by Drew McGunn
The fiery Tejano nodded curtly, snapping back to the present. He shouted orders and moments later another trooper was racing across the ground between the Alamo and the town.
Will turned to Lt. Colonel Johnston. “Have the bugler sound an officer’s call and then assembly.”
A couple of minutes later, Will and Johnston were surrounded by every officer in the fort above the rank of lieutenant. A dozen men listened to Will as he barked out orders. The previous month’s extensive drilling paid dividends as the officers listened to Will lay out the strategy for the coming battle. Now, though, it was no drill.
“Captain Hays.” Will addressed a young Ranger officer, part of the two companies Major Caldwell had dispatched from the Frontier forts, “You and Captain Wallace will deploy your Ranger companies north of the prison compound. Your men will act to delay the Comanche while our infantry deploy. With a casual salute, the young man, leapt onto his horse, and galloped through the gate and westward to his command.
Will turned to Seguin, “Pull your men back from before the Comanche, Captain. We’re not going to lose any more soldiers piecemeal if we can avoid it.”
Seguin nodded sadly. “I’ve known Gregorio Esparza since we were boys. His father worked for my father. When this is over I’ll need to call on his wife and tell her. I’d rather fight Comanche all day than face her.”
Will wanted to take the time to tell Seguin it was alright to mourn his friend’s death, but a great deal rested on the captain’s ability to recover the men from their exposed positions north of town. Morosely, the Tejano captain grabbed the reins of his horse and pulled himself into the saddle, and galloped through the gates, heading north in an effort to save the rest of the Republic’s regular cavalry.
“Colonel Johnston, I want you to detail a company of infantry to deploy along the north wall of the Alamo. They’ll stay here along with the artillery under Captain Dickinson.”
A glance at the north wall of the Alamo revealed the old crumbling wall replaced by a taller wall built a dozen feet further to the north, running more than one hundred sixty feet in length. Connecting it to the eastern wall was the northern barracks, which was under construction. The barracks would eventually be two stories tall, twenty feet in height. At the moment, the first floor was complete, but its exterior wall was not quite as tall as the rest of the northern wall. Seventy-five riflemen along the wall, wasn’t many, just one man ever four feet. Even so, Will thought the main thrust of the Comanche attack would be directed at the paddock where the prisoners were kept.
Will pointed to two of the infantry captains. “You’ll be under Colonel Johnston’s direct command, and you’ll be stationed to the northeast of the prisoners’ camp.” At three other officers, he pointed and continued, “Your three companies will report directly to me. We’ll hold the ground directly in front of the camp. Get going. Take up positions about a hundred yards directly to its north.”
As the last of the officers hurried away, leaving Will alone for a moment. He turned around, the gate now empty, as the officers and soldiers hurried to their assigned positions. The Alamo plaza was one hundred fifty yards long between the gate and the north wall. In a world existing only in his head, he imagined what it must have been like for the one hundred eighty souls who died trying to hold it, clinging mistakenly to an idea that Sam Houston would come to their rescue. It was but a fleeting image, and his mind returned to the present where he watched the men of the reserve infantry company running across the plaza, racing to the northern wall, where they would act as both the army’s reserve as well as their left flank. The confidence they bore as they climbed the ladders reminded Will, any enemy would face a very tough fight against his Texians. With that, he swung up into the saddle and turned toward the gate. He had a battle to fight.
He joined the three companies to the north of the prison camp, where he found Major Wyatt already guiding the deployment of more than two hundred men into defensive positions. As he joined the major, his attention focused on the company directly to their front. The captain deployed his eighteen rifle teams forward a short distance. Each four-man team found what cover the open prairie provided.
“Damn it to hell,” he thought, “I had the time to prepare this land and now, we defend ourselves out in the open!”
As Will watched the soldiers, he realized he had made a mistake. There had been plenty of time to prepare. While he had prepared and trained his men, he realized now, he should also have prepared the ground on which they would be fighting. He watched his soldiers crouching down behind the scrub brush and shrubs which dotted the prairie, and realized he could have prepared foxholes, trenches and other defensive fortifications.
