by H. W. Brands
Smith, however, who was more intent on fighting his enemies in the provisional government than on fighting the Mexicans, neither recalled the order nor increased the resources to carry it out. Travis, perhaps deciding that his reputation as a soldier would suffer more from refusing to accept this assignment than from complying, reluctantly headed off to San Antonio with his small company. “I shall march today with only about thirty men,” he told Smith. “I shall, however, go on and do my duty.” He was not hopeful. “Our affairs are gloomy indeed. The people are cold and indifferent. They are worn down and exhausted with the war, and, in consequence of dissensions between contending and rival chieftains, they have lost all confidence in their own government and officers. . . . The patriotism of a few has done much; but that is becoming worn down. I have strained every nerve; I have used my personal credit, and have neither slept day nor night since I received orders to march, and, with all this, I have barely been able to get horses and equipments for the few men I have.”
Travis’s gloom persisted after his arrival at San Antonio on February 3. His commission as lieutenant colonel placed him in rank below James Neill, who nominally commanded the entire garrison but in reality controlled only those men who had enlisted in the regular army and the organized volunteers. About half the garrison still consisted of individuals who had never enlisted for anything and who—as before—insisted on choosing their own officers. These men elected Bowie, who shared their independent spirit and their scorn for such niceties as chains of authority. Yet Bowie habitually deferred to Neill, which made for an orderly, if tenuous, command of the post.
Ten days after Travis arrived, however, Neill received word of serious illness in his family, and he took a leave of absence. He conferred his command on Travis—to whom Bowie, with the advantage of thirteen years and considerably more fighting experience, saw no reason to defer. A divided command resulted, with the regulars following Travis and the volunteers Bowie.
“My situation is truly awkward and delicate,” Travis complained to Smith. What made it even more awkward was that Bowie was behaving with utter irresponsibility. “Since his election he has been roaring drunk all the time, has assumed all command, and is proceeding in a most disorderly and irregular manner—interfering with private property, releasing prisoners sentenced by court martial and by the civil court, and turning everything topsy turvy.” Only Travis’s sense of honor kept him at his post. “If I did not feel my honor and that of my country compromitted I would leave here instantly for some other point with the troops under my immediate command, as I am unwilling to be responsible for the drunken irregularities of any man.”
Travis would stay, but for the sake of Texas he must have reinforcements. “I hope you will immediately order some regular troops to this place, as it is more important to occupy this post than I imagined when I last saw you,” he told Smith. “It is the key of Texas. Without a footing here, the enemy can do nothing against us in the colonies.”
Eventually Bowie sobered up, and when he did he agreed to share the command with Travis. Although this was hardly less awkward than the situation Travis complained of to Smith, it improved morale. Meanwhile, the approach of Santa Anna encouraged cooperation between the Texas commanders. Travis couldn’t claim the loyalty of the volunteers, but Bowie could; and if Travis hoped to keep the volunteers in the fort, he had to heed Bowie’s advice and opinions. Bickering continued but less egregiously than before.
Santa Anna knew of the hardships suffered by de la Peña’s brigade and the rest of the Army of Operations. But he deemed swiftness essential in crushing the Texas rebellion before it advanced any further. Among the Mexicans of Texas were many who willingly provided intelligence to Santa Anna against the Americans. He probably knew that Houston and the others weren’t expecting to have to fight till spring (“By the 15th of March, I think, Texas will be invaded,” Travis wrote on February 13), and he knew that more Americans were arriving in Texas by the week. Indeed, Santa Anna’s foreign minister made regular complaints to the Jackson administration in Washington about the raising of Texas-bound volunteers in the United States. Jackson’s secretary of state, John Forsyth, replied that President Jackson had taken “all the measures in his power . . . to prevent any interference that could possibly involve the United States in the dispute, or give just occasion for suspicions of an unfriendly design on the part of this Government to intermeddle in a domestic quarrel of a neighboring state.” Santa Anna could not have been reassured by this bland statement, which left a great deal of room for persons not associated with the American government to intermeddle as they chose—as Forsyth himself acknowledged in saying, “For the conduct of individuals which the Government of the United States cannot control, it is not in any way responsible.”
