Sam Houston and the Alamo Avengers

by Brian Kilmeade

  What the Texians did need was a little spontaneous leadership—and in the persons of “Deaf” Smith and Old Ben Milam, they would soon find it.

  * * *

  • • •

  WHEN THE RUMORS of revolution reached him back in September, Erastus Smith wanted no part in the fight. Known as “Deaf” (he’d been hard of hearing since childhood), the red-headed Smith had spent years wandering and tended to keep to himself.

  Born in New York’s Hudson Valley, he lived in Mississippi before coming to Texas, in 1821, where he married a Mexican widow. For years he had lived a happily settled life in San Antonio with Guadalupe and a family that now included four children. But on his return from a hunting trip early that October, the forty-eight-year-old Smith experienced an event that prompted a change of heart.

  One of General Cos’s officers stopped him at the edge of town. As the two men talked, Smith observed a group of other soldiers approaching quickly. Smith grew instantly suspicious: In a town of divided allegiances, he had tried to keep his head down, but these men seemed to be coming for him. Then the officer grabbed for the bridle of his horse; Smith reacted, wheeling his horse, but, before he could spur his mount to escape, the officer raised his saber and swung. Smith took a glancing blow to the head.

  His hat gone and his head bloodied by the blow, Smith broke for the Texian line. Pursued by Mexican troopers, a storm of shotgun pellets peppering him, Smith returned fire over his shoulder. He won the race and, a mile later, his red hair and unshaven cheeks stained with blood, an angry Deaf Smith presented himself to General Austin.

  “I told you that I would not take sides in this war,” he explained. “But, Sir, I now tender you my services as the Mexicans acted rascally with me.”6 Like Ben Milam, Austin himself, and others, Smith’s sense of justice had been pushed beyond endurance. He, too, would take up arms in this fight.

  A GENERAL FADES AWAY

  As November passed, Austin’s days as a general also neared an end. From the start, he had resisted becoming commander in chief; he was not a natural military leader and had accepted the role only because as the senior leader of the colony he hoped he could be a unifying figure among the motley mix of Texian volunteers. Now with the fight stalled and his health still poor, he dispatched an express rider to San Felipe carrying a note to the Consultation.

  He made two plainly stated requests. First, he asked yet again that more artillery and ammunition be sent to the front, along with blankets, shoes, socks, and appropriate clothing for his men now that nighttime temperatures dipped into the forties.

  Second, he asked to be relieved of duty. He urged the council “earnestly and pressingly” to organize “a regular army and invit[e] a Military man of known and tried Talents to command it.”7

  Now that they had a quorum with Houston and the delegates he had taken with him a few weeks before, the Consultation faced many pressing matters, including whether or not to issue a declaration of independence. (They decided against, settling instead on a pledge to create a provisional state government within the nation of Mexico; to do otherwise, they reasoned, would risk turning Tejano allies against the rebels.) The nearly sixty delegates moved on to authorize the organization of a civil administration for Texas. They chose a governor (Kentuckian Henry Smith, an early Texas settler) and a legislative body, the General Council, to be manned by one delegate from each district.

  Finally, they acted on Austin’s recommendation, resolving to establish a “regular army,” one modeled on the rulebook of the U.S. military. But they made no provision for the existing volunteer army; they chose a commander for the new army, which then existed only on paper. And they named Sam Houston to be its major general.

  Houston had been lobbying for a change to Texian military plans ever since he’d arrived in San Felipe in October. This had less to do with his personal feelings toward Austin and much more to do with his strongly held opinion that the Army of Texas should abandon the siege of San Antonio until spring. So convinced was he that the siege was a mistake that he had even worked to influence his friend Jim Bowie and others under Austin’s command to argue with their commander.8

  Houston’s well-known opinions probably contributed to the Consultation’s choice of him as general, but it’s likely they would have selected him anyway. There was something reminiscent of George Washington’s appearance at the 1775 Continental Congress in Houston’s presentation of himself for service. His imposing stature, his military service in the War of 1812, his generalship of the Tennessee militia, and his status as a well-known former Tennessee governor made him an easy choice.