From the north, a flurry of shots rang out. It was too far away to tell if Seguin’s cavalry or the Texas Rangers were tangling with the advancing Comanche warriors. To the right of Will’s three companies, he saw Johnston’s hundred fifty men crouching low amid the tall prairie grass. Even as the horsemen retreated before the Comanche, it was reassuring see the infantry in as good a position as circumstances allowed.
The mounted men in front of the infantry turned out to be Hay’s Rangers. As the youthful captain came within hailing distance, Will called out, “Take up our left flank. Tell Captain Wallace I want his men behind Johnston’s men. Tell them I want an eye kept on the prisoners. Where’s Captain Seguin? I want him between your company and the Alamo.”
Hays waved and wheeled around, eager to pass along the orders. A moment later, a couple of dozen Rangers split away from the others, riding hard to the rear, in the direction of the prison camp. Back to the north, the flurry of shots grew to a crescendo as Seguin’s cavalry attempted to disengage from the pursuing warriors. Several troopers from the cavalry galloped by, relief on their faces as they saw the waiting infantry spread out across the prairie. A loud boom echoed from the Alamo’s north wall. One of Captain Dickinson’s nine-pounder cannons fired at a target beyond the retreating troopers. It was quickly followed by the other cannon on the north wall.
After several tense moments, as the cavalry under Captain Seguin disengaged from the Comanche, Will realized he had been holding his breath. He exhaled as he watched Seguin and several dozen troopers ride by the left side of the infantry. When the last of the retreating cavalry passed by, Will felt the thrill of battle rise up within him. He resisted the urge to cry out to the waiting soldiers. Breathing deeply, he calmed his racing nerves and simply nodded to the officers commanding each of the companies, sending them a prearranged signal. In turn, the one close by ordered, “Aimed fire, men!”
From behind the thin line of infantry, Will wasn’t able to see distinct targets, although along the line nearly two hundred yards in length, several men, either better shots or overly eager, fired their carbines.
Finally, through a haze of dust, more than a hundred Comanche warriors materialized. They brandished bows and arrows, spears and here and there even muskets. If he survived the fight, Will resolved to find out if those guns were trade weapons. He’d be damned if he’d let any merchants operating in Texas sell guns to the Comanche. From those first hundred warriors, Will felt a bit daunted as their numbers multiplied in number. Even though it was situated more than a hundred yards behind Will’s line of infantry, when the warriors spotted the prison camp, the shouts and taunts from the Comanche grew in volume. In contrast, the officers and NCOs in Will’s thin, butternut line offered quiet words of encouragement to their own soldiers.
Although it was only a few minutes, time seemed to stand still as the number of Comanche warriors to their north grew by what Will imagined was ten-fold. From a hundred warriors, less than a quarter mile away, they soon became more than a thousand. After their taunts, shouts and catcalls reached a fevered pitch, hundreds of them surged forward, in defiance of their well-versed tactics of hit-and-run. As they closed the distance, the volume of fire ratcheted up. From Will’s position, right behind the thin line of soldiers, he watched as sheets of flame l
ashed out from infantry.
Among the hurtling rush of Comanche, dozens of warriors were knocked from their saddles, hit by the aimed rifle fire, lashing out from the Texian soldiers. A man mounted on his horse is a big target. Unfortunately, most of the target is horse. Even more warriors fell from their horses, when the beasts were hit, sending both mount and rider crashing to the ground. No matter how many saddles had been emptied, even more mounted warriors were streaming in from the north. Will tried to swallow, his mouth felt as dry as sandpaper. He drew the five-shot revolver at his hip and waited.
