Exodus From the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth
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The considerable differences among the Anglo-Celts themselves grew greater with each passing day. Many United States volunteers had grown seriously disillusioned with the Texas Revolution by early 1836. These soldiers had had enough of apathetic Texans. Some were merely homesick and returned to the United States; large numbers of others were disgusted to discover that the lands they had gained for 1835 military service were not as promising as they had originally expected. Much to their dismay, they found that the old settlers, land speculators, politicians, and men of wealth had already acquired the most desired Texas lands. Consequently, a growing number of disillusioned volunteers who had fought in 1835 returned to the United States. They had also ascertained that the very people on whose behalf they were fighting possessed no interest in risking their lives to assist them.
An editor of the Baltimore Gazette explained the exodus of United States fighters thus: “Volunteers are returning from Texas. Many that have returned from that country speak of the land as being rich and productive. But of its inhabitants they give a miserable account. They are said to be very poor, and care not a fig under what government they live [and that for] the majority of Texians that fight is [for only] plunder and pillage. The country is now free of Mexican troops, but Santa Anna is expected in the spring with a powerful force. The Texians are said to be indolent, and quite contented [to remain civilians, not soldiers]. The only lands that can be given to volunteers are upon the head-waters of the streams, and back in the interior, the fine lands on the navigable streams being included in the grants to companies by the government.” 28
Cashing in before it was too late, some “Old Texians” panicked and sold their lands when the war caused the Texas economy to crash, bringing about a sharp fall in prices. They sold headrights of thousands of acres at bargain prices to savvy American investors and land speculators who knew that land prices would eventually rise once again. This development placed many “honest but generally poor families in the hands of the [land] speculators,” while denying large numbers of Texans any “inducement to fight” during the 1836 campaign. 29
With a powerful Mexican Army on its way north in early 1836, “Old Texians” in military service also naturally worried that the Indians and the slaves would rise up to settle old scores. Military service for the Texians of the eastern settlements therefore presented the fearsome prospect of leaving families behind and at risk to dual threats that seemed more dire, at least in their minds, than Santa Anna’s army. The families of the United States volunteers were secure and far away, and so these volunteers did not suffer the same fears as the people of Texas, whose general “indifference . . . to the cause of Texas,” helped to seal the Alamo’s fate. 30 Consequently, from the beginning to the end, the “actual dying and fighting in the Texas Revolution was done by a very small group—fewer than two thousand people, out of a population of thirty-five thousand.” 31
The thinking, political outlook, and overall priorities of the more conservative “Old Texians” were thus at odds with those of the more radical United States volunteers, ensuring that they would be less likely to serve beside or even assist the pro-independence Alamo garrison in its hour of need. Incredibly, even at the beginning of the 1836 campaign, the U.S. volunteers in Texas were themselves deeply divided about what they hoped to achieve in the war against Mexico. Perhaps Texas revolutionary Noah Smith best described the divided state of mind of these ill-prepared amateurs in rebellion, whose animosity against each other was almost as intense as their animosity toward Mexican troops: “Some were for independence, some were for the Constitution of 1824, and some were for anything, just so long as it was a row.” 32
Meantime, Captain Carey was shocked by San Antonio’s forlorn isolation amid the open prairie. The young captain, who was originally from the bustling port city of Baltimore, Maryland, wrote: “This place is so far in the interior that it takes some time for news to go and supplies to come. The Savage Camancha [sic] Indians is [sic] near at hand [and] we expect soon to have a fight with them.” 33
Carey’s concern was not ill founded. Comanche warriors had dominated the high plains and central plateaus of Texas since 1724, when they first arrived with their horses and fierce dispositions, not unlike the surging nomadic tide of Genghis Khan. Known as the Snake People, the resourceful Comanches were the finest light cavalry in the world. The horse completely dominated Comanche culture, making them among the most nomadic of native people in America. They had adopted this widely roaming life after receiving the horse as a “gift” from the Spanish, who themselves had become expert horsemen through centuries of battle with mounted Moors. 34
The lack of development in both San Antonio and, more generally, in Texas, was partly due to Comanche domination. The Comanche referred to themselves as “the People,” but among other Native American tribes, Comanche meant those “who want to fight me all the time.” Population levels remained low on the northern frontier because neither the Spanish nor the Mexican government could ever solve its Indian problem. Confident warriors even boasted that Texas towns existed only so their inhabitants could raise an endless supply of horses for them to steal. 35
Likewise, the Lipan Apache—the Comanches’ ancient foes—had terrorized Spanish settlers ever since San Antonio was established. Just west of the Alamo flowed the appropriately named Apache Creek. Coming from the hill country of Edwards Plateau just north of San Antonio, Apache raiders continued to strike at the vulnerable town throughout the 1730s, killing settlers and soldiers and stealing horses, sheep, and cattle. Punitive Spanish expeditions met with little success, and fear ran so high that many families departed San Antonio never to return. The back of Apache resistance, which came from both the Lipans and Mescaleros, was not broken until 1790. 36
Although some Alamo garrison members had served under Andrew Jackson during the Creek War in Alabama, relatively few of them possessed experience in fighting Indians, which had been a feature of life from the beginning of Anglo-Celtic settlement in Texas, just as it had been in colonial times farther east. The first Texas Rangers were born out of necessity in the spring of 1835, when Indian raids became more frequent. These organized militia companies took the offensive by mounting expeditions deep into the heart of Comanche country.