  Now Texas had two armies and little meeting of the minds: Austin, at least for the present, headed the citizen militia, while Houston was charged with creating an official force.

  But the Consultation had a plan for Texas’s elder statesman once he left his command. They named Austin the new government’s emissary to the United States, instructing him to negotiate a million-dollar loan to get the new state up and running.

  As for Austin, he had one more military maneuver left in him.

  * * *

  • • •

  WHEN INFORMED OF HIS NEW, nonmilitary role, on November 18, Austin chose to keep the news to himself. Four days later, he ordered his officers to prepare their men for a dawn attack the next morning. Although officially he had been relieved of duty, no one had arrived to take his place—and Austin wanted to capture San Antonio before his generalship ended.

  Austin’s wish would not come true, but not because of any failure on his part. At 1:00 A.M. that night, one of his divisional commanders awakened him. He reported that his officers and men refused to obey orders. Some of them, undoubtedly influenced by Houston, opposed the order of attack and were “unwilling to attempt it.” Though “greatly astonished and mortified,” Austin had little choice but to withdraw the command.9 There would be no November assault on San Antonio.

  The day after, a disappointed Stephen Austin took his leave. He bade the troops farewell, urging them to be “true to Texas and obedient to their commander.”10 Austin would not miss the challenge of instilling discipline among this wild bunch of independent men. He did not question the frontiersmen’s toughness, but he felt frustrated by their unwillingness to submit to normal military discipline. It was apparent even at reveille. As one recent recruit reported, the troops at morning roll call stood before their sergeant half-dressed, most without their guns. Some didn’t join the ranks at all but remained at nearby fires preparing their breakfasts. “Once a sleeping ‘here!,’” the newcomer reported, “[coming] from under the canvass of tent, caused a hearty laugh among the men.”11 Despite the call to attention, the man couldn’t be bothered to rise from his bed. This assemblage of Texians could barely be called an army. It survived on rationed supplies, fought for no pay, and lived in the cold. That very morning the temperature had dropped to thirty-one degrees.

  Yet as he took his leave, the volunteers understood that Austin, whatever their doubts about his generalship, was one of Texas’s finest. “The men came up and shook hands with him in tears and silence,” his nephew and aide Moses Austin Bryan reported, “for many thought they would never see him more.”12

  With Houston off raising the new official army, a Texian named Edward Burleson was elected general of the militia. Like Houston, he had fought in the War of 1812, and the troops identified with his personal history. His family had moved from North Carolina to Alabama during his childhood; after his marriage, he’d taken his own family to Missouri and Tennessee before coming to Texas, in 1829. He, too, was a second-chance man. With Burleson now in charge, Austin, together with his nephew and a manservant, headed out for San Felipe de Austin, the first step in his journey back to the United States.

  THE GRASS FIGHT

  When Deaf Smith had come into camp, Austin recognized he was a natural scout. He was a skilled horseman. He knew the region wel
l, and the solitary nature of the task suited him. His neighbors reported that Smith was afraid of nothing. Austin sent him on regular patrols, since the Texians needed intelligence regarding Mexican supplies and troop movements. He had become “the eyes of the army.”

  Smith, Bowie, and Burleson, in small bands or, sometimes, in mounted companies of fifty or a hundred men or more, looked to intercept Mexican dispatches, disrupt convoys, and drive off Mexican reinforcements coming from the Rio Grande. Teams of Texians lit prairie fires to burn off grasses that the Mexicans might use for forage to feed their animals. The result of these November forays had been a series of small skirmishes, but the fighting, mostly limited to small-arms fire, did little harm to either side. On several occasions, large bands of Texians tested the Mexicans, advancing to within a quarter mile of the town, but Cos refused to be drawn out into the open.

