by H. W. Brands
More to the point, Houston was right in arguing that San Antonio wasn’t essential to the Texan cause. It was too far from the American settlements, too close to the rest of Mexico, too hard to defend. The war would never be won at San Antonio, but it might be lost there. The proper line of defense was the Guadalupe.
Had anyone actually commanded the troops at San Antonio, Houston’s argument might have taken hold. But the army had a mind of its own—many minds, in fact, and they kept changing. After weeks of refusing to attack the town, the volunteers suddenly decided that an attack was precisely what was called for. The catalyst for the decision was a report that a Mexican relief column was approaching from the Rio Grande. Somehow a rumor arose that the column was carrying a large quantity of silver. Many of the rebels were bored with the siege and intrigued by the thought of booty, and they determined to capture the column and claim its prize. To lend a semblance of order to the expedition, Edward Burleson, who had been elected by the volunteers at the front to replace Austin (by which election the volunteers spat in Houston’s face), ordered James Bowie to lead the group.
Bowie and about forty men intercepted the Mexican column a mile from Béxar but still within sight of the town, across the open plains that surrounded it. Although outnumbered three or four to one, the Texans hardly hesitated before galloping against the Mexican train. The surprised Mexicans fought their way to an arroyo, where they dug in. Meanwhile General Cos, hearing the shooting and seeing the predicament of the relief column, dispatched a contingent from the town. At this, the Texans took cover in an arroyo close by the one that held the Mexicans.
The two sides traded fire. The Mexicans, hoping to capitalize on their greater numbers, charged the Texan line, only to be forced back by the rebels’ rifles. The battle raged for some time, till Texan reinforcements—additional volunteers, who refused to stay in camp while Bowie’s group seized all the silver—reached the scene. Their arrival prompted the Mexicans to make a dash for the safety of the town, covered by artillery Cos had ordered out for that purpose. With the cannons holding the Texans off, the Mexicans escaped, although they left their baggage behind.
The Texans approached their prize with plunder foremost in mind. To their dismay and chagrin, all they found was fodder: grass the Mexican soldiers had cut in the meadows outside San Antonio and were taking to feed the horses and mules there. This was no relief column but a foraging party; its booty was nothing the Texans couldn’t have gathered peacefully on their own.
The ludicrous affair acquired the derisive label “Grass Fight,” and it increased the restiveness of the Texas troops. Many had already gone home; others threatened to do so imminently. A rambunctious few, with perhaps no homes to go to, decided to carry the fight to Mexico, via an attack on Matamoros. Though they claimed patriotism as their motive, many apparently hoped to find more worth seizing there than they had discovered in Texas.
Edward Burleson, unable to keep the men in camp by orders or threats, resorted to promises—of an attack on San Antonio. As luck would have it, Cos released three Americans lately held prisoner in the town; arriving in the Texan camp, they reported that the garrison was more vulnerable than Burleson and the rebels had believed. Burleson announced that an assault would begin the next morning, December 2.
But again the broken—or nonexistent—chain of command fouled the operation. Polling their men, the company captains told Burleson they wouldn’t attack. Burleson, like Austin earlier, had no choice but to acquiesce in what in any normal army would have been mutiny.
The double reversal profoundly discouraged the troops—many of whom, it turned out, were quite ready to fight. Hundreds more abandoned the camp, on grounds that if they weren’t going to fight Mexicans, there was no reason to remain. “All day we get more and more dejected,” wrote Samuel Maverick, one of the dwindling faithful. “The general [Burleson] mustered the remaining men and begged them to not all go, but some stay and retreat with the cannon to La Bahía. A retreat seems our only recourse. The spectacle becomes appalling.”
Herman Ehrenberg was the son of a Prussian official of the court of Frederick William III, which made the lad’s liberal leanings a problem for both himself and his father, not to mention the court. In his student years at Jena in the early 1830s, young Herman practiced the kind of demonstrative politics that spilled from the campus onto the streets of the city and landed many of the student leaders in jail. But Ehrenberg seems to have been comparatively unimportant or particularly clever, for he eluded the Prussian police until he decided, sometime around his seventeenth birthday, to flee the country for America.
