The Blood of Heroes: The 13-Day Struggle for the Alamo--and the Sacrifice That Forged a Nation

by James Donovan

  Near Santa Anna’s quarters on Main Plaza, a tent was set up where various goods and supplies seized from the rebels were sold. They netted only $2,500—the best of the items had already been taken by His Excellency and his favorites.

  For the town’s residents, life gradually returned to something close to normal. Although the soldiers occasionally took possession of materials and foodstuffs, there was no large-scale sacking, rape, or murder, as had happened in Zacatecas the previous May. So most of the bexareños who had fled before Santa Anna’s arrival gradually began to return to their homes, finding the town even more battered and shell-scarred than before. Others remained at their houses along the many rivers and creeks in the area—memories of Arredondo’s brutal retribution in 1813 were still fresh in their minds, and there were many townspeople who might reveal, to the new centralist authorities, the names of those who had cooperated with the rebels.

  For his part, Santa Anna dallied with his young “bride,” and planned his strategy. Though some of his officers suggested he lead a fast-moving strike force east to find Houston’s army and crush the last of the rebel resistance, he felt no such urgency. The campaign was essentially over, it appeared. The three columns sweeping through Texas—Gaona to the north, up El Camino Real by way of Bastrop; Ramírez y Sesma through the central region, toward San Felipe; and Urrea to the south, along the coast—would quickly mop up the disintegrating colonists and their filibustering friends from the United States.

  IN WASHINGTON, the convention had continued to work on hammering out a proper constitution, their work in the unheated hall made more comfortable by the arrival of warmer weather. It had been more than a week since Sam Houston rode out of town on March 6, in response to Travis’s stirring plea for reinforcements. Since that day, there had been no further word from the Alamo.

  In the afternoon of Tuesday, March 15, a man arrived from Columbia, near the coast, with the news that the Mexican army had attacked the Alamo, but had been repulsed with great loss to the enemy. “The rumor was doubted, on account of the circuitous route by which it came,” recorded an observer in his diary. “All hoped it true, but many feared the worst.” A half hour later, an express rider rode in from Gonzales with reports from Houston detailing the fall of the Alamo and the death of every man in it save a few Negro servants. A subsequent letter from Juan Seguín to delegates Ruíz and Navarro confirmed the news. “Still some did, or affected to, disbelievement,” wrote the diarist.

  But most did believe the news, and a panic seized the town. A few members of the convention left to go to their families. A delegate proposed that the proceedings be moved to a safer venue, but it was decided to remain. The arrival of Dr. John Sutherland in town with additional confirmation the next morning put the Alamo’s fate beyond any doubt. When more news arrived that the Mexican army was on the march east, the convention made haste to finish its work and at the same time prepared to leave town at a moment’s notice.

  Late that night, the constitution was finally ready for approval. While rumors spread through town of a large Mexican force fording the Colorado River at Bastrop, some seventy-five miles away, the remaining delegates voted to accept the constitution. One more job remained: to fashion and elect a provisional government. New officers were sworn in at four the next morning, March 17, and the convention soon adjourned. The delegates joined the families and storekeepers of Washington in hastily packing up and fleeing. “The members are now dispersing in all directions with haste and in confusion,” wrote an observer:

  A general panic seems to have seized them. Their families are exposed and defenseless, and thousands are moving off to the east. A constant stream of women and children, and some men, with wagons, carts and pack mules, are rushing across the Brazos night and day.

  The tale of the country is becoming every day more and more gloomy…. An invaded, unarmed, unprovisioned country, without an army to oppose the invaders, and without money to raise one, now presents itself to their hitherto besotted and blinded minds and the awful cry has been heard from the midst of their assembly, “What shall we do to be saved?”