  Then, at 10:00 A.M. on November 26, Deaf Smith returned to the main encampment at a full gallop. He brought news: A Mexican cavalry column, roughly five miles southwest of San Antonio, was headed toward the town. Smith’s sighting, coupled with recent rumors of a shipment of silver coin for an overdue Mexican payroll, got everyone’s attention. The new camp commander, General Burleson, ordered Jim Bowie and a squad of forty men to saddle up and intercept the Mexican troops. In minutes they rode out of camp, followed by one hundred infantrymen on foot.

  The Texian cavalry caught up with the 150 Mexicans a mile from San Antonio as they crossed a dry creek bed. Among the volunteers were both Deaf Smith and Henry Karnes, the picket who first spied the Mexican attackers at Concepción.

  Despite unfavorable numbers, Bowie charged into the midst of the enemy, guns blazing. The return fire was intense, but Bowie drove his men into the enemy ranks a second and a third time before both sides took cover in “Muskeet Bushes.”13 Bowie and the Texians kept up their fire, awaiting the arrival of the infantry.

  Then the Mexicans attacked. The Texians, now able to aim their long rifles with precision at the uniformed men surging toward them, forced the Mexicans to retreat. An enemy wave came again, but the Texian infantry, moving in double-quick time, arrived, and the Mexican attackers were driven back.

  An enemy relief party arrived from the town towing a single cannon. The field piece was quickly positioned, its barrel aimed at the Texians. But the grape and canister shot that arced its way toward Bowie’s line did little harm.

  Within the larger confusion of battle, several skirmishes were fought. In one, James Burleson, the general’s father, led a cavalry charge, urging his men, “Boys, we have but once to die!”14 The momentum of the battle favored the Texians, and after repeated cannon firings failed to dislodge the Texians, the Mexicans, under covering artillery fire, retreated to the town. Except for a few cannon booms and sporadic musket and rifle fire, the fight was over.

  For the Mexicans, the price had been high. Burleson claimed fifteen dead Mexicans lay in the creek bed and that other casualties had been carried from the field; Bowie estimated the Mexican losses at more than fifty.15 The price for the Texians was much smaller, amounting to several wounded, none seriously.

  In their hasty retreat, the Mexicans had also abandoned a pack train of forty heavily laden mules and horses. In the quiet after the tumult of battle, the Texians examined their captured spoils, hoping to find a wealth of silver. Or perhaps ammunition and food. They found nothing so precious. Rather than silver—or even flour, sugar, and salt—the Texians discovered they had fought for fodder. The animals carried only fresh-cut grass, gathered to feed the horses within the besieged town.

  The fight—a “ludicrous affair,” in the judgment of one soldier—was mockingly called the “Grass Fight,” but Burleson’s men had fought well.16 Finally they had managed to confront a contingent of Cos’s men outside of San Antonio. But the anticlimactic battle over grass cuttings seemed oddly apt: The month of November, which opened with Austin’s high hopes for capturing San Antonio, drew to a quiet close.

  DECEMBER

  Far from the front and looking to find recruits for Texas’s new regular army, Houston still grumbled; he remained convinced the Texian militia would never take San Antonio without larger cannons. He pressed for withdrawal, trying to enlist Bowie and others in opposing an attack. Why not wait? he argued. As he wrote to James Fannin, “Remember our Maxim, it is better to do well, late: than never!”17

  On the night of December 3, the tide looked to be turning Houston’s way.

  That day three Anglo Texians fresh from San Antonio had brought both encouraging news and invaluable intelligence. Mexican morale was low, they said, and they were able to map out the city’s gun placements and the locations of the Mexican troops. The storming of San Antonio seemed suddenly feasible. Armed with this knowledge, at first General Burleson ordered the troops to be ready at 4:00 A.M. for an attack to begin at dawn. Then, at midnight, a shadowy figure was reported near the Texian lines, crossing to speak to a Mexican sentry.

  Had he been a spy? Did Cos now know they were coming?

  Fearing his plans had been discovered, Burleson, as Houston himself would have wished, withdrew his orders. Seeing the wisdom of waiting until they had full strength, the Texian leadership supported him. His officers, almost to a man, had voted at a council of war against moving on San Antonio.