By all evidence, the Texas revolt united the Mexican people more effectively than anything Santa Anna had been able to do on his own. “This country is in a perfect tempest of passion in consequence of the revolt in Texas, and all breathe vengeance,” Jackson’s minister in Mexico, Anthony Butler, informed the American president. Santa Anna was capitalizing on this support in waging his war against Texas, which he was portraying as a war against the United States. Butler was hardly an unbiased observer on the subject of Santa Anna, but he probably got the outlines of the president-general’s reaction right when he said, “Santa Anna is perfectly furious, mad, and has behaved himself in the most undignified manner, boasting of what he would do not only with the insurgents of Texas but also with the United States, who he has identified with the revolt, charging our Government and people with promoting and supporting that revolt with sinister views, with the view of acquiring the territory. He has sworn that not an inch of the territory shall be separated from Mexico, that the United States shall never occupy one foot of land west of the Sabine.” Butler related a story he heard from an eyewitness regarding a reception given by Santa Anna for the British and French ministers. “Santa Anna as usual very soon began to speak of the affairs of Texas, and as a consequence introduced the United States. He spoke of our desire to possess that country, declared his full knowledge that we had instigated and were supporting the revolt, and that in due season he would chastise us for it.” Butler thought this threat so extraordinary that it required repeating. “Yes, Sir,” he told Jackson, “he said chastise us. He continued: I understand that Gen. Jackson sets up a claim to pass the Sabine, and that in running the division line hopes to acquire the country as far as the Neches. ‘Sir,’ said he (turning to a gentleman present), ‘I mean to run that line at the mouth of my cannon, and after the line is established, if the nation will only give me the means, only afford me the necessary supply of money, I will march to the capital. I will lay Washington City in ashes, as it has already been done once’ (turning and bowing to the British minister).”
Some of Santa Anna’s expression of outrage was probably for effect, but he doubtless was sincere in believing that Mexico was under assault from the United States. It was this belief that led him to treat the Texas rebels as pirates and adventurers rather than disaffected citizens of Mexico. Politically, the rebellion in Texas served Santa Anna’s purposes by letting him reprise his role as defender of Mexico against its enemies, and by this means rally the Mexican people around his banner. The farther north he got and the closer his army approached to the Americans defending San Antonio and the rest of Texas, the more plausible his patriotic role became. As his troops rested briefly on the banks of the Nueces before making the last march to San Antonio, the commander in chief appealed to their love of country:
Comrades in arms! Our most sacred duties have conducted us to these plains, and urged us forward to combat with the mob of ungrateful adventurers, on whom our authorities have incautiously lavished favors. . . . They have appropriated to themselves our territories, and have raised the standard of rebellion in order that this fertile and expanded department may be detached from our republic, persuading themselves that our unfortunate dissensions ha
ve incapacitated us for defense of our native land. Wretches!—they will soon see their folly.
Soldiers! Your comrades have been treacherously sacrificed at Anahuac, Goliad and Béjar; and you are the men chosen to chastise the assassins.
My friends! We will march to the spot whither we are called by the interest of the nation in whose service we are engaged. The candidates for acres of land in Texas will soon learn to their sorrow that their auxiliaries from New Orleans, Mobile, Boston, New York and other northern ports, from which no aid ought to proceed, are insignificant, and that Mexicans, though naturally generous, will not suffer outrages with impunity, injurious and dishonorable to their country, let the perpetrators be whom they may.