  ON MARCH 11, Fannin dispatched a force of some thirty men with wagons to Refugio, thirty miles away, to evacuate Anglo settlers there. It was a foolish endeavor, as recent experience should have made clear to him. A few weeks earlier, James Grant and Frank Johnson had split up their small force at San Patricio, Grant taking twenty-six riders to round up wild mustangs for the Matamoros invasion they still envisioned, Johnson remaining in town to guard the hundred horses they already had. Early in the morning of February 27, in a driving rain, one hundred cavalrymen under the personal direction of General Urrea attacked Johnson and his thirty-four men. By dawn the battle was over. Ten Texians were dead, and eighteen taken prisoner. Only seven men escaped, including Johnson, who reached Goliad two days later. Four days later, on March 2, Urrea and eighty dragoons ambushed Grant and his detachment at Agua Dulce Creek, sixteen miles south of San Patricio, as the Texians herded several hundred horses toward town. The results were equally disastrous: six escapees and only six taken prisoner.

  Word of each calamity reached Goliad a few days after its occurrence, as did abundant warning of Urrea’s presence in the area as his command swept up the coast from Matamoros. Clearly, small parties of rebels were not safe out in the open. That knowledge had not deterred Fannin.

  Led by Captain Amon B. King, a former sheriff from Kentucky, the small company had reached Refugio on March 12. Instead of gathering the families and leaving immediately, King decided to punish loyalist rancheros in the area. When the rebels ran into lead elements of Urrea’s cavalry, who pinned them down in a church, King dispatched a courier to Fannin requesting help. William Ward and the Georgia Battalion of eighty men arrived the next day, March 13, and dispersed the Mexicans. Even then, King refused to return to Goliad, and that night rode out to raid a nearby ranch in search of more spies. The delay enabled Urrea to engage the rebels when they attempted to return to the church the next morning. The Texians established a strong position in a grove of trees along a river. The two forces fought until darkness, with King’s long rifles getting the best of it. Both Ward and King were short on powder and ball, and had to make their escape as best they could under cover of a moonless sky. Urrea tracked King’s detachment down the next morning and took it without a fight—what little powder they had was wet. By the next day they were back in Refugio, where thirty-three of them were executed. Ward and the bulk of his battalion would manage to evade capture for a week, until they were taken on March 22. They would eventually be returned to Goliad.

  Meanwhile, on March 14, Fannin had received Houston’s news of the Alamo’s fall and his orders to blow up the fort at Goliad and fall back thirty miles east to Victoria, on the Guadalupe. He continued to wait for King and Ward to return, and then postponed a planned departure on the night of March 18, when scouts reported the night too murky. Finally, on March 19, his garrison spiked their heaviest pieces of artillery, loaded their wagons with five hundred extra muskets and as much ammunition as they could carry, put the town of Goliad to the torch, and marched east: about three hundred men, with nine brass cannon, a few howitzers, and several baggage wagons, all drawn by oxen. None of the wagons carried food; in their haste, the soldiers forgot to bring any. The column departed at eight a.m. The twelve-hour delay would prove fatal.

  They spent much of the morning crossing the San Antonio River, and entered a large prairie extending twelve miles to heavy timber on Coleto Creek. Some of the unwieldy fieldpieces were abandoned along the way, followed by some of the men’s personal belongings, and finally a few of the overstuffed wagons. At noon, just a few miles before they reached the safety of the woods, Fannin called a halt, and the hungry oxen were unyoked and turned out to graze. Some of his officers protested, but Fannin’s low opinion of Mexican soldiers had him convinced that they would not dare attack a force of such size. An hour and a half later, when they were about to resume their march
, a unit of Mexican cavalry was seen ahead, blocking their way.

  Some of his officers advised making for the timber with all speed. But Fannin ordered his men to form a hollow square and prepare for battle. The four remaining cannon were placed at the corners.

  The Mexicans, only about 340 of them at first, advanced. Fannin’s men held their fire until the horsemen were well within range. The barrage did efficient work on the Mexican ranks. They retreated. Another charge was ordered, then another. The Texian lines held firm, though the Mexican soldiers and cavalrymen fought bravely.