The four men assigned to the C team, second squad, first platoon of company D, 1st Texas Infantry saw the charging mass of warriors raging like a tempest toward them. The NCO in command of the rifle team was a corporal, who drew a bead on a horseman a couple hundred yards away and fired. Immediately, he cracked open the carbine’s breech, out of which smoke curled, and took a paper cartridge from a large, cartridge box at his belt, tore off the end of the paper with his teeth and crammed the remainder into the breach-block’s tube. He slammed the breech closed, and took a percussion cap from a small, leather cap-box and pushed it onto the nipple and waited. The number two man in the rifle team, fired his carbine at a target, more than five hundred feet away, and rushed to reload. When he was finished, the corporal fired again. Their other teammates alternated firing with each other, too. Across the three companies, a total of fifty-four rifle teams coordinated their fire, sending hundreds of rounds into the charging horde of warriors.
Even though the Comanche warriors preferred, and in fact, had perfected the hit-and-run tactics which had sent tremors of terror through northern Mexico and Texas, there was nothing wrong with their courage this day. Most of them were seasoned warriors and had been on many a raid. Until the last few months, their tactics worked well. Until now, most battles were small affairs, skirmishes, seldom more than ten or twenty on either side. Before, the white man would fire his muskets and then he would have to stand to reload. It was easy to ride in and skewer him as he reloaded. The Texian army’s invasion earlier in the spring had changed the nature of the war. Two villages destroyed, more than a hundred warriors killed. The Texians had changed the way this war would be fought, and the brave Comanche warriors were doing their best to adapt to the change.
They showed their courage as their horses pounded across the three hundred yards, determined to close with the hated mud-colored soldiers. Hundreds of lead rounds had crashed into the charging warriors, from the thin line directly before them. The number of empty saddles was proof of the accuracy of the rifle fire. Less than a hundred yards to go, and if it were possible for the infantry to fire even faster, they did. Too many bullets found their targets, too many saddles were emptied. Despite their courage, most of the Comanche veered to their right and left, angling to flank the thin line of soldiers. If they couldn’t go through the Texians, they would go around. The prison camp was nearly within reach.
Many, though, riled by the punishment they had endured, propelled their mounts forward, closing the last couple of hundred feet. Scores of warriors crashed into the waiting line of Texian infantry. The Texians’ open order tactics left little room between the line of infantry and Will, who was standing just a few yards behind them. He saw a warrior, spear in hand, ride by a soldier, lunging out, catching him in the chest, as he tried scrambling out of the way. No sooner had the soldier fallen, the warrior toppled from his horse when another soldier fired his rifle, point-blank into his face, blowing bone and brains out the back of his skull. Dozens of individual fights sprang up, as warriors closed with the soldiers. Soldiers reached for Bowie knives at their belts, as Comanches grabbed their own knives and war clubs as combat degenerated into scores of melee fights.
Where they were able, each rifle team rallied into a tight formation, each soldier guarding the others’ backs, in an outward facing square. The Comanche warrior, lord of the plains, was adept at one on one combat, but the Texians rifle teams turned the weight of the fight against them. Rather than facing a soldier in single combat, often a warrior was set upon by two or even three men from a single rifle team. Less often, a group of warriors would roll over the small team formations.
The thin line held. The tactical cohesion of his men impressed Will. For each fallen soldier in butternut, there were more fallen Comanche warriors. The warriors who threw themselves at the line of Texian infantry had endured too much and as they fell back, they hurled arrows toward their foes.
More than two hundred warriors swung to the infantry’s left flank. As they raced to the left, their attention was pulled to the corral holding the prisoners. Some of the warriors, who galloped by the infantry, sent arrows plunging into the line of soldiers. In return, those soldiers who were able, reacted by shooting back at the fast-moving targets. Along the eastern wall of the Alamo, a few men from the reserve company fired into the charging mass of warriors. Here a horse was hit, throwing its rider as it crashed to the ground and there a warrior toppled from the saddle as a bullet found its marks. But most of the warriors surged onward, toward the prison camp.