Until Santa Anna was almost within sight of San Antonio, the Texans knew nothing specific of his approach. The undermanned garrison couldn’t maintain regular reconnaissance but had to rely on rumors filtered through the populace in the path of Santa Anna’s army. The reliability of that populace, and hence of those rumors, was subject to the usual vicissitudes of war; like most ordinary people in most armed conflicts, the Tejanos wished primarily to be left alone. Some had sided with the Americans; even now Juan Seguín walked step for step with Travis and Bowie along the walls of the Alamo. Others cast their lot with Santa Anna. There weren’t many convinced centralistas among the Tejanos (local control made as much sense to northern Mexicans as to western Americans), but many of the Tejanos took umbrage at the flood of illegal immigrants from the United States and agreed with Santa Anna that they were pirates and filibusters. Moreover, the example of Zacatecas wasn’t lost on the Tejanos. Perhaps—just perhaps—the Americans in the Alamo could preserve themselves from Santa Anna’s wrath. But who would save those outside the walls? A man might wish to oppose the dictator, and many had till now; but who would defend that man’s family? Even Travis, at a moment when each man in the Béxar garrison might make the difference between survival and disaster, acknowledged the higher claim of family upon his troops, and after Seguín relayed an eleventh-hour request from several of the Tejano volunteers for furloughs, he let them go.
Between the lack of reliable intelligence and the speed of Santa Anna’s approach, the Mexican army was almost upon the rebels before they realized the imminence of their peril. Travis had given his men the night of February 22 off from their labors about the Alamo; some were still carousing in the small hours of the next morning when they observed townsfolk loading wagons and carts as if for a journey. Inquiry elicited unhelpful answers: that they were going to visit relatives in the country, that with the approach of spring they needed to tend distant fields. Travis, alarmed, questioned them further, even threatening to lock them up till they told what they knew. At this point someone revealed what had started the exodus: Santa Anna’s army was at the Medina River, less than ten miles away, and approaching fast.
Travis naturally sought to confirm the report. He ordered two good horsemen to ride toward the Medina till they made contact with the enemy or proved the rumor wrong. If they saw the Mexicans, they should gallop back at once.
Travis and several others climbed to the roof of the San Fernando Church, the highest point in town, to watch the riders depart. For more than a mile the horsemen remained in view, growing smaller but still visible on the prairie. After several hundred yards more they topped a modest elevation and were about to slip from sight when they reined in their horses, apparently spotting something beyond the view of those on the roof of the church. Then, after but a moment, they turned and tore back toward the town, racing as if Satan himself were on their heels.
Travis didn’t wait for their report; their haste told him all he needed to know. He ordered the entire garrison to withdraw to the Alamo, to the positions they had been preparing these last weeks. At almost the same time, he dispatched another appeal for help, this time to Gonzales, the garrison closest to Béxar and the one from which reinforcements might arrive soonest. “The enemy in large force is in sight,” Travis wrote. “We want men and provisions. Send them to us. We have 150 men and are determined to defend the Alamo to the last.”
Had the Texans been even slightly less attached to their individualism, the sudden appearance of Santa Anna must have solved the problem of the divided command between Travis and Bowie. Badly outnumbered, the Texans should have realized that their sole hope for survival lay in unity. But the democratic spirit died hard, and Bowie and the volunteers continued to refuse to subordinate themselves to Travis and the regulars.
The split became freshly apparent on the day of Santa Anna’s arrival. As the Mexican troops streamed into the undefended town, across the river and several hundred yards from the Alamo, Santa Anna ordered a red flag raised above the San Fernando Church. The Texans interpreted this as a signal that no quarter would be given. Travis responded defiantly, ordering a cannon shot fired in the direction of the church. But Bowie wanted to talk. Pleading confusion, he addressed a letter to Santa Anna (as “Commander of the invading forces below Bejar”). “Because a shot was fired from a cannon of this fort at the time that a red flag was raised over the tower,” Bowie said, “and a little afterward they [some of Bowie’s comrades, presumably] told me that a part of your army had sounded a parley, which, however, was not heard before the firing of the said shot, I wish, sir, to ascertain if it be true that a parley was called for.” The letter closed, “God and Texas!” and was signed by Bowie alone, as “Commander of the volunteers of Bexar.” A Bowie aide carried it across the plain and the river to Santa Anna’s headquarters.
