Initially believing that they had discovered another Spain-like climate in this region, Spanish explorers were stunned by the ferocity of the “norther’s” wrath that descended upon them in the winter of 1528–29. These were the first Europeans to record this unique, climatic phenomena. 132 Even though snow was rare in south Texas, the biting cold was nearly as severe. As detailed in his diary during his inspection tour of the untamed frontier of New Spain, including San Antonio, in 1727, Pedro de Rivera described an undeniable reality of a brutal Texas winter that was unrealized by most Alamo soldiers recently from the United States: “The climate of this province is similar to that of Europe, because the cold is quite noticeable during the time of snows.” 133
Another factor that ensured the spread of disease was the atrocious state of sanitation among the Alamo garrison. Throughout the winter of 1835–36, sanitation was virtually nonexistent in a command that was more civilian than military. The indiscipline of amateurs at war, many of who were away from home for the first time, translated into poor personal hygiene and sanitation, ensuring a greater chance of spreading germs. By early 1836, the lack of a well at the Alamo further facilitated the contagions of disease. In a January 12, 1836 letter, Captain Carey complained how the garrison was “almost famished for water.” And this serious situation was destined to worsen when Santa Anna’s forces cut off the garrison’s main water source—the irrigation ditch that led to the fresh waters of the San Antonio River. 134
Garrison members of this multi-ethnic and multi-cultural command hailed from a wide variety of places and locales, coming from all across the United States—from Massachusetts to nearby Louisiana—and even western and central Europe, including Germany and Denmark. Because such a high percentage of garrison members hailed from rural areas and were mingling with a large group of individuals for the first time, they were more vulnerable to the spread of disease than their better-acclimated, urban peers. Now existing on poor rations in the Alamo’s damp, cramped quarters, the cold winter weather of 1835–36 forced the garrison into even closer living conditions that only continued to serve as a greater breeding ground for illness.
THE GARRISON TRIES TO IMPROVISE
The decision to defend the Alamo was made mainly because of its large number of artillery pieces, since it possessed the guns left behind by General Cós. However, Cós had his men sabotage some of what remained, reducing capabilities. As he wrote in his report to Santa Anna: “Almost none of the part [of artillery supplies] did I leave in the power of the insurgents,” while his men took powder reserves in violation of the surrender and parole terms when they marched out of San Antonio back to Mexico. Most significant, Cós reported that, “The rest of the armaments that I was not able to take was render[ed] useless.” 135
Other than the former militia artilleryman, Neill, no one among the garrison was more seduced by the Alamo’s plentiful amount of artillery than Jameson. Beaming confidence, he was convinced that the garrison could literally “whip 10 to 1 with artillery.” 136
The best known company of Alamo artillerymen was led by the popular officer Captain Carey, who had long been Neill’s trusted confidant. Near mid-January 1836 and with obvious pride, Captain Carey wrote in a letter how Lt. Colonel Neill “thinks a great deal of my judgment and consults me about a number of the proceedings before he issues an order.” 137
Neill and Carey had first formed tight bonds while serving together in the People’s Army of Texas and during San Antonio’s siege. Carey enlisted as a private but soon rose in rank with demonstrated leadership ability. Near the end of October 1835, he gained a second lieutenant’s rank. During their siege of San Antonio, Carey displayed the ability that won him a promotion to first lieutenant from Neill, who commanded the artillery at the siege’s beginning.
During the house-to-house fighting that swirled through San Antonio’s streets, Carey had played a distinguished role. Reminiscent of General Washington’s cannon firing at the Hessians down Trenton’s snowy streets on December 26, 1776, he ordered a gun planted in the middle of one dusty street to suppress Mexican fire, including artillery, from defensive positions at close range. While fellow cannoneers fell around him in this exposed position and a hail of bullets cut through his clothes and hat, and even though blood dripped from a head wound, Lieutenant Carey directed fire that disabled a Mexican cannon. He and his gunners suppressed the incoming fire in a diversion that assisted the successful infantry attack. 138
However, long before Santa Anna’s arrival, the large amount of Alamo artillery was already largely negated because of the following factors: 1) the overall inexperience of the crews; 2) the relatively few proper firing positions because of lack of embrasures; 3) the lack of cannonballs of all types and sizes; 4) many of the artillery pieces set-up atop the walls were improperly placed, unable to be depressed sufficiently to hit attackers if they gained the wall’s base; 5) the lack of both quality and quantity of black powder; 6) the unsuitability of small, former naval guns, which had been brought inland from the Spanish ships; and 7) the mostly small caliber of the guns, their antiquated age, and overall lack of maneuverability. These factors all combined to make the sizeable number of Alamo cannon largely moot. Travis was more prophetic than he knew when he wrote in a December 17, 1835 letter: “I could not be useful in the artillery,” although the faulty decision to defend the fort was made in large part because of the artillery’s presence. 139
According to Jameson, the Alamo’s chief engineer and Bowie’s dependable aide-de-camp, only one solution existed to perhaps solve the vexing problem: much of the Alamo’s artillery pieces were not placed in positions to be utilized effectively. Affectionately called Benito by Bowie, even though he hailed from the Bluegrass State, Jameson was blessed with a rare blend of both common sense and intelligence, which combined with a decidedly “mechanical bent” of mind to make him somewhat of a Renaissance man, especially in the context of the Texas frontier. His innovative defensive plan indicated that Jameson possessed considerable knowledge in the art of military science, gleaned from his intense study of the subject from any available military or engineering textbook that he could find. The former lawyer—part intellectual and part hands-on man—from San Felipe de Austin had transformed himself into a capable engineer, just as he had once taught himself to be a good attorney.
