Sam Houston and the Alamo Avengers

by Brian Kilmeade

  The men collected the few guns they had—rifles, shotguns, and fowling pieces. Someone suggested a flag was needed, and soon volunteers went to work to make one. Using paint and a sheet of coarse cotton fabric as their canvas, they drew a simple likeness of the barrel of the disputed cannon. Above this symbol, they painted a five-point star to signify the state of Texas. Beneath, they wrote four words in black paint across the length of the six-foot flag. Large enough to be read from enemy lines, they posed a challenge: COME AND TAKE IT.7

  Now Martin, Dickinson, and the other men waited, hoping that reinforcements would arrive before the enemy.

  ONE HUNDRED DRAGOONS

  The Mexicans appeared first. On Tuesday, September 29, a column of one hundred soldiers rode into sight. From across the Guadalupe they gazed on little Gonzales.

  To these professional soldiers, this was just a routine mission, and their commanding officer, Lieutenant Francisco de Castañeda, had clear orders. He was to demand the cannon be handed over and, one way or another, bring to an end this insolence on the part of the upstart Texians.

  Despite the long, two-day ride from San Antonio, the cavalrymen made an impressive appearance astride their horses and dressed in red uniform jackets. They carried nine-foot lances. Sabers and pistols hung from their belts and muskets jutted from their saddlebags.

  The eighteen Texians were grateful that the rain-swollen river made crossing dangerous. They were not experienced fighters, but they did not need advanced knowledge of military tactics to understand that if the numbers didn’t change—Martin and company were outnumbered more than five to one—this was not a winnable fight.

  The Mexicans shouted across the Guadalupe that Lieutenant Castañeda, on behalf of the commander at San Antonio, wished to deliver a dispatch for the mayor of Gonzales. Captain Martin replied that a courier might swim over, and one of Castañeda’s men crossed carrying his lieutenant’s written demand.

  Martin opened and read the dispatch. Its contents were no surprise, consisting of one demand: The Texians must hand over the cannon.

  With reinforcements not yet there, Martin knew refusal would end badly. But there might be a way to buy time. Thinking quickly, he composed a meek response, saying that, with Mayor Ponton out of town, he lacked the authority to comply. Castañeda and his men would have to remain on the river’s west bank overnight. The Mexicans, with an old-world respect for proper procedure, agreed.

  As the Mexicans slept on the opposite bank, the men of Gonzales waited and prayed—and their petitions were answered. That evening reinforcements began to drift into Gonzales. Thirty men arrived from Mina; soon another fifty appeared, mustered from homesteads along the Colorado. The rumored arrival of Cos and his army had galvanized many in Texas, and these men came to fight not only for Gonzales but for freedom.

  The following morning, the Texians managed to delay matters again; the mayor was still absent, Martin told Castañeda, but having been sent for, certainly he would return soon. Martin proposed scheduling the meeting for four o’clock that afternoon. With any luck, they’d be able by then to organize themselves enough to resist successfully.

  At the appointed time, Lieutenant Castañeda returned to the riverbank, expecting to see Ponton crossing over. Instead, he saw a rebellious contingent of Texians gathered on the opposite bank. A Texian read a statement aloud, shouting it across the water. They would not “deliver up the cannon,” the voice echoed. “The cannon is in the town and only through force will we yield. We are weak and few in number, nevertheless we are contending for what we believe just principles.”8

  Castañeda must have been shocked. Why would a tiny group of eighteen men think it could hold off one hundred trained Mexicans? Their resistance was irritating but could easily be put down. The day was coming to a close, but the next day he would march his men north to find an easier crossing, then travel south to Gonzales to teach the upstarts a lesson.

  THE SKIRMISH

  The Mexicans slowly marched north, eventually making camp that evening seven miles north of Gonzales. They occupied the fields of farmer Ezekiel Williams and helped themselves to his crop of watermelons. Secure in what they believed to be their vastly superior numbers, Lieutenant Castañeda and his troopers rested peacefully, blanketed by a deep fog that spread across the Guadalupe River Valley.