With only yards to go before reaching their goal, the Comanche slammed into Hays and Wallace’s rangers as well as the remnant of Seguin’s cavalry, who opened fire with their revolvers. Less than eighty Texians faced off against more than twice as many Comanche. Four hundred rounds of .36 caliber ammunition smashed into mass of Comanche warriors in just a few seconds. From after-action reports filed by the Texian officers, no rational person could fail to acknowledge the unsurpassed bravery and determination of the Comanche warriors. They were nearly without equal. But leather shields provide no protection to flying bullets and there comes a point at which no amount of bravery or resolve can overcome lethal firepower. Like a car hitting a brick wall, the Comanche found that point on that late spring day in 1837. The flower of the Comanche nation died on the green prairie, amid the blooms of the bluebonnet fields, outside the walls of the Alamo. They were killed in numbers they had never experienced.
Not far away, to the west, a few hundred warriors bypassed the attack on the prison camp, and rode for San Antonio. Convinced their comrades would overwhelm the Texians at the prison camp, these warriors rode for plunder. They knew they would find gold, food, and horses in the town. Instead, as they crossed the first street in town, the dozen houses, which fronted the street, erupted in gunfire. Major McCulloch’s poorly trained militia had knocked out windows and climbed onto roofs, intent on turning every home into a fortress.
Ignoring the houses along the center of the road, the warriors fanned out, lapping around the ends of the street. Dozens of warriors rushed the last house on the western end. It was a small home of adobe construction. A heavy wooden door barred the entrance. From its few windows poked a dozen rifles. From atop its flat roof, another half dozen men fired into the mass of warriors. For each gunshot from the windows, a half dozen arrows responded. In only moments, the gunfire slackened, and warriors crawled through the windows, taking the fight to the beleaguered Texians.
Major McCulloch, from his perch atop the center-most house on the street saw the concerted attack on his flank. The militia holding the dozen houses along the street represented half his strength. But one street over, the remainder of his militia forces were assembled. He scrambled down a ladder at the back of the house and ran between two newly built homes. Across the street, he found a company of militia from Gonzales.
“Get up, men! The enemy is on our flank!”
The citizen soldiers leapt to their feet, and shouldered their weapons. Armed with a flintlock pistol and Bowie knife, McCulloch led the way, at a jog.
As the men from Gonzales, sixty strong, rounded the street corner, they ran into a dozen warriors, who, content to leave their companions rampaging through the last house on the street, were seeking other houses to loot. McCulloch raised his pistol and fired it point blank into the face of a warrior and as the Comanche fell, he stepped around the body and used his knife to
parry a war club aimed at his head. A youth, not yet full grown, had attempted to bash in his head. Had the club been expertly wielded, the leader of the Texian militia would have fallen there. As his men were swarming through the Comanche warriors, McCulloch used his weight to barrel over the youth, sending him sprawling to the ground.
As the Comanche warriors spilled out of the house they had overran, they saw the charging Texians. This was not the easy pickings they had expected. Rather than stay and fight, they fell back the way they came, collecting their wounded as they retreated. McCulloch’s company quickly recaptured the last house, finding nearly twenty of their militia dead in and around the building.
More militia filtered between the houses behind their line, reinforcing their comrades along the town’s northern line. With the Comanche in full retreat, McCulloch called his men back. “Let them go, boys. We stopped them.”
McCulloch surveyed the street. Dozens of bodies, mostly Comanche were scattered along its length, but plenty of arrows had found their targets through the windows of the houses in which his men had made their stand.
A stump of a live oak held a prominent place in one of the yards. As the adrenaline wore off, the major sat on the stump, “We did it. We stopped them cold.”
To the east of the Alamo, Will watched as the Comanche warriors slipped away, first in twos and threes, and then in larger groups, moving back to the north. The nearest were a few hundred yards away, and as they retreated, they paused long enough to check those on the ground, collecting their wounded. The bloodied men in the line watched the warriors as they headed north. “If any of those bastards come within arrow range, boys, take ‘em out. They may be the bravest of the brave, but they need to know Texas owns this battlefield.” Will hated himself for giving the order, wondering if a larger measure of compassion was in order.
