Three Roads to the Alamo

by William C. Davis

  101. Seguín to the state comptroller, December 5, 1874, in de la Teja, Seguín, Memoirs, 190; Hardin, “Efficient in the Cause,” Poyo, Tejano Journey, 57.

  102. Travis statement, February 22, 1836, Antonio Cruz File, Republic Payments for Service, Record Group 304, TXSL.

  103. Menchaca, Memoirs, 23; Asbury, “Almonte Journal,” 16, February 21, 1836. Menchaca does not mention encountering the Mexican army in his memoir, but Almonte records his arrival in his journal, though says nothing about what, if anything, was done about him.

  104. Julia Nott Waugh, Castroville and Henry Castro, Empresario (Castroville, Tex., 1986), 93; Kevin young to the author, June 10, 1996; Rodriguez, Memoirs, 9. The Rodriguez account maintains that Santa Anna himself attended the fandango in disguise, which is of course ridiculous. Francisco Beccera, A Mexican Sergeant's Recollections of the Alamo and San Jacinto (Austin 1980), 17-18, does say that the Mexican army knew of the fandango, which is certainly possible, and tried to take advantage of it by making a surprise attack that night, but the swollen Medina made a crossing then impossible. There is no contemporary support for this. It should also be noted that it is possible that the fandango described as being in Crockett's honor on February 10 could quite possibly have been confused by the sources with this February 22 affair, since all of the sources for both are considerably belated and may suffer from faulty memory.

  105. Sutherland, “Dr. John Sutherland on the Alamo,” Ford Memoirs, UT. This is the 1880s version of Sutherland. The incomplete 1860 “Fall of the Alamo” in the Williams Papers at UT does not contain a reference to Bowie's health, but that portion may have been missing from the original when Williams made her transcriptions.

  Chapter 21 Apotheosis: February 23-Dawn, March 6, 1836

  1 Sutherland, “Fall of the Alamo,” Williams Papers, UT. At this point it is necessary to say that there is a division of opinion on the reliability of the Sutherland account. Sutherland's claim dated 1836, in his file in the Audited Military Claims, Record Group 401, TXSL, places him in San Antonio on February 19, and William Patton's claim, 1836, in his file in the Audited Military Claims, TXSL, confirms this. However, the next entry in Sutherland's account is February 25, in Gonzales, with no accounting for his whereabouts for the previous five days. In the three versions of his memoir, all state that he was in Béxar on February 23, and left as a messenger for Travis on that date, which is compatible with the claims records. However, when he submitted a claim for a headright of land to the legislature in January 1854 (Sutherland File, Memorials and Petitions Collection, TXSL), stating that among other things he had been in Béxar on February 23 and acted as a courier for Travis, the legislature denied his claim, stating lack of supporting evidence. This may have been simple carelessness on the applicant's part, the rejection having nothing whatever to do with Sutherland's statement of where he was on February 23, but possibly it did. On the other hand, since many other factors may have been involved, it is not deemed that the legislature's refusal necessarily repudiated Sutherland's claim, and so his account is used here, judiciously. However, anything in his memoirs on affairs in San Antonio after that date is, as he said himself, derived after the fact from others who were there.

  2 Sutherland, “Fall of the Alamo,” Williams Papers, UT.

  3 Ibid.; John Sutherland to the Legislature of the State of Texas, January 1854, Sutherland File, Memorials and Petitions Collection, TXSL.

  4 Juan N. Seguín to Fontaine, June 7, 1890, Fontaine Collection, UT.

  5 Philip Dimitt to James Kerr, February 28, 1836, Jenkins, PTR, vol. 4, 453.

  6 Travis to Andrew Ponton and the citizens of Gonzales, February 23, 1836, Streeter Collection, Yale.

  7 Sutherland, “Fall of the Alamo,” Williams Papers; Sutherland Memoir in Ford Memoirs, UT. It Should be noted here that in the San Antonio Daily Express, February 12, 1905, Samuel Maverick said that it was actually Crockett who persuaded Travis to move into the Alamo. This is nonsense. It should also be noted that Mixon in her “Travis” thesis, and Turner, Travis, 205, and McDonald, Travis, 158, all unaccountably make use of the bogus Crockett “dairy” published after his death. It is a pure fabrication, as exposed in Shackford, Crockett, 273ff.

  8 Susanna Dickenson interview, September 23, 1876, quoted in King, Dickenson, 105; Mariano Arroyo, Report of Military Hospital at Béxar, August 1, 1836, Expediente XI/481.3/1151, Archivo Historico Militar Mexicano, Mexico city.