New York, the first stop for most immigrants from Europe then and later, didn’t suit him, for reasons unclear. After assorted adventures he found himself in New Orleans in October 1835, as news of the incipient revolution in Texas crossed the Sabine and floated down the Red and Mississippi Rivers. “Reports of the events in Texas filled the newspapers of the city, and the whole press, indifferent for once to party politics, supported the colonists in their rising,” Ehrenberg remembered. “Democratic as well as Whig and Independent papers vied with each other in their efforts to arouse public interest in the cause of the rebellious settlers. The success of this propaganda was complete, for all the citizens of New Orleans, native-born Americans as well as immigrants from Europe, Protestants as well as Catholics, were ready to help the brave men who were fighting against Mexican oppression.”
A group calling itself the Committee for Texas, organized by Adolphus Sterne—who happened to be the landlord of Sam Houston in Nacogdoches—announced a rally to be held at eight o’clock in the evening of October 11. On every corner of New Orleans placards two feet high called lovers of liberty to the cause of their Texas neighbors. Ehrenberg, inclined to be indignant toward any trespass on personal freedom, and not gainfully employed at the moment, couldn’t resist the invitation.
While the cathedral clock slowly tolled its eight strokes, crowds of men poured into the coffee-house of the Arcade. This place was soon packed, and a deafening din prevailed until the appearance of the first speaker on the platform. Uproarious cheers greeted his arrival, then a deep silence fell upon the assembly; for everyone was eager to hear the message of the colonists, whose delegates and friends now came forward to explain the cause of the rebellion and to ask for support and sympathy. But these official representatives were not the only speakers who addressed the public; several citizens, carried away by the excitement of the moment, stood up and in a fervid if informal manner expressed their wishes and hopes in behalf of Texas. These short, spontaneous speeches roused the enthusiasm of their hearers to the highest pitch.
As the orations wound down, a subscription was taken up. Within minutes the committee collected ten thousand dollars for the Texas fighters. A second list circulated, for those who would join the rebel ranks. “A Kentuckian, six feet tall, mounted the now empty platform and wrote his name at the head of the list, while the spectators boisterously clapped their hands,” Ehrenberg recorded. “Old Kentucky was as ready as ever to fight for a just cause!”
Ehrenberg resisted the impulse, but only till the next morning, when he enlisted in the first of two companies of volunteers that came to be called the New Orleans Greys. (The color referred to their uniforms, which distinguished them from the Tampico Blues, another anti–Santa Anna company mustered at New Orleans, bound for the east coast of Mexico.) Besides their uniforms, the Greys were outfitted with rifles, pistols, Bowie knives, and several pieces of artillery. One company of the Greys would approach Texas by river and land, via Natchitoches. The other would travel by sea, through the Gulf.
Ehrenberg, who was one of six Germans among the Greys, was assigned to the company that traveled upriver to Natchitoches. At each stop of the steamboat, Louisianians turned out to cheer the brave soldiers. The Alexandria militia mustered to salute the Greys; the citizens of Natchitoches sent hams, pies, and other treats to their camp and invited the men into their homes for a rea
l meal. Ehrenberg and his comrades savored the hospitality and passed the transit time marveling at the moss-draped oaks and shooting at the sluggish alligators (which seemed more annoyed than injured by the bullets). But they itched to shoot Mexicans and wanted to get to Texas. “News had come that the colonists intended to make an early attack on San Antonio. This report troubled us, for we feared that the great distance which still separated us from our friends would prevent us from reaching San Antonio in time to assist them.”
As they approached the international border, the Greys moved carefully. The Mexican government had protested the use of American soil for staging attacks on Texas, and the Jackson administration publicly adopted a policy of strict compliance with American neutrality laws. American officers at frontier posts had orders to forbid the passage of the Greys into Texas. These orders, however, didn’t compel the American soldiers to patrol the woods in search of the volunteers. “We therefore advanced very cautiously, and spent the night at the home of a gentleman named Thomas, a few miles from the border and entirely beyond the reach of any observation post at the fort,” Ehrenberg explained. “On the next day we left the plantation and came without hindrance to the Sabine.”
