were when he left Nacogdoches, or even if he had any. He was probably directed simply to move to Washington, where Houston had been, in the expectation of getting orders, but Houston was not there when Crockett passed through. Consequently, while Crockett may have received orders from someone else directing him to Béxar, he may just as possibly have been moving about entirely on his own initiative.
55. Menchaca, Memoirs, 22; San Antonio Daily Express, February 12, 1905.
56. Sutherland, “Fall of the Alamo,” Williams Papers, UT. this is the original 1860 version of the Sutherland memoir, and is used in preference to the published version, John Sutherland, The Fall of the Alamo (San Antonio, 1936),11, which puts a much more eloquent speech on Crockett's lips. It is proper here to address this document. No original has been found. The typescript in the Williams Papers is fragmentary, but it is obviously by Sutherland, written in 1860, intended as an article for the San Antonio Alamo Express, but never published as intended. It was to be a response to Reuben Potter's “The Fall of the Alamo,” which was published that same year in the San Antonio Herald. John S. Ford apparently revised this memoir somewhat when he included it in the 1880s or 1890s in his Memoirs, vol. 1, UT, and this is the version that finally saw print in an edited version published by James T. DeShields in the Galveston Daily News, February 12, 1911, news magazine supplement, and then came
out as a book, The Fall of the Alamo, in 1936. There are some inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the memoir, but nothing that its being written twenty-four years after the fact could not explain. There is some question as to whether Sutherland was still in San Antonio after February 19, which may call into question his statements about affairs after that date, but there is no just grounds for being skeptical of what he says relating to prior events.
57. Jameson to Smith February 11, 1836, Jenkins, PTR, vol. 4, 303; Claim no 1358, February 11, 1836, Crockett to the auditor of accounts, February 13, 1836, Crockett File, Audited Military Accounts, TXSL.
58. Menchaca, Memoirs, 22-23.
59. Davis, Travis Diary, October 18, 1833, 49.
60. John R. Jones statement, December 18, 1837, in Mixon, “Travis,” 442.
61. D. C. Barrett to Robinson, January 31, 1836, Jenkins, PTR vol. 1, 204-6.
62. Alexander Thomson and J. D. Clements to Smith February 11, 1836, Jenkins, PTR, vol. 4, 316.
63. Jameson to Smith, February 11, 1836, Army Papers, Record Group 401, TXSL.
64. Travis commission, December 24, 1835, Travis Papers, UT. This is a copy of the original, stated to have been found in the Archivo Historico Militar Mexicano in Mexico City, and the only way the document could have gotten there would be for Travis to have had it with him in San Antonio at the time of the fall of the Alamo on March 6, after which it must have been among other papers captured and sent to Mexico City.
65. Travis to Smith, February 12, 1836, Army Papers, Record Group 401, TXSL.
66. Travis to Smith, February 12, 1836, J. J. Baugh to Smith, February 13, 1836, ibid.
67. Sutherland, “Fall of the Alamo,” Williams Papers, UT. Sutherland is the only source for the claim the Crockett was offered a command. All he says is that “D. Crockett had been requested to take command but refused at the time of Col Travis accepted.” Despite the poor wording, Sutherland's meaning is clear, that when Travis took command, Crockett was offered the entire command of the Sutherland does not say that Crockett was offered the entire command of the garrison. In the version of Sutherland's memoir in the John ford Papers, UT, this has been changed to say “Crockett was immediately offered a command by Col. Travis,” which is quite a different matter. Latter writers have mistakenly interpreted this to mean that Travis actually offered Crockett command of the whole garrison, which is preposterous. Travis could not even offer Crockett command of a company, for Crockett held no commission, and Travis did not have the authority to promote him to be an officer. Thus, if Sutherland's original statement derives from any genuine original incident, it can only have been that of some of the volunteers approaching Crockett and offering to elect him. This would be perfectly natural, given his celebrity. Significantly, the Baugh letter of February 13 also states that not all of the volunteers voted in electing Bowie, who was apparently the only candidate. This suggests that those who did not vote did not want Bowie as their commander, leading to the speculation that they were the ones who approached Crockett, preferring him.
It should be noted that the Sutherland version in the ford Memoirs also errs grossly in saying that Bowing took command when Neil left, but that he fell ill and then asked Travis to take over. However, he also states that he got this information from other, implying that he was not yet actually present.
68. Though no one mentions the actual election until Baugh's February 13 letter and Travis's of the same date, it is apparent that it took place on February 11 immediately upon Neill's leaving, for Jameson in his February 11 letter to Smith refers to “Col. Bowie in command of the Volunteer forces.” William Groneman, “Jim Bowie—A Popular Leader” Alamo News 34 (January 1984): n.p., makes well the case for Bowie's popularity not being as great as has been supposed
69. Baugh to Smith, February 13, 1836, Army Papers, Record Group 401, TXSL.
70. Travis to Smith, February 13, 1836, ibid.
71. Ibid.
72. W. W. Fontaine notes, n.d., of interview with Nat Lewis [1870s], Fontaine Papers, UT; Brown, Indian Wars and Pioneers, 138.