  9 Seguín to Fontaine, June 7, 1890, Fontaine Papers, UT.

  10 Fontaine notes, n.d. [1870s], ibid.; Travis to “The People of Texas and All Americans in the World,” February 24, 1836, Army Papers, Record Group 401, Receipt to Ignacio Perez, February 23, 1836, Republic Payments for Service, Record Group 304, TXSL.

  11 “Mrs. Alsbury's Recollections of the Alamo,” Ford Memoirs, vol. 1; Sutherland, “Fall of the Alamo,” Williams Papers, UT; Susanna Dickenson interview, September 23, 1876, King, Dickenson, 105; Chester Newell, History of the Revolution in Texas(Austin, 1935), 88.

  12 Amelia Williams to Asbury, February 1, 1932, Asbury Papers, UT.

  13 Asbury, “Almonte Journal,” 16-17, February 23, 1836.

  14 Bowie to Santa Anna, February 23, 1836, James Bowie Vertical File, UT. there is some debate over which side fired the first shot. Asbury, “Almonte Journal,” 17, February 23, 1836; Carmen Perry, ed., With Santa Anna in Texas: A Personal Narrative of the Revolution by José Enrique de la Peña (College Sation, Tex., 1975), 38-39; Manuel Loranca account, San Antonio Express, June 23, 1878, all differ. Almonte's journal, being the most immediate and almost certainly unaltered in later years, is probably the most accurate, and is relied on here for the chronology of the negotiations, but Bowie's letter is certainly the best source for the first gun and the opening of negotiations.

  15 Bowie to Santa Anna, February 23, 1836, Bowie Vertical File, UT; Walter Lord, A Time to Stand(New York, 1961), 102.

  16 Reuben Potter, “Fall of the Alamo,” Magazine of American History 2 (January 1878): 6.

  17 José Batres to Bowie, February 23, 1836, Jenkins, PTR, vol. 4, 415. Santa Anna would later claim that he offered to spare the lives of all those who would lay down their arms and take an oath not to take them up again. His secretary Ramón Caro said this was a lie, and that the general demanded a “surrender at discretion,” raising a red flag as a sign of no quarter. Certainly Travis spoke of seeing a red flag on the first day of the siege. Both are partially correct, though it is clear from Batres's note that Santa Anna suggested they would “save their lives” by giving up. Castañeda, Mexican Side, 14, 154.

  18 Travis to Houston, February 25, 1836, Little Rock Arkansas Gazette, April 12, 1836.

  19 Sutherland, “Fall of the Alamo,” Williams Papers, UT. Sgt. Manuel Loranca in a letter in the San Antonio Express, June 23, 1878, which is strikingly accurate in most respects, says that Travis offered to surrender the fort if his command could march out with their arms and leave unmolested to join Houston, as the Texians had allowed Cós to leave Béxar the previous December. Certainly this is possible, considering the fact that Travis sent Martin to parley at all, but Loranca can only have been repeating camp gossip in his army.

  20 Asbury, “Almonte Journal,” 17, February 23, 1836.

  21 Antonio López de Santa Anna, Manifesto(Vera Cruz, Mex., 1837), 14.

  22 Potter, “Fall of the Alamo,” 6. Potter got this information from Juan Seguín, who was present.

  23 Travis to Houston, February 25, 1836, Little Rock Arkansas Gazette, April 12, 1836.

  24 Travis and Bowie to Fannin, February 23, 1836, Jenkins, PTR, vol.4, 419.

  25 Travis to Houston, February 25, 1836, Little Rock Arkansas Gazette, April 12, 1836; Robert Hunter, Narrative of Robert Hunter (Austin, 1966), 9-10.

  26 Sutherland, “Fall of the Alamo.” Williams Papers, UT. This is the only source we have for the assignment of any of the garrison, and it must be remembered that Sutherland only says that Crockett was assigned here on February 23. That does n
ot mean that Crockett and others of Patton's company stayed there throughout the siege. Hutton, introduction to Crockett, Narrative, Lincoln, Neb., edition, xxxi, speculates that Crockett drew this assignment, presumably the toughest, because of his legendary reputation. Moreover, he states that Crockett was “trapped by his own legend” and could not leave San Antonio. This ignores the fact that Crockett was now an enlisted soldier, subject to orders, and did not have the option of leaving unless he wished to be a deserter, and nothing in his life suggests that he would do that in the face of an enemy.