They were greeted in Texas even more warmly than in Louisiana. Settlers lined the bank of the river where they crossed. “A pretty Texas girl held out to us a beautiful banner of blue silk, bearing the following inscription: ‘To the first company of volunteers sent by New Orleans to Texas.’ ” At San Augustine, members of the local militia who had stayed home to protect the community from Indians turned out to cheer the newcomers. Their drummer evidently knew but a single tune, a funeral dirge. “The mournful thoughts which this kind of music suggested were not at all in unison with the mood of the enthusiastic Greys. Our drummer, therefore, began to roll out the lively march of ‘Beer in the Mug.’ ” The Greys got the better of this percussive battle, and the somber mood lifted. Two small cannons in the town square fired salvos to honor the guests; barbecued steaks eased their hunger.
At Nacogdoches the Greys obtained mounts, horses acquired from friendly Cherokees by Adolphus Sterne. This saved the soldiers’ legs and mitigated their impatience, as they made better time toward the front. They crossed the Brazos at Washington, which, though raw, appeared to Ehrenberg to have a future. “There were several coffee houses, an inn, and a few shops where every kind of article was on sale, from brass tacks to groceries and ready-made garments.” From Washington the road led toward Bastrop, as the Colorado River community of Mina had been renamed, for the man who had rescued Moses Austin and aided his son. They reached Bastrop at midnight, but despite the late hour the inhabitants threw them a party. Large bonfires illuminated each intersection of the town’s few streets, and everyone made merry till morn.
West of Bastrop the Greys entered Comanche country. The newcomers had heard of the fearsome horsemen of the plains, and all scanned the horizon for the first sign of the Indians. But though the Comanches made no appearance, the Greys felt their presence. A Comanche band, either on a hunt or simply managing the range—to keep trees from encroaching on the buffalo grass—had set a prairie fire, which now threatened to engulf the Greys. “In apprehensive wonder,” Ehrenberg wrote, “we saw that boundless sea of fire sweep over the prairie. The flames leapt closer and closer; dark clouds rose up and rolled slowly over the burning grass.” The fire died out before singeing the travelers, but it left them in a fix, as their horses, already haggard from the four-hundred-mile march from Nacogdoches, now had nothing to eat. “Leaves, shrubs, grass—everything had gone; nothing remained but an appalling blackness.”
Yet the rebel reinforcements made it to San Antonio almost intact. An English member of the Greys got lost and then encountered a Mexican patrol, which shot his horse dead and wounded him. Another man, the drummer who knew the drinking songs, likewise became separated from the main body of Greys. Surrounded by a party of Mexicans, this Louisiana Creole feared for his life. But thinking quickly, he declared that he bore a flag of truce. His captors were skeptical, yet when he said that four thousand American volunteers were right behind him, the Mexicans decided they’d let their superiors sort out the truth in his story, and they took him back to Béxar.
The Greys reached the rebel camp at a critical time for the Texas revolution. With many of the colonists among the insurgents returning to their homes, the new arrivals kept the rebel column from disintegrating entirely. And having traveled so far to engage the Mexicans in battle, they had no desire to return home with their carbines unfired and their Bowie knives unbloodied. Consequently, when in early December Edward Burleson decided to follow Houston’s advice and withdraw the rebel force to the east side of the Guadalupe, they joined the few resident stalwarts in objecting.
