And Crockett, popular with everyone, encouraged the men constantly. Somewhere he had got hold of a fiddle, and during lulls in the fighting and bombardment he played tunes on it. A Scotsman named John McGregor had brought his bagpipes with him, and occasionally he and Crockett would engage in a musical contest, competing to see who could make the best music, or the most noise. McGregor always won so far as noise was concerned, remembered Captain Almeron Dickinson’s wife, Susanna.
On Monday, the weather changed, with a warmer wind blowing in from the west. Except for another Mexican battalion moving their bivouac to the fields east of the Alamo, a quarter mile away, there was little action. Some of the men took potshots at soldados in the distance when they approached rifle range, and killed one a couple of hours after sunset.
Around midnight the wind changed direction again, this time from the north. The rebels watched as the cavalry regiment to the east and one of the infantry battalions moved out, marching down the Goliad road—no doubt, those in the Alamo assumed, to intercept Fannin and his men.
A few hours later there was a shot from the walls that roused rebels from their blankets. A sentry had fired at a group of men approaching the fort. Moments later the wooden gate on the western side of the lunette swung open and the big redhead, John Smith, rode in followed by thirty-two men from Gonzales. The sentry’s shot had lodged in the foot of one of the riders, but the injury was a slight one. There was much rejoicing as friends and family greeted each other. It was only a reinforcement of thirty-two, but they were good men, many of them veterans of the battle of Béxar, and they told of more on their way, riding to Gonzales from all points. If those reinforcements arrived before the rest of the Mexican army, the rebels might have a fighting chance. Counting effectives and the hospitalized, there were about two hundred men in the garrison—and enough coffee to last them another week or so.
FOURTEEN
“Devlish Dark”
In this war you know that there are no prisoners.
GENERAL SANTA ANNA
For years afterward, bexareños would claim that Crockett killed the first soldado of the siege, at a range of two hundred yards, and barely missed Santa Anna himself while he was surveying the Alamo in preparation for an attack. The Mexicans learned to keep at a good distance when a tall man in buckskin stepped up on the parapet or lay down on the roof of one of the buildings along the walls.
But the constant confinement, the growing fatigue, the lack of sleep, were taking their toll. There had been no major troop attacks by the Mexicans since the twenty-sixth, though the bombardment continued each day, from early morning until the light dimmed. Although they had not lost a man, the hospital was full—between the casualties from the battle of Béxar and assorted ailments, there were few empty cots, and the overflow had spread down to the first floor of the old convento. The thirty-two men from Gonzales had provided a fresh boost in morale. But soon reality set in. Thirty-two more guns were nowhere near the several hundred needed to make an effective defense. Where was Fannin? He and his three hundred should have arrived by now.
Even the perpetually sunny David Crockett was beginning to worry. “I think we had better march out and die in the open air,” he said several times during the siege. “I don’t like to be hemmed up.”
Crockett’s statement was rooted in personal experience. During the Creek War, at the Battle of Tallushatchee, he and a group of men had set fire to a house with forty-six Indian warriors trapped inside. The structure, and everyone in it, had burned to the ground. The next day the charred corpses were scattered all across the village, and the hungry soldiers had eaten potatoes—“the oil of the Indians we had burned up on the day before had run down on them,” remembered Crockett in his autobiography—from the cellar of a nearby house. The grisly incident had made a lasting impression.
Susanna Dickinson heard Crockett voice his concern more than once. But he was not the only one who felt that way—the little jockey, Henry Warnell, told her something similar, and others surely felt the same. The confinement and the constant reminders of their likely fate were taking their toll on minds as well as bodies.
In the meantime, the overstretched garrison did its best to maintain a routine of sorts. The sentinels had to remain alert, but most of the men still slept at their posts, despite the addition of thirty-two fresh troops. Each evening, a few pickets made their way outside the walls to ditches about seventy yards out, where they shivered in solitude and tried to stay awake so as to alert the fort to any assault under darkness. Green Jameson kept his fatigued crews working through the night in a desperate attempt to bolster the battered north wall with dirt and timbers. And every night the Mexican sappers moved their trenches closer to the Alamo, though they were still several hundred yards away, and the Mexican bands continued to periodically burst into martial music that seemed to announce an attack.