  27 Asbury, “Almonte Journal,” 17, February 23, 1836.

  28 Travis statement, February 23, 1836, Ignacio Perez File, Republic Payments for Service, Record Group 304, TXSL.

  29 Dimitt to Kerr, February 28, 1836, Jenkins, PTR, vol. 4, 453.

  30 Sutherland, “Fall of the Alamo,” Williams Papers, UT.

  31 “Mrs. Alsbury's Recollections of the Alamo,” Ford Memoirs, vol. 1, UT, is the only eyewitness source that actually identifies Bowie's illness as typhoid. Mrs. Dickenson said only that Bowie “was sick before & during the fight, and had even been expected to die” (Testimony of Mrs. Hannig touching the Alamo massacre, September 23, 1876, TXSL). Samuel Maverick, who would have been aware of Bowie's state up to the time of his leaving on February 23, said that Bowie was “feeble,” but nothing more (Green, Maverick, 55). While many theories have been propounded as to his malady, these are the only firsthand eyewitness statements we have. Combined with one or two other statements about his symptoms, they are certainly consistent with typhoid, though not sufficiently detailed as to rule out other possibilities. Since Mrs. Alsbury tended him during the siege, and would have seen the course of his disease firsthand, she would have been in the best position to know in the end what he had, assuming that she knew the symptoms and progression of typhoid.

  32 Gray, Virginia to Texas, 119.

  33 Asbury, “Almonte Journal,” 17, February 24, 1836.

  34 Travis to The People of Texas, February 24, 1836, Army Papers, Record Group 401, TXSL.

  35 Asbury, “Almonte Journal,” 17, February 24, 1836.

  36 Potter, “Fall of the Alamo,” 18.

  37 Asbury, “Almonte Journal,” 17-18, February 25, 1836.

  38 Travis to Houston, February 25, 1836, Little Rock Arkansas Gazette April 12, 1836.

  39 Travis to Jesse Grimes, March 3, 1836, San Felipe Telegraph and Texas Register, March 24, 1836, reveals that he expected others to see his February 25 dispatch to Houston.

  40 Seguí to Fontaine, June 7, 1890, Fontaine Collection, UT.

  41 Travis to Grimes, March 3, 1836, San Felipe Telegraph and Texas Register, March 24, 1836; Asbury, “Almonte Journal,” 18, February 25, 1836.

  42 Gray, Virginia to Texas, 119; Harris, “Reminiscences, II,” 160; Fannin to Robinson, February 25, 1836, Jenkins, PTR, Vol. 4, 429; Brown, Smith, 298-99. Hunter, Narrative, 9-10.

  43 Gray, Virginia to Texas, 119-20; Asbury, “Almonte Journal,” 18-19, February 26-27, 1836; Williams, “Critical Study, vol. 4,” 307.

  44 “Mr. Alsbury's Recollections of the Alamo,” Ford Memoir, vol. 1, UT.

  45 Joseph Field, Three Years in Texas (Boston, 1836), 17; Andrew F. Muir, ed., Texas in 1837: An Anonymous Contemporary Narrative (Austin, 1958), 113; Louisville Journal, July II, 1836. No one can say with certainty what sort of gun Crockett had with him in the Alamo, though contrary to popular depiction, it probably was not a flintlock, since he certainly favored a cap-and-ball percussion rifle after the gift of “Pretty Betsey” in 1834. for a circumstantial account of claimed weapons used by hi, see Texas Jim Cooper, “A Study of Some David Crockett firearms,” East Tennessee Historical Society's Publications 38 (1966): 68-69.

  46 Asbury, “Almonte Journal,” 19, February 27, 1836; Field, Three Years, 57.

  47 Asbury, “Almonte Journal,” 19. February 28, 1836; Gray Virginia to Texas, 120.

  48 Gray, Virginia to Texas, 120.

  49 San Felipe Telegraph and Texas Register, March 5, 1836.

  50 J.W. Hassell to Jesse Hassell, February 29, 1836, Hassell Family Papers, Fannin to Joseph Mims, February 28, 1836, Fontaine Collection, UT.