73. Baugh to Smith, February 13, 1836, Army Papers, Record Group 401, TXSL.
74. Fontaine to Guy Bryan, June 3, 1890, Fontaine Papers, UT.
75. Juan N. Seguín to Fontaine, June 7, 1890, Fontaine Papers, UT Phil Rosenthal, “Masons at the Alamo,” Alamo II 3 (October 1980): n.p., is correct in noting Travis's documented Masonic membership, and Bowie's at least by implication, since his effects after his death included a Masonic apron. However, Masonry would have been offensive to Crockett's prejudices against secret groups, representing a kind of attempt at aristocracy, and therefore Rosenthal is mistaken in saying that Crockett helped Travis start a Blue Lodge in Texas. Lord, “William Travis,” 12, is mistaken in saying that Travis was a member of Holland Lodge no. 36 in Brazoria, for it did not come into existence until January 1836, when he was far from Brazoria, in San Felipe, and then on his way to Béxar.
76. Travis to Smith, February 12, 1836, Army Papers, Record Group 401, TXSL.
77. John R. Jones statement, December 18, 1837, Mixon, “Travis,” 442.
78. Samuel E. Asbury, ed., “The Private Journal of Juan Nepomuceno Almonte, February 1-April 16, 1836,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 48 (July 1944): February 12, 1836, 14.
79. Susanna Dickenson statement, December 9, 1850, quoted in C. Richard King, Susanna Dickenson, Messenger of the Alamo (Austin, 1976), 67.
80. Reuben Potter to William Steele, July 14, 1874, Adjutant General's Office. Miscellaneous Papers, TXSL; Travis to Smith, February 13, 1836, Army Papers, Record Group 401, ibid.
81. Travis and Bowie to Smith, February 14, 1836, Texas Collection of Documents, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
82. John H. Jenkins, ed., The General's Tight Pants (Austin, 1976), 12; Travis to Smith, February 15, 1836, Jenkins, PTR, vol. 1, 348.
83. Ramón M. Caro, “Verdadera Idea de la Primera Campana de Tejas” (Mexico City, 1837), in Castañeda, Mexican Side, 101-2.
84. Travis statement, February 19, 1836, Felipe Xaimes File, Republic Payments for Service, Record Group 304, TXSL.
85. José Rodriguez, Memoirs of Early Texas (San Antonio, 1913), 7.
86. King, Dickenson, 70.
87. Hardin, “David Crockett,” 32.
88. Rohrbaugh, “James Bowie,” 30-31.
89. Inventory of personal effects of James Bowie, Probate Court, Béxar County Court House, San Antonio.
90. Sears, “Low Down,” 198; Juana Alsbury Account, John S. Ford Memories, UT.
91. Marriage Record A, Monroe County Court, 1833-1838, 11. Other sources, presumably using this record, actually cite the marriage date a day later. Rosanna's marriage so soon after the divorce, and the fact that Cloud and the Travises lived near and knew one another in Claiborne, may be the origin of the much later legend of Travis leaving her because of her infidelity, a story that probably began with the Travis family, who would naturally prefer to blame her rather than their son for the divorce.
92. This whole episode of Travis sending his expenses back to San Felipe is suppositional. The only known facts are that the last entry in it was February 17, that the book wound up in the hands of his executor Jones a year later, and that Texas honored the expenses and paid them to his estate. It seems unlikely that the book was with him in the Alamo, for no papers there at the time of the fall seem to have survived in Texas, and if it had been sent to Mexico with other captured documents, it would never have reached Jones. Travis could have left it in his quarters in San Antonio on February 23 when the garrison went into the Alamo, and someone subsequently finding it might have sent it to Jones. But given the shortage of money, and the fact that the almost daily entries stop on February 17, it seems more likely that Travis sent it out himself, hoping for a speedy reimbursement.
The San Felipe Telegraph and Texas Register, March 5, 1836, establishes that Jones was in San Felipe at about this time.
93. Travis to Smith, February 16, 1
836, Army Papers, Record Group 401, TXSL; David Cummings to his father, February 14, 1836, Jenkins, PTR, vol. 4, 334.
94. Travis to the convention, March 3, 1836, San Felipe Telegraph and Texas Register, March 12, 1836, states that Bonham left carrying dispatches on February 17.
95. Travis to Houston, January [February] 17, 1836, in Yoakum Texas, vol. 2, 59. Turner and McDonald both accept this as January 17, as does Jenkins, but they are in error. The original of this letter is lost, but Yoakum quite certainly misquotes its date, for he says it is headed “Béxar,” and of course of January 17 Travis was still in San Felipe. Moreover, Travis did not get the Béxar assignment until January 21, and his pleas for money and troops do not commence until February.
96. Rodriguez, Memoirs, 8-9; Travis and Bowie to Smith, February 14, 1836, Travis Papers, UT.
97. Travis to J. J. Vaughan, February 19, 1836, typescript in William Papers, UT.
98. Sowell, Rangers and Pioneers, 136; Rodriguez, Memoirs, 8-9.
99. Sutherland, “Fall of the Alamo,” Williams Papers, UT.
100. Mexico City el Mosquito Mexicano, March 4, 1836, Asbury, “Almonte Journal,” 16, February 21, 1836.