Susanna Dickinson had been overwhelmed upon first entering the compound. Mrs. Esparza had brought her some food that first night. But soon Susanna was helping the other women cook for the men, grinding the corn and cooking it into cakes and tortillas, and roasting the beef. More than two hundred people consumed quite a bit of food each day. In a week or two there would be no more beeves, leaving only corn to eat—or horse meat. Fortunately the well in the courtyard was productive, being so close to the river, so there was plenty of water. Susanna also assisted in the hospital, where Dr. Pollard needed help with his charges, almost three dozen sick and wounded defenders. The good doctor was working tirelessly, but without proper medicines there was little he could do. The Alsbury sisters also attended to the injured. And Angelina, Susanna’s fifteen-month-old, charmed everyone, including Colonel Travis, who had a young daughter of his own he had never seen.
Sometimes, between bombardments, Susanna would even make her way up the wooden ramp to the platform atop the church’s eastern end to visit her husband. From there she could see the Mexican cavalry to the east. She also met the other artillerymen in her husband’s mess, and got to know them. A man from Nacogdoches named Jacob Walker spoke to her of his own four children and his wife, Sara. Another gunner, a tall, dark-haired, eighteen-year-old named William Malone, had not been in Texas long. After a night of wild drinking, and unable to face his stern father, he had run away from his family home in Georgia. The elder Malone followed him to New Orleans, hoping to persuade him to return to his sorrowful mother; she had recently lost a younger daughter and could hardly bear losing another child. But William, whether moved or not by his sister’s death, had already taken passage on a boat bound for Texas, to enlist in the cause. His father returned home to report his failure. William had managed to write but one letter to his mother since his arrival in Texas.
At night, when the temperature dropped near freezing, the women and children in the sacristy burrowed into their blankets and hay and families huddled together for warmth until the early sun began to melt the night’s frost.
The morning of Tuesday, March 1, the cavalry regiment returned up the Goliad road, seeming none the worse for wear. Clearly, they had not run into Fannin, which led, again, to the inevitable question: Where was he?
It was cold all day, but there were clear skies overhead. The Mexican bombardment continued. To conserve the good powder, Travis directed Captain Dickinson to limit the artillery response, but sometime during the cannonade, the rebel gunners fired two shots into town, aiming toward the Yturri house, at the northwest corner of Main Plaza, where a good deal of activity could be observed. One crashed into the plaza, the other scored a direct hit.
Wednesday was more of the same—near-constant shelling by the Mexican batteries but little return fire from the Alamo’s cannon, save the eighteen-pounder’s signal rounds, which Travis had told couriers he would set off at morning, noon, and evening to let others know they still held out. The Mexican battalion to the east moved their camp to the north side of the fort, near the tree-covered trail along the acequia.
Thursday dawned col
d and clear with no wind. About eleven a.m. a shout came from sentinels on the east walls of the fort. A lone rider had been spied galloping toward the Alamo from the hills north of the old powder house on the Gonzales road. As he approached, someone recognized him as James Bonham, and by the time he reined in his horse and turned into the entrance, the gate was open. He entered the compound before a shot could be fired. A crowd gathered round him as he dismounted.
He brought news that cheered the garrison—a message from Robert Williamson, Travis’s good friend, who was in Gonzales organizing volunteers. The letter was short, but filled with encouragement. After mentioning sixty men who had set out for Béxar from Gonzales—Albert Martin’s thirty or so must have been some of them, and another group of thirty must have tried, without success so far—he had written:
Colonel Fannin with 300 men and four pieces of artillery has been on the march toward Bexar three days now…. Tonight we await some 300 reinforcements from Washington, Bastrop, Brazoria, and S. Felipe and no time will be lost in providing you assistance.
Williamson had signed his letter “your true friend,” and added a PS: “For God’s sake hold out until we can assist you.”