  The Texians, with their homes and lives on the line, did not rest. As the Mexicans had retreated north, they had been busy accepting further reinforcements and organizing themselves under leaders. Now numbering more than one hundred sixty men, the volunteers elected John Moore as their commander, and Moore decided it was time to act. Martin’s delaying tactic had bought enough time for volunteers to arrive from as far away as the Brazos River, and now the Texians outnumbered the enemy. No one knew whether more Mexicans were on the way, and it seemed prudent to act while the numbers were still in the Texian’s favor. It seemed even more prudent to make that attack under cover of darkness.

  That evening every available boat ferried men and horses across the Guadalupe. Once all the Texians were across, a Methodist preacher named W. P. Smith delivered a “patriotic address,” exhorting the brave men to do their duty for God and Texas.9 Then, on Colonel Moore’s order, as one soldier remembered, the Texians moved north “with the greatest order and silence.”10

  The fog slowed progress, but at 4:00 A.M., warned by advance scouts that the Mexican encampment was a short distance ahead, the little army halted. The officers arranged the men into battle formation, with the fifty-man cavalry leading the way. Platoons of infantrymen marched on the right and left, flanking the artillery unit, with the brass cannon on its makeshift carriage and Almeron Dickinson heading its crew. A small guard brought up the rear. Still undetected, Moore’s men resumed their advance on the Mexicans in a hushed silence.

  A dog’s bark broke the silence.

  A moment later, a gunshot rang out, a Mexican picket firing into the predawn fog.

  With visibility near zero, the Texians took cover in a nearby stand of trees. They waited: Had they been discovered? Or was the Mexican sentinel just jumpy? Either way, the fog was so thick that it would be foolhardy to attack now. They would wait and attack in the morning.

  Even after sunrise, visibility remained poor as the fog gradually burned off. The sun slowly revealed that their presence had been discovered. Mexican dragoons stood in a triangular battle formation on a nearby rise, “their bright arms glittering in the sun.”11

  With the element of surprise entirely lost, Colonel Moore agreed to a parley. Meeting on middle ground, Castañeda once again demanded the cannon. The Texians refused. The cannon, they said, was rightfully theirs. Castañeda said his orders required him to remain in the vicinity and await further orders if the Texians refused to hand over the cannon.

  Colonel Moore assured his opponent that he spoke for the people of Texas when he promised to “fight for our rights . . . until the last gasp.”12 He invited Castañeda to surrender.

  The Mexican replied he must obey orders, and the negotiators returned to their respective lines.

  With Mexican reinforcements undoubtedly coming from San Antonio, the Texians were not prepared to wait. Instead, they raised their banner—COME AND TAKE IT—over the cannon that was at the heart of the dispute. When a light was applied to its touchhole, Almeron Dickinson’s weapon fired its load of iron shrapnel toward the Mexican line, and the band of farmers and settlers charged across the three hundred yards that separated the combatants.

  To the Texians’ great surprise, the Mexicans, at Castañeda’s order, wheeled their horses and bolted.

  “The Mexicans fled,” remembered one of the Texians, “and continued to fly until entirely out of sight, on the road to San Antonio.” The enemy was out of range before Dickinson’s crew could fire off a second blast of iron scraps from the brass cannon.

  Why had they fled? The Texians were not sure, but that
was no reason not to celebrate the volunteers’ victory over the trained forces. One or two Mexicans had been downed by the cannon’s improvised ammunition, but the worst injury on the Texian side was a bloody nose suffered by a gunsmith whose horse had thrown him at the sound of the cannon.13

  Strictly speaking, the Battle of Gonzales was scarcely a battle, and some of its participants would later call it just “the fight at Williams’s place.”14 Nonetheless, the tale of the courageous men who’d held Gonzales, who’d defied the Mexicans, spread quickly. The threat of Mexican military action seemed suddenly very real, but in fact Casteñada had orders not to bring on a battle to the Texians, but at Gonzales the Texians believed they had defeated an invading army. They had taunted the powerful enemy with their challenge, Come and take it.