  51 Asbury, “Almonte Journal,” 19, February 29, 1836.

  52 Seguín to Fontaine, June 7, 1890, Fontaine Collection, UT.

  53 Timothy M. Matovina, The Alamo Remembered: Tejano Accounts and Perspectives (Austin, 1995), 81-82. This is the account of Enrique Esparza, given seventy-one years after the fact, and therefore may be highly inaccurate. However, Stephen L. Hardin, “Efficient in the Cause,” in Poyo, Tejano Journey, 57-58, makes a convincing case for Esparza being in the main correct about the tejanos leaving, and there are other sources, to be cited hereafter. Hardin also suggests that it is at this point that Menchaca leaves, even though Menchaca, Memoirs, 23, places his departure before Santa Anna arrived at Béxar. Hardin's argument is convincing, though that leaves the problem of explaining Asbury, “Almonte Journal,” 16, February 21, 1836, which speaks of “Menchaca” coming into the Mexican camp on the Medina. This could have been a different Menchaca, of course, or it may have been only a visit, after which Menchaca escaped to return to San Antonio, though he makes no mention of anything like this in his memoirs. Almonte records only Menchaca's arrival in his journal, though says nothing about what, if anything, was done about him.

  54 Gray, Virginia to Texas, 121.

  55 Travis to the President of the Convention, March 3, 1836, San Felipe Telegraph and Texas Register, March 12, 1836.

  56 Asbury, “Almonte Journal,” 19, March 1, 1836.

  57 “Mrs. Alsbury's Recollections of the Alamo,” Ford Memoir, vol. 1, UT.

  58 San Antonio Daily Express, May 12, 1907.

  59 James K. Greer, ed., “Journal of Ammon Underwood, 1834-1838,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly 32 (July 1928): 142-43, March 1, 1836; John S. Brooks to his mother, March 2, 1836, Jenkins, PTR, vol. 4, 487.

  60 W. W. Thomson affadavit, December 1, 1840, Home Papers Box 2-9/6, TXSL. See also Thomas Ricks Lindley, “Drawing Truthful Deductions,” Journal of the Alamo Battlefield Association 1 (September 1995): 31-33. The quotations come from statements made in 1837 and are given in full in Lindley's perceptive article.

  61 Milledge L. Bonham, Memorandum, Milledge L. Bonham Papers, South Caroliniana Library, university of South Carolina, Columbia. This memorandum states that Houston told Milledge Bonham this is 1838. The memorandum says that Houston talked with James Butler Bonham, but this is impossible, since Houston was in Washington, and Bonham in Gonzales, but he may have meant that he “told” Bonham this, and Bonham's surviving brother assumed that it meant face to face. It is possible that this message to Bonham, if indeed Houston sent it, is the “other letter” referred to cryptically in Williamson's March 1 letter to Travis, dealt with below.

  62 This is based on an interesting and very logical conclusion reached by Thomas R. Lindley, and shared in a letter to the author, June 4, 1996.

  63 Asbury, “Almonte Journal,” 20, March 2, 1836.

  64 Travis to President of the Convention, March 3, 1836, San Felipe Telegraph and Texas Register, March 12, 1836.

  65 Ibid.

  66 The total number of cannon in the Alamo was twenty-one, only eighteen of them actually in usable condition. The best study to date of this is Thomas Ricks Lindley, “Alamo Artillery: Number, Type, Caliber and Concussion,” Alamo Journal 82 (July 1992): n.p. The total number of defenders, as stated below, is a matter of continuing debate, but it is here assumed that it numbered two hundred or more at this stage.

  67 Williamson To Travis, March 1, 1836, translation of text in Thomas Ricks Lindley, “James Butler Bonham,” Alamo Journal 62 (August 1988): 5.

  68 Sutherland, “Fall of the Alamo,” Williams Papers, UT; Stephen L. Hardin to the author, July 1, 1996.

  69 Travis to President of the Convention, March 3, 1836, San Felipe Telegraph and Texas Register, March 12, 1836.

  70 Travis to Grimes, March 3, 1836, San Felip
e Telegraph and Texas Register, March 24, 1836.

  71 Sutherland, “Fall of the Alamo,” Williams Papers, UT; Asbury, “Almonte Journal,” 20, March 3, 1836.

  72 Asbury, “Almonte Journal,” 20, March 3, 1836.

  73 Sutherland, “Fall of the Alamo,” Williams Papers, UT. Sutherland, who definitely was not in the Alamo at this time, carefully qualifies this statement and others by saying that he was informed of this by John Smith, who did not leave until late on March 3.

  74 Travis to Grimes, March 3, 1836, San Felipe Telegraph and Texas Register, March 24, 1836; Mary Holley Manuscript Notes, Holley Papers, UT, says that “Miss Cummins” received a letter from Travis that went out with the last courier, and this must be the letter that Travis asks Grimes to send “to its proper destination instantly.”

  75 Travis to Ayers, March 3, 1836, in Mixon, “Travis,” 455.