Exodus From the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth

by Phillip Thomas Tucker

  But Travis’ dramatic flair and sense of melodrama was serious business to Santa Anna. While Travis was only playing the part of a military leader, Santa Anna was a hardened veteran who knew how to crush an opponent. Taking Travis’ defiance as a personal insult, Santa Anna would become more determined to destroy the Alamo garrison than before. Travis’ rash behavior simply symbolized the all-too-common Anglo-Celtic arrogance in the eyes of the Mexican president, who unfortunately by then held the lives of garrison’s members in his hands.

  From beginning to end, Travis would be overmatched as the Alamo’s commander. After all, he had arrived at the Alamo with only a handful of horse-soldiers of his “Legion of Cavalry.” This command was one of the few integrated military units in Texas, with Tejanos, including Captain Juan Sequín, Lieutenant Placido Benavides, who had organized a band of local Tejano rancheros in October 1835 to join Austin’s forces for the attack on San Antonio, and Lieutenant Manuel Carvajal, serving alongside young Southerners like Lieutenant James Butler Bonham. 107

  Besides Neill, Bowie, and Travis, the lack of qualified junior officers at the Alamo was pervasive. Even the few New Orleans Grays soldiers who remained at the Alamo by early 1836 were without their inspirational leader. Captain William Gordon Cooke, age twenty-seven, had arrived in Texas in late October 1835 as second in command of Captain Robert L. Morris’ company of the Grays. He had led these New Orleans Grays with distinction in overwhelming General Cós’ garrison in December 1835, but he then departed the Alamo for more fertile military fields of opportunity, escaping the deathtrap. Cooke was destined to serve on General Houston’s staff in the days ahead; however, even Cooke was more of a druggist than a soldier, learning the trade in Fredericksburg, Virginia before continuing his practice in New Orleans. 108

  Some good officers were either sick in the hospital or had been discharged for disability during the period before Santa Anna struck. Without facing Mexican soldiers in January and most of February 1836, and with so many social engagements and distractions in San Antonio, the remaining cohesion of the Alamo garrison dropped to new lows. When one low-ranking soldier was about to be arrested for disobeying an officer’s order, he defiantly “resisted and swore with pistols in his hands that he would shoot down the first man that attempted his arrest.” 109

  The ever-widening gulf between officers and enlisted men became a chasm just before Santa Anna’s Army reached San Antonio. In the western frontier tradition, the Alamo’s soldiers of all ranks cherished a distinct sense of individualism. From the beginning, they placed more faith in the individual than in the arbitrary dictates of government—either Anglo-Celtic or Mexican—wealthy elites, and especially blustering politicians of Texas. Therefore, not surprisingly, the Alamo’s volunteers were almost as much anti-Texas regular army as they were anti-Santa Anna by early 1836. These outspoken volunteers were determined to do as they pleased, fight under the commander of their choice, and make their own decisions in both military and political matters. 110

  Aside from the shortage of good officers, the diminutive Alamo garrison also suffered from a shortage of simple essentials such as food and clothing. Paying a high price for a fractured Texas war effort in the dead of winter, the Alamo garrison had first fallen victim to three rampaging waves of scavengers: 1) San Antonio’s victors who returned home to east Texas; 2) the Matamoros Expedition troops; and 3) even Cós’ paroled men who took what they wanted or could hide on their persons before likewise marching south. 111 By January 12, 1836, in Captain Carey’s embittered words, the Alamo’s soldiers were “almost naked, destitute of funds[,] having expended all for food and munitions of war and not much to eat only some corn that we grind ourselves & poor beef [and] this constitutes our dayly [sic] food.” 112

  But even more angry than Carey was Lieutenant Colonel Neill, especially after the Matamoros Expedition troops, under Francis White Johnson and Dr. James Grant, completed the process of stripping San Antonio and the Alamo garrison of provisions, horses, and supplies. As Neill complained in a January 6, 1836 letter to the government: “We have no provisions or clothing since Johnson and Grant left [and all the] clothing sent here . . . was taken from us by arbitrary measures of Johnson and Grant, taken from men who endured all the hardships of winter and who were not even sufficiently clad for summer, many of them having but one blanket and one shirt.” 113