  Gonzales was, quite simply, a moment to savor, a victory, a first victory, over the Mexicans. A wave of confidence spread. More than one account proudly termed the skirmish Texas’s “Lexington and Concord moment,” but the danger was far from past.

  JOINING UP

  Where there had been no Texian army, there would soon be one. And some of those who would fight for Texas came together in unexpected ways.

  In the darkness at midnight, on October 9, a man on the run through the Texian wilderness listened carefully: Were the men on horseback, their voices barely distinguishable, friend or foe? Fearing they might be Mexican soldiers, he stood frozen, hoping to remain undetected.

  He had come hundreds of miles across a desert plain from Monterrey. Despite long years in Texas and a sworn allegiance to Mexico, he had been jailed after Santa Anna became dictator. More than three months elapsed before he managed to slip away during a bathing session in a creek. Riding a fleet horse left him by a sympathetic friend, he raced for the Texas line. Now he could do nothing but wait, half-hidden in the mesquite thicket alongside the San Antonio River.

  When one of the silhouetted riders raised a rifle in his direction, his freedom, even his life, might have ended with the report of the gun. But the first sound he heard wasn’t the click of a trigger but a harsh demand.

  “Who goes there?”

  To the stranger’s great relief, the rider spoke English.

  “A friend,” he responded; when he showed himself, some in the company recognized him. The stranger was Ben Milam, an early Texas settler and a man with nearly the status of Stephen Austin. His unexpected appearance was “like finding the dead to be alive.”15

  At forty-seven, Benjamin Rush Milam didn’t look much like the soldier boy he once had been. Born in Lexington, he had gone to war with the Eighth Regiment of the Kentucky Infantry and defended his country during the War of 1812. In his late twenties, the restless young man had found a new home in Texas and, along with his friend Austin, encouraged other settlers to move westward, establishing what came to be known as Milam’s Colony, located between the Guadalupe and Colorado rivers. He had led a venturesome life, accumulating large landholdings, as well as silver and other mining interests (which twice took him to England), and even investing in a project that led to the opening of the Red River to steamboats.

  He had gone to the seat of government to stand up for those “who have built houses, mills and cotton gins, and introduced horses and cattle and hogs and sheep into the wilderness.”16 He had been rebuffed. Now, lined by the years and weathered by his journey, he still wore his tattered prison clothes. A sturdy man who stood six feet tall, Milam felt deeply betrayed by the Mexicans and was willing to fight for the rights of Texians.

  When, after his discovery in the mesquite, he heard for the first time that the Texian rebellion had begun, “his heart was full. He could not speak for joy.”17 These men were volunteers, forming one of many bands around Texas who were looking to work together to fight off the Mexicans. Milam immediately volunteered to join the mission he had accidentally interrupted.

  * * *

  • • •

  MILAM AND HIS NEW ASSOCIATES had a plan: They were looking to meet up with Captain George M. Collinsworth and join the ranks of his volunteer militia.

  Hearing the call to arms just days before, Collinsworth, along with fewer than two dozen men, had departed the town of Matagorda near the mouth of the Colorado River. But on the march toward the newly contested heart of Texas, word of mouth brought more men to the cause from the surrounding coastal prairie. Tejanos concerned for their liberty also joined the ranks, bringing Collinsworth’s count to more than a hundred men.

  His objective was the nearby town of Goliad and its fortified mission building, La Bahía. Population seven hundred, Goliad occupied a hilltop overlooking the San Antonio River. A good, dry road and the navigable river extended south some forty miles to the port at Copano on the Gulf Coast; San Antonio was roughly the same distance north. This was the route General Cos and his troops had just taken, and it made Goliad, with its presidio, a natural base of operations in the region.