Travis read the letter carefully. If Fannin had set out on February 27, five days previous, he should have arrived in the vicinity before Bonham. Clearly, something was amiss. But at least reinforcements from Gonzales would soon be on the way—indeed, they might already have left, if the three hundred troops from nearby communities had reached the town as expected.
The news that help was on the way was heartening. It appeared that the garrison might be saved, at least long enough to put up a good fight. In the meantime, they were desperately low on cannon and rifle powder, and ammunition for the rifles and muskets, so their only response to the steady bombardment was a few cannon shots and occasional rifle fire. In the meantime, the Mexicans began work on another battery to the north, less than a hundred yards away.
ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28, the day after leaving Gaona, Duque’s column had been joined by General Martín Perfecto de Cós and his small group. Returning with Cós to Béxar was Captain José Juan Sánchez. They marched east with Duque the next morning.
José Enrique de la Peña had been put in charge of the rear guard. A frigid norther enveloped the area that day, followed by a thick snowfall the next day that slowed the column’s progress. Just two days before, de la Peña had been glorying in the beauty of Leona Creek: “As one explores it the soul expands and fills with joy… the most delightful feelings follow one another to converge all at once and leave the recipient in a state of sublime ecstasy,” he wrote. Now a plethora of problems plagued him, from chasing stray mules and reloading them to the burial of a soldado of the Toluca battalion who had succumbed to the frigid weather. But the column trudged on, and at twilight on Wednesday, March 2, they crossed the Medina River and spent the evening there by the water. They were only twenty miles from Béxar—a short day’s march. That night a captain of the granaderos died of severe gastrointestinal pain: there had been no doctor to attend to him. Duque’s column had made good time on their forced march, but a toll had been paid. These deaths and others cast a further pall over troops already cold, weary, and hungry.
A courier rode into camp soon after dark with a message from Santa Anna: Cós was ordered to continue to Béxar that night, so the exhausted general and his aides pushed on. At Leon Creek, eight miles from town, they could see what resembled a fireworks display—artillery exchange between the Mexican battery near Main Plaza and the rebels in the Alamo, across the river. They reached Béxar at eleven o’clock, after covering fifty miles that day. None of them did much more than find a place to bivouac, wrap themselves in a blanket, and fall asleep.
The next morning was cold, about forty degrees, and blessedly still—the norther they had struggled through only days before was just a memory. After breakfast with General Ramírez y Sesma, Santa Anna expressed a desire to review the camps and batteries. With a small party he crossed the river at ten o’clock, accompanied by Cós and Sánchez, who marveled at how needlessly His Excellency exposed himself to enemy fire. Ramírez y Sesma, Sánchez noticed, took great pains to avoid exposure to the slightest possibility of enemy danger.
The rebels did not show themselves on the walls or parapets. A few hours later, Santa Anna ordered a bombardment that lasted until the news was announced of General Urrea’s decimation of a rebel force at San Patricio five days earlier. The San Fernando church bells rang out, and some of the battalion bands began playing. In the middle of all this, the reinforcements under Colonel Duque began entering the west side of town.
The soldiers of Duque’s column who had brought dress uniforms had donned them before leaving the Medina River. By five o’clock that afternoon they marched through the streets of Béxar amid the celebration. During the lull, rebels could be seen on the walls of the Alamo, which stood on ground slightly higher than the town.
THE MEN HAD BEEN DISCUSSING Bonham’s news when the sounds of bells ringing, men cheering, and band music from town had brought more Texians to the ramparts on the west side to see what was going on. Travis spent some time watching the troops entering Béxar from the west. Then he walked to his quarters and began another letter. The arriving soldados strengthened the Mexican army significantly. An all-out assault was clearly brewing, and imminently, especially since the new battery erected just a few hundred yards northeast of the fort—along with the trench by the acequia, which was even closer—moved nearer the Alamo each night. Even without heavy siege guns, which could arrive any day, a cannon fired at that distance could inflict severe damage to the weak north wall. Another blood-red banner raised in the Mexican camp above them was a constant reminder of the fate Santa Anna intended for them.