  In addition, the lengthy 1835 siege of San Antonio led to the consumption of provisions far and wide. What had not been earlier taken by General Cós’ troops and later secured by Austin’s besiegers that fall and winter was pilfered by the men of the Matamoros Expedition. In regard to the area around San Antonio, therefore, Fannin complained in a letter to Houston as early as mid-November 1835: “We have nearly consumed all the corn &c. near here.” These words of desperation were an ominous portent for the young men and boys who remained in garrison at San Antonio more than three months later. 114And food was not the only shortage. Precious little firewood to ward off the biting cold had been stockpiled in case of a lengthy siege. Many soldiers billeted themselves in Tejano homes, sharing their food, fires, and shelter, protecting them from January and February’s coldness. The Alamo garrison had become not a cohesive military force but a group of undisciplined and discontented individuals.

  BLACK POWDER

  While the supply of small arms ammunition seemed sufficient for the Alamo garrison at first glance and on paper, the reserves of high-quality powder were actually quite low, and much of the finest powder had been taken by members of the Matamoros Expedition. In addition, a far-sighted General Cós had his paroled men pilfer the best powder from artillery reserves and place it in their cartridge boxes for the march south, along with artillery supplies. What was left behind at the Alamo was the worst of the powder reserves, reducing both artillery and small arms capabilities. Worst of all, the remaining supply of black powder captured from General Cós’ troops in December 1835 was largely obsolete by early March 1836 because of its inferior quality, made worse by damp winter weather. Stored in two rooms of the church, the powder supply was adversely affected by the phenomena known as “rising damp,” with moisture seeping up the four-foot-thick walls of limestone.

  Mexican powder was “so badly damaged” and of such overall poor quality that the Texans who captured Mexican powder throughout the Texas Revolution wisely refused to use it.” 115 In the words of one amazed Texan who examined captured Mexican black powder, “[I] found it little better than pounded charcoal and, after a trial, rejected it as all together useless [and] It was the worst powder I ever saw.” 116

  Even young men in Texas service long used to dangerous lives on the western frontier, where ammunition was always in short supply, merely tore open Mexican paper cartridges to keep the lead ball, throwing away the black powder in contempt. No savvy riflemen or settler wanted their own lives, or those of family members, dependent on inferior powder that could cause a misfire. 117

  Therefore, not desiring to utilize Mexican black powder, which was all but “useless,” unless nothing else was available, the Alamo’s soldiers could only rely on the relatively limited supply of high-grade black powder (76% nitre, 14% charcoal, and 10% sulphur) from the Du Pont factory in Delaware. Established in 1802 by a French immigrant whose family had fled the terrors of the French Revolution, DuPont had supplied American troops during the War of 1812. Significant for events to come, Matamoros Expedition members left behind Mexican powder at the Alamo, while taking the Du Pont powder for themselves—after all, they were about to invade Mexico itself! Consequently, the lack of highquality powder reserves was destined to become a serious liability for Alamo garrison members on the morning of March 6. On the night of March 5, ironically, the garrison might have assumed that the Mexican powder—already inferior since its creation—was yet good, when in fact it had failed to maintain integrity because of a combination of factors: the lengthy transport from Mexico, the high humidity of the central plains of Texas, lengthy storage in an area a
ffected by “rising damp,” and the cold, wet winter of 1835–36.

  Even though the Alamo armory contained 816 British muskets, the 1809 India model Pattern Brown Bess musket (.75 caliber) that had been used by English troops during the later phase of the Napoleonic Wars, and 14,600 cartridges captured from General Cós in December 1835, this supply was of relatively little use to the garrison after the cold weather, rains, and ice storms of winter. 118

  Unlike the ill-equipped Alamo men, Napoleonic soldiers had long ensured that cartridges and black powder remained dry, because they possessed waterproof, leather cartridge boxes with metal regimental insignia on the flap to keep it down—something that the Alamo’s soldiers did not have among their limited gear brought from home. Especially in Texas with the humid summers and the rainy winters, a lingering dampness wrecked havoc on the Alamo’s black powder supply, making it of relatively little use by the time Santa Anna attacked. 119