  The reaction was different among the rank-and-file volunteers. These men were exhausted by the seven-week siege, wound tight by waiting for the fight, and staying constantly ready to risk their lives. As they got word that there would be no fight, their tense quiet gave way to a clamor of outraged shouts. Some indignant volunteers openly cursed their leaders.

  These settlers had come to fight for their adopted homeland: “[We] preferred Death in the cause,” one soldier wrote to his brother and sister, “than such a disgraceful defeat.”18 Marching for a winter camp—at Gonzales, at Goliad, it didn’t matter—made no sense to them. That would be to retreat. “All day we [got] more and more dejected,” one Texian wrote in his diary.19

  Furious at having their time wasted and not willing to stay and serve as winter came on, disgruntled groups of weary and frustrated Texians collected their gear and headed for home. By one count, between 250 and 300 men marched out of camp.

  Looking to stem the flow of departures, Burleson mustered the men. As the commander prepared to issue orders to abandon camp and march for Goliad, big Ben Milam returned from a scouting mission south of San Antonio. He read the faces around him—the anger, the disappointment—and decided immediately that this humiliation was wrong. He wasn’t a man to give up.

  As the troops gathered, Milam stepped forward and offered a challenge.

  “Boys, who will follow Ben Milam into San Antonio—let all who will form a line right here.”20

  A thunderous chorus of voices responded: I will! . . . I will! . . . I will! Deaf Smith was among the first to step up, but many other men followed. Though most were Texians, more than a hundred were members of the New Orleans Greys, one of the first companies of troops from the United States, who had marched into camp two weeks earlier. The men in the fresh gray uniforms arrived well armed and well supplied, thanks to generous citizens back in the Crescent City. These soldiers were a mix, with more than two dozen Americans from the North plus men who were French, Canadian, German, English, and Irish. They quickly melded into the three-hundred-man army of self-selected men. With the unexpected demonstration of a willingness to fight, Burleson made the case to the remaining volunteers, several hundred in number, to remain at the White Mill as a reserve force.

  Milam laid out a bold but simple attack. First, a small company of gunners would, under the cover of night, position their cannons within range of the Alamo. At 5:00 A.M. they would begin firing, bombarding the mission buildings. Milam expected the Mexicans to rally. They would seek to defend the Alamo—but against an anticipated onslaught from the east that would not materialize.

  Th
e shelling would be a classic diversion: Milam’s real objective was the town itself. The new arrivals from San Antonio had offered an invaluable tactical fact: A number of buildings at the edge of town stood unoccupied. Milam’s plan called for the Texian invaders to breach the village perimeter from the northwest. If they could gain a foothold in the empty houses, they could move on the squares at the heart of the city. With Mexican defenders otherwise occupied on the other side of town with the incoming salvos, many fewer men would be in position to oppose the assault.

  The plan made sense, and in a few hours the long-awaited attack would begin. An entirely new mood suddenly prevailed among the Texians. Milam’s bold leadership lifted morale: These men had come to fight, not to run, despite Houston’s cautions. As they waited for the order to march, according to one fifteen-year-old soldier, “the boys were as joyous as if waiting a festive affair.”21

  A QUIET NIGHT, INTERRUPTED

  In the predawn quiet, the rebels moved through the corn stubble north of San Antonio. Forbidden by their officers to speak, the two divisions of men listened to the whistle of a cruel north wind and the routine shouts of “All is well!” that echoed along the line of Mexican sentries. So far, the town’s defenders knew nothing.

  The artillery crew, escorted by a small band of infantrymen, positioned, loaded, and primed a field piece within range of the Alamo.

  Across the river, at the head of one division, Milam brought his hundred-odd troops to a halt. He hoped to enter the town via a quiet back street, leading his half dozen companies toward an empty house within musket range of the town square. The other division, guided by Deaf Smith, would follow the river to Soledad Street and occupy the empty Veramendi house, once the home of Jim Bowie’s wife and in-laws, all taken by cholera.