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

by James Donovan

  On March 20, Houston moved his troops down the Colorado thirty miles to Beeson’s Ferry, where they would remain for almost a week. There, Houston instituted some much-needed drilling and training. He knew his men would have no chance against an army of regulars unless they had some sense of tactics.

  That day, advance units of Ramírez y Sesma’s division began to arrive at the west side of the river. They pitched camp just two miles from the Texians, and the two armies spent the next five days facing each other across the wide Colorado. Houston’s men, still bitter after retreating from Gonzales amid the wailing of the town’s widows, hounded him to fight, but he knew his troops were still not ready, after less than a week of the most basic drills—marching and learning to maneuver company by company. And even if they were to win, there were still thousands more soldados on the march. Houston’s small army, ill-trained and ill-equipped, could not afford even a victory at this point. It was, in fact, time to fall back even farther.

  Houston’s decision was made easier by the news, delivered by scouts on March 23, that Fannin’s force had been surrounded and attacked a few days earlier by a much larger body of Mexicans. The outcome was not yet known, but Fannin had sustained heavy casualties. Save for a few scattered units here and there, Houston’s undisciplined force of volunteers, which had swelled to some fourteen hundred men, was now the only one left to check Santa Anna’s advance. But to Houston’s mind, they were not ready to fight, particularly without a basic knowledge of the fundamentals of battle formation.

  Late in the afternoon of March 26, Houston issued new orders. The army would move out immediately, east toward San Felipe and the Brazos, twenty-five miles away. Before they embarked on their journey, Houston spoke to the assembled men, trying to explain his reasoning:

  There are but few of us, and if we are beaten, the fate of Texas is sealed. The salvation of the country depends upon the first battle had with the enemy. For this reason, I intend to retreat, if I am obliged to go even to the banks of the Sabine.

  As the grumbling troops packed up and set off, murmurings spread that their commander truly did plan to march to the old Neutral Ground, between the Sabine and the Neches, where U.S. troops on the Louisiana border would cross to attack the Mexican army and deliver Texas to Andrew Jackson.

  There was more than a smidgen of fact to the rumor. Houston was in contact with General Edmund P. Gaines, in charge of fourteen U.S. infantry companies moved to the Sabine crossing on El Camino Real, ostensibly to protect settlers in the area from Indian depredations. Gaines was ready and willing to cross over if he found “any disposition on the part of the Mexicans or their red allies to menace our frontier.” The approach of Santa Anna’s army into the old Neutral Ground, whether in pursuit of Houston’s rebel force and fleeing Texian families or not, would surely meet Gaines’s criterion.

  Rain began to fall. Almost every day near the end of March and the beginning of April would be cold and wet, making the thirty miles to San Felipe particularly grueling for the Texians. The next day they continued to slog over muddy roads until they reached the plantation of Jared Groce, on the west bank of the Brazos River. Houston had traded his Indian blanket for an old black dress coat, and he rode up and down the column, encouraging his men and promising he would not lead them to the Louisiana border.

  They made camp in the Brazos bottomlands at Groce’s plantation on March 31, just in time to hear the shocking fate of Fannin’s men, massacred four days earlier. The news only heightened the panic, and hundreds of Houston’s volunteers took furloughs or deserted to assist their families in their flight east. The army shrank to eight hundred stalwarts. Houston spent the next two weeks training his rabble and instilling discipline. While his men talked of mutiny, and of replacing him with someone more aggressive, he spent his nights pondering strategy, usually alone—like Santa Anna, Houston disliked conferring with officers. “I consulted none,” he wrote to the interim Texas government, which had recently arrived in Harrisburg, fifty miles to the southeast, near Galveston Bay. “I held no council of war. If I err, the blame is mine.”

  The heavy spring rains continued, and slowed the progress of the Mexican divisions. Ramírez y Sesma received seven hundred reinforcements, but remained on the west side of the fast-flowing Colorado. Houston continued to drill his men, gradually instilling some understanding of military tactics. And his troops slowly regained their health, recovering from dysentery, measles, colds, influenza, and various other ailments caused by the cold, wet weather, unsanitary conditions, and poor diet. But threats of insubordination and mutiny continued to fester among the more excitable Texians.