James Clinton Neill, who commanded at the Alamo in early 1836, was an experienced Ranger leader who had fought under Jackson at Horseshoe Bend, and also at the battle of New Orleans. He had served as the adjutant of Colonel John Henry Moore’s Ranger command, the original Ranger battalion, during its 1835 Indian campaign into the north Texas plains. Two Alamo defenders from Gonzales, Almeron Dickerson, a Kentucky-born settler, and Kentucky-born Jacob C. Darst, had previously served as scouts for Captain Bartlett D. McClure’s company, a mounted frontier command that aggressively took the war to the Comanche in April 1835. Both men hailed from Gonzales, the capital of the Green De Witt Colony. Returning from their Indian campaign in the north, Moore’s volunteers were among the revolutionaries who confronted Mexican troops at Gonzales during the “Lexington of the Texas Revolution.” Foremost among these units was the Ranger company of thirty-two men that included the forty-two-year-old Darst. These hardriding troopers of the Gonzales Ranging Company were the last men to reinforce the Alamo. 37
But experience in fighting Indians on the frontier paid no dividends for the soldiers at the Alamo, who confronted a conventional army that was trained in European ways of waging modern warfare and was commanded by a skilled general. Alamo commanders should have learned a tactical lesson from the hit-and-run warfare of the Comanche, ensuring that they would never allow themselves to be trapped in a weakly fortified position. But as Jameson lamented in a letter, the Alamo garrison suffered from the “lack of horses,” after the Matamoros Expedition had stripped the town and entire area of mounts. This glaring deficiency meant that “all the patrol duty [has] to be done by the officers [and] has to be done on foot,” making the Alamo vulnerable to surprise. 38
In a
January 12, 1836 letter that revealed his disillusionment, Captain Carey wrote that the “Town [is] divided by a small river [the San Antonio] which emanates [sic] from Springs. The town has two Squares [or plazas] and the [San Fernando] church in the centre, one a military and the other a government square. The Alamo or the fort as we call it, is a very old building, built for the purpose of protecting the citizens from hostile Indians.” 39 Clearly, this was not much of a place to fight or die for, but Captain Carey and the other young Alamo men stayed anyway, hoping for the best.
First and foremost, the Alamo was never conceived or built to serve as a defensive bastion. No one knew this better than Jameson, who met with endless frustration in his attempts to fortify the place. Despite sound defensive improvements by General Cós’ engineers in 1835, Jameson felt contempt toward the old mission-turned-fortress, writing to Houston on January 18, 1836: “You can plainly see that the Alamo never was built by a military people for a fortress.” 40
Much too large to defend with such a small garrison, the sprawling Alamo compound consisted of a large rectangle, some 250 feet in length on each side. The defensive perimeter, some 440 yards, was nearly a quarter mile in length. A ring of adobe buildings, almost all single story except at the long barracks on the east side, surrounded the huge open plaza, forming a compound of nearly three acres. “Although its walls were wonderfully thick—usually two or three feet—they had no embrasures, portholes, or barbettes for firing either cannon or rifles. They were mostly twelve feet high, yet there were no parapets. Worst of all, the place was too big,” wrote Walter Lord, pinpointing the Alamo’s greatest defensive liability—its sheer size. 41 Enrique Esparza heard garrison members say that the Alamo “was too big [and] they did not have enough men to hold it.” 42
The inherent defects of the Alamo as a fortress stemmed largely from the facts of its original design and function. Created by Franciscan priests, the Alamo followed the same basic design as missions across the southwest frontier of New Spain. The largest, sturdiest structure in the compound was the stone chapel, or church; the next largest building was the so-called “long barracks,” which was the original convento, or personal quarters, for the Spanish missionary priests who converted Indians to Catholicism and often paid for the privilege with their lives. 43 The men of God who ventured into the New World wilderness to spread the Catholic faith were not trained in military arts; they promoted brotherly love, not war. The old Spanish compound was hence more of a community of buildings than a fortress. Linked by walls in places where no building existed, it evolved to form the rectangle over the years, and much of its weakness originated in this ad hoc construction.
Even worse in overall defensive terms, the small Anglo-Celtic garrison was attempting to defend not only the Alamo but San Antonio, a feat that would have been a virtual impossibility, even for thousands of well-trained troops. As Captain Carey explained: “The forces here is [sic] commanded by Lieut. Col. J. C. Neill who has his quarters in the Town which is called the left wing of the forces and your brother William has the command of the Alamo which is called the right wing.” 44 Historians have largely forgotten that the Anglo-Celts were also in San Antonio to defend the town itself, a task made all the more impossible for the tiny garrison because the Alamo and the town were separated by a distance of nearly 1,000 yards and the San Antonio River. 45
LOGISTICAL NIGHTMARE
Logistical realities also made the Alamo a bad place to support a garrison for any extended length of time. Nature herself discouraged farming around San Antonio: the topsoil was much better suited for the growth of small, twisted mesquite trees than for raising corn or wheat. Even in the best of seasons blessed by heavy rains, foodstuffs were far from plentiful. Any garrison stationed at the Alamo for lengthy occupation thus risked starvation, especially in the winter. 46
Even more importantly for logistics, San Antonio was located more than a hundred miles from the Gulf coast. Copano, southeast of Goliad, near the mouth of the San Antonio River, had served as a port for supplies, volunteers, and arms in 1835, which were primarily shipped from New Orleans. The nearest port to San Antonio was located at Dimmitt’s Landing on Lavaca Bay, northeast of Copano, which was linked to the Gulf of Mexico. Supplies from New Orleans also landed at this key logistical point.