As the sun disappeared in the west, Travis lit a candle and dipped his quill. Addressing the letter to the president of the convention, he summarized the events since his last lengthy report of February 25, and the current situation.
The spirits of my men are high, although they have had much to depress them. We have continued for ten days against an enemy whose numbers are variously estimated at from fifteen hundred to six thousand…. A reinforcement of about one thousand men is now entering Bejar from the west, and I think it more than probable that Santa Ana is now in town, from the rejoicing we hear. Col. Fannin is said to be on the march to this place with reinforcements; but I fear it is not true, as I have repeatedly sent to him for aid without receiving any…. I look to the colonies alone for aid; unless it arrives soon, I shall have to fight the enemy on his own terms….
I hope your honorable body will hasten on reinforcements, ammunition and provisions to our aid, as soon as possible. We have provisions for twenty days for the men we have; our supply of ammunition is limited. At least five hundred pounds of cannon powder, and two hundred rounds of six, nine, twelve, and eighteen pound balls—ten kegs of rifle powder, and a supply of lead should be sent to this place without delay, under a sufficient guard.
If these things are promptly sent and large reinforcements are hastened to this frontier, this neighborhood will be the great and decisive battle ground. The power of Santa Ana is to be met here, or in the colonies; we had better meet them here, than to suffer a war of desolation to rage in our settlements.
He ended this missive, too, with “God and Texas!—Victory or Death!”
On another sheet of paper he wrote to a friend, Jesse Grimes, a convention delegate whose eighteen-year-old son, Albert, was a volunteer in the Alamo: “Let the Convention go on and make a declaration of independence, and we will then understand, and the world will understand, what we are fighting for…. If my countrymen do not rally to my relief, I am determined to perish in the defense of this place, and my bones shall reproach my country for her neglect.” His grandiose sentiments were purposeful: Travis knew almost every message he sent would be made public and would likely be reprinted and distributed widely.
He drafted two fi
nal letters. The first was to his intended, Rebecca Cummings, and for her eyes only. The second, scrawled on a scrap of yellow wrapping paper, was just a short note of two sentences to David Ayres, who was caring for Travis’s son, Charles.
Take care of my little boy. If the country should be saved, I may make for him a splendid fortune; but if the country be lost and I shall perish, he will have nothing but the proud recollection that he is the son of a man who died for his country.
The indefatigable John Smith volunteered to take the missives through the enemy lines to Gonzales. The earlier couriers had carried few letters besides those of Colonel Travis, but now other men, upon hearing that Smith would leave that night, gave the big redhead their own letters to be forwarded to their families. The sight of the Mexican reinforcements, and the attendant signs that a concerted attack was on its way, had induced a sense of impending doom.
Smith knew the area better than anyone in the garrison, but over the last few days the Mexicans had tightened the cordon around the Alamo. He would need help this time, particularly since a full moon would begin rising at seven p.m. Travis ordered a sally on the north side, up toward Zambrano’s sugar mill, beyond a loop of the river.
While a squad of rebels jumped the low wall in the cattle pen and moved north, engaging soldados and attracting attention with their rifle fire, Smith stole out the main gate and galloped toward Gonzales, disappearing into the night.
THE TWO HUNDRED MEN John Smith left behind him in the fort may not have been well trained or organized, but they were a determined bunch. Beneath the dirt and grime and stubble and rags was a group who had been tested and not found wanting. Many of them had been among the first to answer the call, to join Stephen Austin’s Army of the People. These militiamen had hurried to Gonzales at the first request for help and endured much for the cause. They had marched to Béxar and remained there, in cold and rain and wretched conditions, for many weeks. They had stormed the town in the predawn hours of December 5 with Milam and Johnson and Grant, running through the dark cornfields and streets to gain a tenuous foothold on the well-fortified town held by the Mexican army, a much larger, better organized, and better equipped force, battling house by house and room by room for five grueling days.
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