  Indeed, the Alamo’s defensive capabilities were considerably compromised, because the “weapons and ammunition were scarce [and] their ammunition was very low. That of many was entirely spent,” wrote Enrique Esparza of the no-win situation that guaranteed a most feeble defense of the Alamo. 120

  Providence, Rhode Island-born Albert Martin, who galloped from the Alamo as a messenger but faithfully returned with the Gonzales Ranging Company to meet a tragic fate with his fellow citizens on March 6, wrote on February 25 how the Alamo garrison “was short of Ammunition when I left” on February 24, the siege’s second day. 121

  And on March 3, Travis penned how “our supply of ammunition is limited. At least five hundred pounds of cannon powder [and] ten kegs of rifle powder . . . should be sent to this place without delay.” Even bullets were in short supply. The cache of large-caliber Mexican bullets could not be used for rifles because the lead balls were too big. Travis also requested “a supply of lead” for the men to make bullets from molds. 122

  A persistent Alamo myth is that the defenders’ firepower was greatly enhanced because each man possessed a number of captured muskets by his side. What has been overlooked by many is that there was not enough high-quality black powder on hand to ensure any reliable degree of firepower at the critical moment, even if every defender was at his assigned position. And with the Alamo located nearly 150 miles from the Gulf, ammunition resupply across the long coastal plain would never arrive in time. 123

  RAVAGES OF DISEASE

  Another critical factor that has been overlooked in regard to the Alamo’s defense may well have been the most important: the garrison’s overall poor health. The fact that the garrison’s declining health by March 6 has been ignored is somewhat ironic, because a sickness or disease had even cut down the fort’s co-commander, Bowie, by the time of the attack. Whatever Bowie had, he was assigned to an isolated room along the southern perimeter to keep it from spreading. In truth, the entire Alamo garrison had fought a long-running battle—one that it lost—with disease throughout the winter of 1835–36, long before Santa Anna’s arrival.

  By conducting his campaign in late winter and without staying in one place too long, Santa Anna’s Army of Operations was in relatively good shape, and more healthy than the Alamo garrison, whose indiscipline, static position, and unsanitary ways led to the spread of disease. Like many of his men, especially the Vera Cruz lancers, Santa Anna, after having grown up in that city, was immune to yellow fever—one secret of his past success in campaigning against unacclimated Spanish troops in the lowlands in and around Tampico and Vera Cruz. 124

  Unfortunately, the Anglo-Celts had decided to make a defensive stand in what was the most unhealthy place in not only San Antonio, but possibly all of Texas. As strange fate would have it, many American settlers had initially poured into Texas from the United States, in part because of a smallpox epidemic. This fatal disease, brought to the New World by Europeans, had spread from the east to finally infect people in the southwest, including Texas, with especially devastating results for native people. For the newly arriving immigrants from the United States, Texas had remained unoccupied, in no small part because of smallpox’s wrath. The disease had purged this land of much of its native population, allowing the opportunity for migrants east of the Sabine to take possession of a vast land with relative ease. 125

  By 1836 the once thriving Spanish mission in San Antonio represented a classic study of the ravages of disease. First and foremost, the Alamo compound was virtually sitting atop a vast, sprawling graveyard. The first burial sites at the Alamo consisted of Native Americans, who had lived along this stretch of the San Antonio River long before the Spanish arrived. Occupying a relatively small area along the watercourse, the heavy concentration of Indians, who were part of the mission system, made these people more vulnerable to epidemics. From 1736 to 1739, an unmerciful cholera outbreak drastically reduced the Mission Indian population housed at the Alamo compound. More than 1,000 Mission Indians were buried around the outside of the old chapel—the Alamo proper. These unfortunates were not only victims of cholera, but also epidemics of smallpox, pneumonia, and diphtheria.