  Even Houston’s superiors made their dissatisfaction known. On April 8, the rebel leader received a letter from the interim president, David G. Burnet: “The enemy are laughing you to scorn. You must fight them. You must retreat no further. The country expects you to fight. The salvation of the country depends on your doing so.”

  On April 11, Houston broke camp and led the army across the Brazos, then due east. He did not announce a destination. The grumbling in the ranks grew louder, even when the army’s first artillery pieces arrived on April 12—two mounted six-pound cannon donated by the citizens of Cincinnati. James Neill was put in charge of the Twin Sisters, as they were dubbed—after the twin daughters of the man who formally presented them to the Texian movement. Houston rode up and down the slow-moving column, his customary profanity betraying his impatience.

  Four more days of trudging through mud and rain brought the vanguard of the army to a fateful fork in the road on April 16. To continue straight would lead them across the San Jacinto River and closer to Nacogdoches and the Sabine—and the United States troops hovering on the border. The road to the right led to Harrisburg, where Houston’s scouts had located Santa Anna and 750 of his men racing across Texas to intercept the Texian government and put an end to the revolution. As Houston rode up to the front of the column, the men there turned to the right and marched down the right fork, and shouts of joy spread throughout the ranks. His troops had made his decision for him.

  Two days later, on April 18, they reached the small town of Harrisburg, now nothing but charred remains of homes and buildings—a furious Santa Anna had ordered the town burned after just missing the interim government—where fortune smiled on them. That afternoon, scouts Henry Karnes and Deaf Smith captured three Mexican couriers carrying dispatches to Santa Anna. Their contents were invaluable, revealing the strength and plans of the disparate Mexican forces. El Presidente had marched east to the coast, then north through the bayous to Lynch’s Ferry, there to rendezvous with General Cós’s five-hundred-man division and march on to take Galveston, a rebel stronghold. Santa Anna, it was clear, thought Houston and his army on the way to Nacogdoches. By Houston’s own reckoning, he could muster at least twelve hundred men. If he could overtake Santa Anna and capture him…

  “We are in preparation to meet Santa Anna,” he wrote to a friend the next morning. “It is the only chance of saving Texas…. We go to conquer.” To his assembled troops, he gave an impassioned speech, though they hardly needed encouragement at this point. But when Houston concluded by imploring his men, “Remember the Alamo! The Alamo! The Alamo!” they roared back in unison: “Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!” The army had found its battle cry.

  Everyone was weary of wading through mud and water, but Houston’s speech and the promise of revenge after six weeks of a galling retreat was galvanizing. The troops crossed Buffalo Bayou in a leaky ferryboat and continued the march through the night. The exhausted army finally bivouacked in the early morning hours of April 20. Most of the men fell to the wet ground and wrapped themselves in blankets as a late norther blew in.

  At daylight, the tap of a drum roused the shivering, hungry Texians. A few hours later they reached Lynch’s Ferry. No Mexicans were in sight. Houston “placed his men, gave them his orders, then made them stack their arms in their places and told them to eat their breakfast,” re
membered a soldier. The rebels had just started their fires when scouts galloped into camp, a tall column of smoke miles behind them evidence of the destruction of New Washington, a village on the coast. The advance guard of the enemy was approaching.

  AFTER HIS TRIUMPH AT THE ALAMO, and the capture of the Goliad garrison, Santa Anna had decided to return to Mexico City. His triumphant legions were marching from victory to victory. The American colonists were fleeing the country, and Houston’s small, untrained army was doing the same. When they all crossed the Sabine River, Texas would once again be in the hands of Mexican centralists, and Mexican troops posted along the border would keep the Americans out.

  Most of his commanders disagreed—few thought it would be that simple—but His Excellency could not be dissuaded. He planned to leave April 1. General Filisola would supervise the final stages of the invasion of Texas.