Because the San Antonio River was too small to navigate, supplies and munitions destined for San Antonio had to be hauled by wagon or oxcart overland. This was a time-consuming process over dusty summer and muddy spring roads. This, combined with the fact that the United States and its Gulf ports were more than a hundred miles away, made a lengthy defensive stand at the southern end of the Great Plains logistically untenable to support.
In early 1836, manpower from the United States had yet to flood into Texas. Any volunteers, almost all without horses, who landed on the coast had to march inland to San Antonio over a route that a relative handful of Mexican troops, especially cavalry, could easily block. As east Texas settlements were so far to the northeast near the Louisiana border, newly arriving United States volunteers were too far away from San Antonio. Moreover, the “Old Texians” naturally preferred to defend their east Texas settlements than the frontier so far forward. 47
INTERNAL WEAKNESSES
Perhaps the greatest defensive liability that doomed the Alamo was the fact that, by eary 1836, Alamo garrison members were mostly novices at war. Like the majority of the fort’s young officers, Captain Carey, who was Colonel Neill’s top lieutenant, attempted to learn the ways of war on the job, but not enough time remained. As he penned in a letter: “As I have not been a graduate of West Point, I must study military affairs now for I am rejoiced at the opportunity to do something for myself.” 48
However, Neill, Bowie, and then Travis remained overly optimistic. All expected ample Tejano support if Santa Anna’s army arrived. In a letter to Houston, Neill wrote on January 14 how they could expect “great aid from the citizens of this town,” if Santa Anna marched on San Antonio. The many Tejano volunteers who fought against General Cós in 1835 only reinforced this widespread idea of Tejano support for the small Alamo garrison until it was far too late. But unlike in early 1836, the common people of San Antonio had not been in jeopardy or at risk in late 1835, as they would be if Santa Anna arrived with vengeance on his mind. 49
Béxar citizens who fought beside General Cós’s troops included members of the local San Antonio Tejano militia, Presidial Cavalry Company of Béxar. Francisco Esparza was one of these Tejano militiamen. After General Cós’ surrender, they were allowed to leave with his force, after signing paroles. Ironically, however, the local Tejano militia of San Antonio was allowed to disperse and return to their Béxar homes, despite having battled against the Texans. The victors’ benevolence would come back to haunt them. When Santa Anna reached San Antonio, this militia unit would be reactivated to join his army. 50
Clearly, Bowie’s and Neill’s decision to defend San Antonio was also folly because of the realities of dual demographics. After all, San Antonio was the heart and center of Hispanic Texas, while the AngloCeltic settlements—and hence the potential reservoir of reinforcements—were far away in east Texas. While Texas had become more than three-quarters Anglo-Celtic by 1830, garrison members now found themselves the only Americans in the town, except for two residents. The majority of the Tejano population would remain either neutral or covertly anti-American, providing support, including invaluable intelligence, to Santa Anna. The intelligence was crucial, revealing the considerable weaknesses of both the undersized garrison and the Alamo as a defensive structure. Jameson, a perceptive and increasingly cynical engineer—who suspected that the garrison would be abandoned by most Tejanos in San Antonio—realized as much. As he penned to Governor Smith on January 18, 1836: “I believe they know our situation as well as we do ourselves.” 51
In addition, another forgotten factor that contributed to the garrison’s weakness, especially in terms of discipline, was the well-known seducti
ve lure of the pretty Tejano women and young girls with their dark beauty and exotic good looks. Unlike in Nacogdoches, where the Tejano population and the Anglo-Celts remained segregated in largely separate worlds with “no social intercourse,” wrote a surprised William F. Gray, who had recently arrived in Texas, San Antonio was the exact opposite. Perhaps the isolated frontier setting played a role in fueling greater interaction between the two people. But for whatever reason, San Antonio was the place where Anglo-Celts and Tejanos openly and freely mixed on a scale unseen elsewhere in Texas.
Of course, what was ultimately most exciting for the Alamo’s soldiers, these graceful Tejano women acted, danced, and flirted in a more open manner than the straight-laced, Bible-reading Anglo-Celtic women the soldiers had left behind in the United States, where the Puritan ethic dominated. What was most intoxicating for these young soldiers so far from home were “the seductive fandango, a style of dance more provocative than the American volunteers would have been accustomed to [and] They were riveted by the pulsing beat, the foot stomping, and swirling dresses of the exotic women,” of the finest Tejano families of San Antonio. 52