The man who spoke loudest against retreat was Ben Milam, an old settler of cussedly democratic instincts and a habit of resisting authority. “Colonel Milam is a native of Kentucky,” explained a Texan who was a member of a patrol that had encountered Milam most unexpectedly some weeks earlier. “At the commencement of the Mexican war of independence he engaged in the cause, and assisted in establishing the independence of the country. When Iturbide assumed the purple, Milam’s republican principles placed him in fetters—dragged him to the city of Mexico, and confined him in prison until the usurper was dethroned. When Santa Anna assumed the dictatorship, the republican Milam was again thrust into the prison at Monte Rey.” But Milam’s patriotism appealed to his jailers, who discreetly allowed him to escape and provided a horse. “The noble horse did his duty, and bore the colonel clear of all pursuit to the place where our party surprised him. At first he supposed himself in the power of his enemy. But the English language soon convinced him that he was in the midst of his countrymen.” Between his imprisonment and his stealthy escape, Milam hadn’t heard that the Texans were in arms against Santa Anna. “When he learned the object of our party, his heart was full. He could not speak—for joy.” Milam took part in the capture of Goliad, and his joy increased. “I assisted Mexico to gain her independence,” he said in the hour of victory. “I have endured heat and cold, hunger and thirst; I have borne losses and suffered persecutions; I have been a tenant of every prison between this and Mexico. But the events of this night have compensated me for all my losses and all my sufferings.”
And now Milam wasn’t inclined to surrender what had cost him so much. When Burleson spoke of dropping the siege of San Antonio, Milam declared he’d attack the place on his own. Frank Johnson, another old settler, seconded the sentiment. Volunteer Creed Taylor described the crucial moment in the rebel camp:
Ben Milam and Frank Johnson were heard in animated conversation, and presently they were observed walking rapidly in the direction of the commander’s quarters. Minutes now passed as hours. Suddenly the flap of General Burleson’s tent was thrown back and a man stepped boldly out and forward. He drew a line on the ground with the stock of his rifle. Then waving his old slouch hat above his head, he cried in stentorian voice, “Boys! Who will go with Ben Milam into Bexar?”
The quick, commingled responses, “I will,” were almost deafening.
“Well, if you are going with me, get on this side,” shouted Milam. And with a rush, animated cheers, and loud hurrahs, the men formed in a line to the number of about three hundred—every one eager to follow the old hero in any venture and at all hazards.
In fact, not quite everyone joined the hazardous venture, which still seemed to some as reckless as it had before Ben Milam spoke up. But Burleson, canceling plans for the retreat, shamed most of those who wanted to go home into staying in the camp as a reserve force. “Remain like men,” Creed Taylor recalled him saying, “and, win or lose, you will share the glory with your brave comrades. Abandon us, and you will merit the contempt of posterity!”
The attack began before dawn on December 5. Milam led one column of volunteers; Frank Johnson led the other. An artillery company under James C. Neill diverted Mexican attention with se
veral salvos against the Alamo, across the meandering San Antonio River, about a third of a mile from the town proper. “The hollow roar of our cannon was followed by the brisk rattling of drums and the shrill blasts of bugles,” wrote Herman Ehrenberg, whose New Orleans Greys enthusiastically joined the assault. “Summons, cries, the sudden trampling of feet, the metallic click of weapons mingled in the distance with the noisy blare of the alarm and the heavy rumblings of the artillery. Our friends had done the trick. Their cannonading had put the Mexicans on the alert, and many of them would probably rush to the defense of the fortress. The success of this first part of our scheme encouraged us, for we thought that in the midst of the din and confusion we should have a better chance of slipping into the city unnoticed.”
A Béxar native, Jesús Cuellar (called “Comanche,” for having been an Indian captive in his youth), who had taken a dislike to Cos and recently come over to the rebels, led the attackers into the town. “Not a word passed his lips, and his eyes were constantly turned toward the Alamo, as if the dense shadows about the fortress held the secret fate of our adventure,” Ehrenberg wrote. Suddenly several rockets shot up from the fortress. Cuellar, relieved, explained that this was the distress signal, calling the defenders of the town to the defense of the Alamo. “It meant, he said, that the road was free and that we were safe.”
Ehrenberg, Cuellar, and the others ran through the dark for the nearest buildings of the town. They saw several Mexican soldiers standing guard around a fire. Cuellar told his fellows not to shoot, lest the noise betray the attack. The key to success was to penetrate as far as possible before the defenders discovered the nature and angle of the assault. “The farther into the city we ran, the more stone houses we should be able to occupy.”