  But when General Ramírez y Sesma reached the west bank of the Colorado on March 21 and sent reports back to Béxar of a strong rebel force across the swollen river—supplying more evidence of his inability to handle problems on his own—Santa Anna changed his plans. His presence and leadership were clearly required to finish the job. Leaving General Juan Andrade in charge of Béxar with more than a thousand men, including most of the cavalry (rendered useless by worn-out, poorly fed mounts), Santa Anna headed east with his staff. After crossing the Colorado, he would personally direct the campaign from San Felipe.

  He wasted no time tarrying along the way. His health had been a problem for much of the march north, but now he seemed to be the Santa Anna of old, full of energy and purpose, pushing his men forward by the force of his will. Two days out of Béxar, he ordered his fine carriage returned to San Luis Potosí—with his new “bride” and her mother its passengers. The incessant rains had turned every road into a mud pit and every field into a lake, and anything with wheels was almost immovable. He would proceed on horseback.

  But the Texian army was gone by the time he reached the Colorado, so he continued on. When he reached San Felipe and the Brazos River on April 7, he found only ashes—the rebels had put it to the torch to keep it out of Mexican hands. They had also taken every boat with them, and Texian sharpshooters across the Brazos prevented the Mexicans from crossing, even after they had built rafts in an effort to do so. Two days later, with the lower Brazos towns of Columbia and Brazoria his destination, an impatient Santa Anna set out downriver for Fort Bend. The enemy could not man every crossing on the river, and his scouts had discovered the ferry there deserted. Apparently fed up with Ramírez y Sesma’s indecisiveness, Santa Anna directed him to remain at San Felipe. From there he would dispatch troops and supplies as needed.

  Santa Anna crossed the Brazos at Thompson’s Ferry, twenty miles downriver from San Felipe. He ordered Ramírez y Sesma to join him, and on April 13, he received information from local colonists that would change his plans—and alter the fate of three nations.

  The intelligence was tantalizing. Interim Texas president David Burnet and his cabinet had relocated to Harrisburg, near the coast, only thirty miles away. Their capture and execution would likely put an end to the rebellion with a minimum of Mexican lives lost: “A single blow would have been mortal to their cause,” Santa Anna wrote later. After dispatching orders to all his commanders to rendezvous at Fort Bend, twelve miles downriver, His Excellency took fifty horsemen and seven hundred soldados—most of them preferred companies of cazadores and granaderos from several battalions—and at three p.m. on April 14 began a hard march over soggy roads to Harrisburg.

  When he reached the town the next evening, he found it deserted save for three of Gail Borden’s Telegraph and Texas Register printers, who had remained there trying to get out one last edition of the paper. They told him the rebel government had left a few hours earlier for New Washington, on the coast less than twenty miles away, there to sail for the safety of Galveston Island. Furious, Santa Anna dispatched Almonte with fifty dragoons after them and ordered Harrisburg burned to the ground. At three p.m., the town in flames behind him, he began marching to the coast. His scouts had told him that Houston, with his puny force, no more than five hundred strong by their count, was on the move, heading once more for the Sabine—and making slow progress due to the families and wagons he was escorting. Houston would no doubt cross the San Jacinto at Lynch’s Ferry, at the mouth of the river. The rebel cabinet might still be captured, but if not, here was another chance to end the war in one swift blow: if Santa Anna could block the ferry and bring Houston’s riffraff to battle, he could quit this country by sea—he had already ordered a ship to await him at Copano, down the coast—and return to Mexico City wreathed in glory. He sent a courier to General Cós at Fort Bend with instructions to march with five hundred more soldados and join him as quickly as possible.

  Santa Anna arrived in New Washington at noon the next day, April 18, to hear disappointing news from Almonte. The colonel had galloped down to the beach to see Burnet and other cabinet members in a skiff about forty yards away, pulling for a steamer out in the bay. They were still within rifle range, and the dragoons took aim, but Almonte pushed one carbine to the side and ordered his men to hold their fire—the gallant colonel had seen a woman aboard. The cabinet, Almonte reported, was likely safe on Galveston Island at that moment.