Santa Anna answered indirectly. “As the Aide-de-camp of his Excellency, the President of the Republic,” José Batres wrote, “I reply to you, according to the order of his Excellency, that the Mexican army cannot come to terms under any conditions with rebellious foreigners to whom there is no other recourse left, if they wish to save their lives, than to place themselves immediately at the disposal of the Supreme Government from whom alone they may expect clemency after some considerations are taken up.” Batres closed: “God and Liberty!”
Actually there was another recourse left to the rebels, although they might not have been fully aware of it. During the first forty-eight hours after the arrival of the Mexican army, Santa Anna made little effort to seal all the exits from the Alamo. José de la Peña believed that the Texans could easily have withdrawn—indeed, de la Peña spoke of “the certainty that Travis could have managed to escape during the first nights”—had the rebels chosen to leave.
Instead they remained. Their decision to do so reflected their confidence in their skill at arms, their ignorance of the opposition they faced, and their trust in their fellow rebels. Before Santa Anna’s arrival, Travis and Bowie hardly doubted that they could defend the Alamo against any force the Mexicans might send against them. Bowie, especially, had made a habit of outnumbered victory—over his Louisiana foes at the Sandbar, over the Indians at San Sabá, over the Mexicans at Concepción—and with the walls and cannons of the Alamo on his side, he didn’t flinch at a numerical disadvantage of even ten to one. Anyway, he and Travis expected reinforcements: from Goliad, from Gonzales, or from the contingent that had marched off to Matamoros. Santa Anna’s arrival evoked a reassessment of what they faced; the sight of the columns pouring into Bexár would have sobered anyone. But from the ramparts of the Alamo, Travis and Bowie couldn’t count the Mexican troops, and they had no good idea of what they were up against. They still expected reinforcements, and even if the odds were worse than before, the rebels were sufficiently belligerent to hold their ground.
The decision to stay came more easily on account of a recent addition to the garrison. David Crockett took his time riding across Texas from Nacogdoches; his journey had the air of a political campaign as much as a military march. Young John Swisher encountered the Tennesseean at the Swisher farm above San Felipe and was most impressed. “At the time I saw Colonel Crockett,” Swisher recalled, “I judged him to be about forty years old [Crockett was forty-nine]. He wa
s stout and muscular, about six feet in height, and weighing 180 to 200 pounds. He was of a florid complexion, with intelligent gray eyes. He had small side whiskers, inclining to sandy. His countenance, although firm and determined, wore a pleasant and genial expression. Although his early education had been neglected, he had acquired such a polish from his contact with good society that few men could eclipse him in conversation. He was fond of talking and had an ease and grace about him which, added to his strong natural sense and the fund of anecdotes that he had gathered, rendered him irresistible.” Stopping a few days at the Swisher place, Crockett engaged John in a series of shooting contests, good-naturedly handicapping himself to level the field. “My recollection is that we had a drawn match of it,” Swisher said. At night, Crockett and the elders, with Swisher listening, talked late. “During his stay at my father’s, it was a rare occurrence for any of us to go to bed before 12 or 1 o’clock. . . . He told us a great many anecdotes, many of which were common place and amounted to nothing in themselves, but his inimitable way of telling them would convulse one with laughter.”
Crockett learned that action was expected at San Antonio, and he made his way there, arriving during the second week of February. His coming heartened the officers and troops of the garrison, who reasoned that their cause must be just if it could attract such a figure as Crockett. His coming also steeled the resolve of the garrison to stay and fight, for if Crockett, who had no land in Texas, no family in Texas, and no prior connection to Texas, had chosen the moment of maximum danger to enter the Alamo, it must be a mean and cowardly soul who would choose that moment to flee. In addition, Crockett’s appearance eased the tension between Travis’s regulars and Bowie’s volunteers. By virtue of age, military experience, and national prominence, Crockett outranked everyone at the Alamo. Yet he refused to accept a commission, declaring that he would be honored to serve as a private. His goal was not glory but vindication of liberty and the right of common folks to shape their future.