  If Collinsworth and his volunteers could capture Goliad, the Texians would possess the perfect picket post from which to prevent the Mexicans from using the main supply route into the heart of Mexican Texas. Or, should the Texians persuade the nation of Andrew Jackson to lend assistance to their cause, the allies could land munitions and supplies from the United States.

  In scouting the previous day, Collinsworth had gained valuable facts from several local Tejanos. These Spanish-speaking citizens told him the Mexican force holding the fort was small, a garrison of fewer than fifty enlisted men and a few officers. Collinsworth had sent a messenger asking them to surrender, but the mayor had refused.

  Seeing no alternative, Collinsworth and his men prepared to attack on October 9. Led by Tejano scouts, three squads, with Milam at the head of one, moved quietly through the streets before midnight that Friday; a fourth band of soldiers remained with the horses outside the town. The mission and the attached imposing stone fortress looked impregnable, but acting on inside knowledge, Collinsworth’s men went straight for the north wall.

  Using axes, they chopped through a wooden door to reach an interior courtyard. One platoon headed for the quarters of the commandant. A sentinel fired on the attackers, but return fire silenced him. They quickly confronted the surprised Mexican commander, who threw up his hands in surrender. The Mexican defenders shot into the shadows; the Americans took careful aim at the enemy’s muzzle flashes. When a lull in the firing permitted one of Collinsworth’s men to call upon the Mexicans to surrender, a Spanish voice agreed.

  The short fight left one Mexican dead and three wounded, with a single Texian injured, his wound minor. The victors took two dozen prisoners, the rest of the Mexicans having escaped into the town.

  A search of the presidio uncovered valuable weapons, including two brass cannons, six hundred spears, many bayonets, and ammunition. Less valuable were the stands of “Muskets and Carbins . . . the greater part . . . broken and entirely useless.”18 But there were large stores of supplies, including food and blankets and clothing. Ben Milam got a new set of clothes, although they were too small for the large man. Six inches or more of his ankles and arms stuck out like a scarecrow’s.

  Whatever the spoils, the result was clear: In Collinsworth’s words, “I am now in possession of Goliad.”19 As at Gonzales, the Texians had demonstrated to the world—and to themselves—they could come together in common cause and fight effectively. After the news reached the distant East Coast later that year, the New York Star had admiring words for the Texians, calling them “mostly muscular, powerful men, and great marksmen; and whether at a distance with a rifle, or in close combat, they will be terrible.”20

  Another clear message had been sent, too: Santa Anna, beware!

  GENERAL AUSTIN

  By 8:00 A.M. on October 10, dispatches from Captain Collinsworth spread the word of Goliad’s capture. In a matter of hours, the news reached Gonzales, where the armed force continued to grow by the day, even by the hour. Fr
om far-flung settlements, in the interior and on the coast, Texians came to join the fight.

  “Recruits were constantly arriving, singly and in squads,” remembered one soldier, “. . . [but] we soon had more officers than men.”21 Captain Moore no longer had clear charge of this motley band, the majority of whom hadn’t yet arrived when he was chosen. A mix of lieutenants, colonels, and other captains would be required to command these men—but most of all the Texian rebels needed a general. A vote was scheduled for October 11; in keeping with militia tradition, the commander would be chosen by the men.

  When Stephen Austin rode into camp early that Sunday afternoon, he didn’t look well; “he was so feeble that his servant Simon [had] had to assist him to mount his horse.”22 But that didn’t diminish the esteem his fellow Texians held for him and, one by one, the other candidates for the generalship bowed out. When the appointed hour of 4:00 P.M. rolled around, the rank and file unanimously chose Austin commander of the Volunteer Army of the People. He could claim no military experience beyond a few fights with marauding Indians and brief service in the Missouri militia during the War of 1812; still, he was the unimpeachable choice, founder and empresario, a man who’d gone to prison for his belief in Texas. His countrymen knew this citizen soldier would rise to any call to serve Texas.