  Over the next several hours, until sunset, the battle continued in a desultory fashion. The Mexicans had no cannon, which hindered their attack. But they were soon bolstered by the arrival of reinforcements.

  By the time darkness fell, the Texians were low on ammunition and suffering from a severe lack of water—both for their overheated cannon and their wounded, whose cries of agony and discomfort lasted throughout the cold, wet night. The men worked until dawn digging a three-foot trench and erecting fortifications of wagons, dead horses, and even their dead comrades. A council of war was held, and some of the officers argued for a breakout under cover of darkness. But besides ten men killed, there were at least fifty wounded, and with too many of the oxen dead, there was no way to transport them. Fannin, who was injured in the right thigh, refused to consider any plan that would leave the wounded behind. They remained where they were.

  Dawn brought the realization of new dangers. Mexican artillery positioned on high ground threatened to do severe damage to the rebels’ square. Fannin had hoped that his small force of cavalry, which had escaped, might bring aid from Victoria, about ten miles away, but there was no sign of reinforcements, and now it was clear they were badly outnumbered. After the Mexicans opened up with several barrages of round shot from their brass nine-pounders, a parley was arranged.

  With the help of translators, Fannin treated directly with Urrea. Before he limped out to negotiate, he and his men had agreed that they would only surrender under honorable terms—or fight to the death.

  Urrea demanded surrender at discretion—unconditional, no guarantees. Fannin insisted his soldiers be treated as prisoners of war. The agreement they signed included both conditions. Urrea, a man of honor, disagreed with his government’s policy of execution for the rebels, and promised Fannin he would do what he could to protect them. His own losses included fifty dead and 140 wounded, but he admired the valiant stand put up by Fannin and his men.

  Fannin returned to camp and told his soldiers that they were to be treated as prisoners of war and eventually returned to Copano to be shipped to New Orleans under parole, not to fight against Mexican troops. Though some of them—particularly the New Orleans Greys—objected to the surrender, the rebels gave up their arms and were escorted back to Goliad. Ward and his Georgia Battalion were herded into the fort a few days later and joined their comrades confined in the church.

  Though the conditions in the church were unpleasant—the men were packed so tightly together that only a few could lie down at one time, and they were only given some meat once a day—hopes were high that they would soon be paroled. Fannin and his adjutant were even escorted to Copano, near the coast, to book passage on a ship to New Orleans. The vessel had sailed, but when they returned to Goliad on Saturday, March 26, “they cheered the men with their good spirits and the kind treatment they had received,” remembered one of their doctors. Before retiring, some of the men sang “Home, Sweet Home” in anticipation of their coming freedom.

  That evening a member of Santa Anna’s staff arrived at the fort with a message from His Excellency. Urrea had left one of his officers, Lieutenant Colonel José Nicolás de la Portilla, in charge and continued his sweep through southern Texas, taking Victoria with no resistance. He had directed de la Portilla to keep the rebels alive, and in a letter to Béxar, he attempted to intercede with Santa Anna for the lives of Fannin and his men. Santa Anna’s reply to Urrea was uncompromising: all foreigners captured with arms were to be treated as pirates and executed immediately. His orders to de la Portilla were the same. An hour after Santa Anna’s communiqué, a courier rode into Goliad with a message from Urrea: “Treat the prisoners with consideration, and particular their leader, Fanning.”

  De la Portilla, a twenty-eight-year-old native of Jalapa so darkly complected he was called El Indio, considered himself a soldier, not an executioner. He, too, had been charmed by Fannin—they had recently shared a bottle of wine at dinner, where Fannin had drunk to the health of Urrea. De la Portilla spent a sleepless night agonizing over his choices—the last place he wanted to be was in the middle of a life-or-death argument between two superior officers. In the end, he concluded that he must obey the direct order of his commanding general.