  For instance, in 1738 alone, 655 out of a total of 837 Mission Indians, mostly Tlaxcalans, died in an epidemic that resembled a holocaust. Waves of diseases had long ravaged the area along the San Antonio River, and the winter of 1835–36 was no different. By early 1836, the Alamo defenders were literally sleeping and walking atop an unseen cemetery of shallow, Native American graves. These contained hundreds of men, women, and children from tribes such as the Apache, Pasojo, Tucame, Charame, Mesquite, and Jumana, but without markers, of course. 126

  Some graves of smallpox victims were disturbed when the Alamo’s defenses were strengthened by digging ground to bolster the weak north wall. Such a development would help to spread disease, which might well have been passed on to garrison members from contaminated corpses. Other diseases might well have infected the defenders; for instance, a cholera epidemic swept through not only Mexico but Texas, including San Antonio, between 1832 and 1834. 127

  A total of six physicians and other medical staff, led by Chief Surgeon Amos Pollard and his assistants, John Thomson, John Purdy Reynolds, Edward Mitchasson, and John Hubbard Forsyth served in the infirmary. Artilleryman Captain Almeron Dickinson also served as an unofficial physician to the garrison. However, the effectiveness of these men was largely negated because Matamoros Expedition members, aside from their other confiscations, had even stolen the post’s supplies of medicine.

  The small Alamo hospital could trace a lengthy military lineage, having been established more than three decades earlier. In fact, this little-known medical facility was not only the “First Hospital in Texas,” but also the site of one of Texas’ first dental shops. This “first serious attempt” to establish a general hospital at the Alamo for both the military and civilian populace of San Antonio began in 1805. However, the initial hospital served mostly as a military infirmary with the increase of the Spanish garrison to parry the growing American threat, after the United States acquired Louisiana, eliminating the historic French menace to the borderland. Only near the Spanish period’s end, in 1814, was the Alamo hospital discontinued by the chaos of revolution. The infirmary had meanwhile treated a large number of patients with a variety of diseases and injuries for nearly a decade. Therefore, long before the Anglo-Celts garrisoned the place, the Alamo had served as the largest military hospital in all of Texas, which paradoxically contributed to making it an unhealthy place by the winter of 1835–36. 128

  In addition, the sizeable Mexican garrison of General Cós had occupied not only the Alamo in 1835 but the infirmary. Nothing spreads disease faster than a large number of soldiers trapped in a confined space for an extended period—one of the horrors of siege warfare, in which disease often killed more of the besieged than the opponent. Unfamiliar micro-organisms, bacteria, and germs from Mexico’s tropical depths had thoroughly infested the Alamo compound, lingering through the winter of 1835–36, making the cramped place extre
mely unhealthy, both before and during the siege.

  But the most deadly disease in Texas by early 1836 was a smallpox epidemic that very likely spread to the Alamo garrison. On his journey to the Alamo from which he would never return, Micajah Autry wrote in a December 13, 1835 letter from Natchitoches, Louisiana, on the Texas border, where zealous volunteers from the U.S. flowed into Texas like a stream: “The smallpox has recently broken out here very bad.” 129

  Additionally, measles spread through the garrison, sending more soldiers to the infirmary. One such victim was twenty-six-year-old, Ohio-born Tapley Holland. He was a veteran of the 1835 campaign along with two brothers, whose father hailed from Canada. The Hollands were among the original settlers of the Austin Colony. Instead of taking a disability discharge and returning home like so many others, Tapley remained behind to recuperate at the Alamo hospital. A young artilleryman of Captain Carey’s “Invincibles” from Grimes County, Texas, he planned to either eventually return home or remain with the garrison upon recovery. 130 Another Alamo garrison member stricken by measles was Lieutenant Sherwood Young Reams. This 24-year-old Tennessean had first fired at a Mexican soldier during the “Lexington of the Texas Revolution” at Gonzales, and he had also participated in San Antonio’s capture. Reams’ leadership skills were recognized, earning him a lieutenant’s rank in Captain Dickinson’s artillery company. However, this seasoned veteran was discharged from the Alamo garrison on December 28 because of measles, and sent off to Gonzales in the hope of preventing the disease’s spread. 131

  The men from the United States who had never been so far south before had expected the subtropical-like weather of Texas to persist right on through the winter. Few young men, especially those from the Deep South, anticipated the severity of the bitter cold fronts of Arctic air that pushed south down the flat, rolling grasslands of the Great Plains. Quite unexpected to them, they discovered that San Antonio, swept by biting-cold air, sudden rapid drops in temperature, and the harsh winter winds sweeping over the prairies, was as cold as northern states. Such cold fronts were the infamous Texas “norther.”