  On the morning of April 20, after looting and burning the town, Santa Anna’s division marched up the bayou toward Lynch’s Ferry. When advance scouts galloped back to report a large force of rebels up ahead, he was momentarily panicked. But he recovered his composure and continued north toward the ferry. Before noon, they came within sight of the enemy, on the far end of an empty plain almost a mile wide, in front of the road that led to the crossing. Thick woods and marsh surrounded the field of knee-high grass.

  Houston had beaten him to Lynch’s Ferry, but no matter—Santa Anna was confident that his 750 elite troops, most of them seasoned veterans of the actions at the Alamo, or against Fannin at Coleto Creek, could defeat a rebel army of equal size composed of unruly, untrained farmers and frontiersmen. The imminent arrival of Cós’s five hundred soldados would guarantee it. Santa Anna posted his troops at the opposite end of the plain from the rebels, on a slight rise at the edge of a small thicket; five hundred yards to their rear lay a boggy marsh and a good-size body of water known as Peggy Lake. He noticed with some satisfaction that Houston was trapped, with his back against Buffalo Bayou—forced either to fight or go into the water behind him on the other side of the road.

  Once his men had settled in, Santa Anna ordered a sally against the rebel position—perhaps he could draw the enemy out onto the open prairie between them. His gunners wheeled out their only fieldpiece, a brass nine-pounder that had been hell to drag through the boggy roads from the Brazos, and began blasting away. Two rebel six-pounders in the far-off trees along the road answered in kind. A few men were injured on each side, including Colonel James Neill, who sustained a serious hip wound. He was evacuated to a nearby house and would see no more action on this field of battle.

  Near sunset, after a skirmish between Mexican dragoons and Texian cavalrymen that ended with a rebel retreat, both sides retired for the evening. Santa Anna ordered breastworks built, so soldados worked into the night erecting a four-foot wall of pack saddles, sacks of flour and corn, supply boxes, and other baggage. He was content with his army’s position, but he found it difficult to sleep. He had nothing but contempt for the colonists—minister of war Tornel had described them as “ignorant of the art of war, incapable of discipline, and renowned for insubordination,” and Santa Anna agreed with that assessment—but the rebels’ restraint during the cannonade, and their daring mounted attack, had surprised him.

  GENERAL HOUSTON HAD GIVEN ORDERS to his “ignorant” rabble not to awaken him until eight a.m. It was his first good night’s sleep in weeks, and he arose a few minutes before the hour to find the morning clear and the air cool. Reveille for his troops had consisted of a steady tapping on a drum at
four a.m., and by the time their commander awoke, they were excited and eager to fight: “Let us attack the enemy and give them hell at once” was frequently heard. Houston was told that five hundred Mexican reinforcements were arriving. He had been expecting them, thanks to the intelligence acquired from the captured courier.

  About noon, Houston called six of his senior officers to a council of war to discuss one question: Should they assault the enemy themselves, or await his attack? The subject was put to a vote, which yielded a surprising result, considering the troops’ eagerness to fight—all but two were in favor of waiting for the Mexicans to make the first move. One officer was leery of marching across the mile-wide prairie without bayonets; few of the men carried military-issue arms. The other three pointed out the strength of their position and the advantages of defending it.

  Houston dismissed his council, then dispatched Deaf Smith with six horsemen to tear down the small bridge over Vince’s Bayou. Eight miles southwest down the Harrisburg Road, it constituted the only escape route from the battlefield save for the route to New Washington—and was also the most likely route for any more Mexican reinforcements. He advised Smith to hurry if he wanted to participate in the upcoming battle. The scout rode off with six volunteers and a few axes.

  As Smith galloped away, Houston walked among his men, asking if they were ready to fight. The resounding affirmatives were all he needed. “Very well, get your dinners and I will lead you into the fight,” he told them. “And if you whip them, every one of you shall be a captain.” He conferred with his officers again, who had talked to their men and reported them raring to go. And some Texians who had climbed trees reported no activity in the Mexican camp and no sentries along its perimeter.