  At dawn the next morning, March 27, Palm Sunday, the uninjured Texians—save for a couple dozen spared as physicians, orderlies, or craftsmen—were awakened and divided into four groups. Each was given a different story: they were to march to Copano, or Matamoros, or gather wood, or drive cattle. They were led under heavy guard down three roads in different directions. About a half mile from the fort, each group was halted, then shot at close range. Those not killed on the first volley were shot again, bayoneted, or lanced by Mexican horsemen. Somehow twenty-eight men managed to escape across the San Antonio River.

  Back at the fort, some of the fifty wounded, unable to walk, were dragged out and executed against the chapel wall. Others were taken to a spot near the gate, where soldados set them on the ground, bandaged their eyes, and shot them two at a time. The rest were slaughtered on their pallets.

  Fannin was the last to die. His bravery during the battle had restored much of the confidence the men had lost in him, and indeed his own. Now he asked that his pocket watch be sent to his widow, that the executioners aim at his heart, and that he be given a Christian burial. His watch was kept by the Mexican officer directing the slaughter, and he was seated on a chair and shot in the face. His body was thrown on a pyre and burned with the rest of his soldiers.

  When the escapees reached safety and told their tales, and the story of the Goliad massacre spread throughout Texas and beyond, the response in the United States and the rest of the world was outrage. Santa Anna had been considered the ruthless but honorable leader of a young republic fumbling toward the new ideal of liberty and equality. The death of every defender at the Alamo, and the execution of a few prisoners, was defensible; the massacre of almost four hundred unarmed men who had surrendered at discretion but had been led to believe they would be paroled was not. The news of such cruelty and bad faith turned much of the world’s opinion against Santa Anna and his troops, and sparked an outpouring of sympathy and a renewed effort throughout the United States to aid the enemies of such a despot. Thousands of volunteers, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, would soon begin making their way into Texas. For now, though, much of the civilian population of the new republic, and its small, irregular army, fled across Texas with Santa Anna’s Army of Operations at its heels.

  EIGHTEEN

  “The Marrow Bone of Texas”

  Do everything in your power so that we can push forward on this ragtag rabble, and get it over with, and then we can go home.

  GENERAL JOSÉ URREA TO GENERAL JOAQUÍN

  RAMÍREZ Y SESMA, APRIL 22, 1836

  After forty days spent fleeing before the Mexican army, Sam Houston was ready to fight. Many of his men had been ready long before, and only a few would realize later how close the Texian forces came to mutiny. Their impatience with their commander had been coming to a head since the hurried retreat from Gonzales.

  Since leaving that town on the night of March 13, they had retreated steadily through the heart of the Texas colonies, with frightened families all along the roads heading east. On the second night out, while camped on the Navidad River, someone told Houston that another Alamo widow, the blind Mary Millsaps, was missing with her seven children. He dispatched a few men
to ride down to her place on the Lavaca River, and the army waited until the Millsaps family had been retrieved before proceeding. Then they continued, Houston riding up and down the slow-moving column, using his penchant for profanity to goad his men into moving faster.

  Finally, late on the afternoon of Thursday, March 17, the army reached Burnham’s Crossing, on the Colorado River. Houston sent the refugees over first, then crossed his troops on the nineteenth. He ordered the ferry burned behind them. The heavy spring rains of the previous two weeks had left the Colorado near flood level. Houston aimed to consolidate his army on the east side of the swollen river. The Texians were now comfortably closer to the bulk of the Anglo colonies, from which they could draw supplies, provisions, and men.

  For volunteers were indeed arriving. At the Colorado, the army numbered six hundred strong. Galvanized by news of the Alamo’s fall, and the invasion of their settlements by a large Mexican army, colonists from every municipality were on the march at last. Major Robert Williamson’s ranger companies, who had been guarding the Bastrop area against Mexican soldiers and Indian depredations, and helping families evacuate, sunk the ferryboats on the upper Colorado and rode south to join Houston’s army. Other companies large and small began arriving in camp. Muddy roads and swollen creeks and rivers slowed every part of the Army of Operations. If the colonists could hold the line at the Colorado, perhaps the Mexican army would be compelled to retreat due to lack of provisions, for their already thin supply lines were stretched to the breaking point.