Supremely confident in the validity of his engineering views despite the lack of a formal military education, Jameson boldly proposed an imaginative defensive solution to the Alamo dilemma to Governor Smith: “The suggestion is to square the Alamo and erect a large redoubt at each corner supported by Bastions and have a ditch all around full of water. When squared in that way for cannon and fewer men would do more effective service than the twenty pieces of artillery do or can do in the way they are now mounted.” 140
For the most part, Jameson’s defensive reasoning was sound. The Alamo’s most profound defensive liability was its sheer size of nearly three acres, and the reality that it was essentially “a fortified village” originally created only to protect people and livestock against Indian attack rather than a conventional opponent. Jameson’s central dilemma was to somehow transform the Alamo’s defensive liabilities into assets without sufficient time, manpower, or resources. Reducing the area of the Alamo to be defended was absolutely necessary, as Jameson realized. However, in the meantime, a strongpoint redoubt—well constructed and of adequate size—at each corner of the compound’s plaza could give the artillery in each redoubt the ability to provide fire support for the adjacent one. With around twenty guns available, Jameson possessed ample cannon to place in each of the four proposed earthen redoubts, creating powerful bastions at each corner of the Alamo.
As he concluded his ambitious defensive vision in his informative letter: “If I were ordered to construct a new and effective Fortress on an economical plan, I would suggest a diamond [shape fortification] with two acute and two obtuse angles—with few men and Guns but with a sufficient entrenchment a
ll around. Such a fortress with projecting redoubts and Bastions would command all points.” 141
But there was simply not enough time for Jameson’s defensive vision to become reality. First, Governor Smith was officially disposed of power as the provisional government fell to pieces, leaving the Alamo garrison on its own. Such a massive construction project would have demanded a good deal of time before Jameson could even learn it had been approved. Consequently, work on the new defensive plan was never undertaken. In addition, a “scarcity of tools,” complained Jameson, handicapped the type of wholesale reconstruction that the imaginative engineer envisioned with such clarity.
There was also the factor that the disposition of the Alamo garrison resulted in an ugly insubordination that made the average man in the ranks unwilling to do such heavy manual labor. To these volunteers mostly from slave-owning areas, especially Tennessee (30 men) and Kentucky (16 garrison members), the idea of such hard work usually delegated to slaves was not only distasteful, but unimaginable to aspiring Southern gentlemen. Many young soldiers, especially from Deep South states such as South Carolina (7 men) and Georgia (5 men), envisioned themselves as Southern gentlemen.
They were convinced that they would lose esteem befitting the elite planter class—even if it existed only in their minds—if they performed manual labor as required by Jameson, especially digging and hauling dirt and shovel-work. Therefore, Jamieson found himself not only without sufficient time, but also without the manpower to make the necessary improvements. The frustrated engineer penned to the governor: “The men I have will not labor and I cannot ask it of them until they are better clad and fed.” 142
Other factors also might well have sabotaged Jameson’s ambitious plan to revamp the Alamo’s defenses. For instance, he may have clashed with Travis, thwarting his defensive plans. Ironically, the overly emphasized animosity between Travis and Bowie was very likely less than that which existed between Travis and Jameson, who were rival lawyers before entering military service. After all, Travis had won a case against Jameson in a court of law. Travis’ client came away winning a lawsuit against Jameson for which he was forced to pay $50.00, a good deal of money at the time. And Jameson was a close confidant and personal aide-de-camp to Bowie, placing him in opposition to Travis along the ever-widening volunteer versus regular divide. 143
It was the cooperation of the men that was most crucial for enacting defensive improvements, however; yet they were increasingly unwilling or unable to provide it. As early as January 12, 1836, Captain Carey scribbled in a letter how, “The men in this place have sometimes been discouraged on account of the distressed situation we are in; for want of clothes and food [therefore] the Colo [Neill] and myself has twice called a general parade and addressed them in such a manner that they would get satisfied for a while, but we are now discouraged ourselves, and unless the provisional government of Texas do speedily send us assistance we will abandon this place.” 144
The fact that the Alamo garrison was on the verge of abandoning the place at this early date is a far cry from the mythology that these soldiers were determined to sell their lives as dearly as possible to win the salvation of Texas. That they decided to stand firm, moreover was largely due to misreading the situation they were in, both in regards to the Texas Revolution and Santa Anna. Like other Anglo-Celts throughout Texas, they were guilty of not only underestimating the Mexican soldado, but of not even taking the war seriously. Instead, from the beginning and despite ample warnings of the impending threat, “they acted as if they were on a lark, after which they would collect the land promised in payment for that service.” 145
Even before the infant Texas government fell apart, the garrison in San Antonio was not only neglected by the people of Texas and the government, but treated almost as if it did not exist. For the most part, the Alamo garrison was an independent volunteer command, making decisions and acting beyond the jurisdiction of the government, the regular army, and General Houston, whose authority the defenders refused to recognize. Therefore, during the late winter of 1835–36, almost nothing by way of support—especially manpower and munitions—was forthcoming from the Texas government to San Antonio.
Much to Neill’s and Bowie’s dismay, the election officials and judges of San Antonio, who selected delegates for the Constitutional Convention, refused to either allow garrison members to vote or to accept representatives among them on the grounds that they “were merely occupying troops, citizens of neither Texas nor Mexico.” This, of course, included Crockett. Ironically, he now served Texas to enhance his political prospects, but saw even his right to vote negated when he joined the Alamo garrison. 146 The men who would be the first in Texas to face Santa Anna’s wrath had themselves been excluded from the democratic process.
SANTA ANNA’S MISPLACED DECISION TO ATTACK THE ALAMO
Perhaps Lieutenant Colonel de la Pena said it best. “In fact, we should have attacked the enemy at the heart [starting at Goliad] instead of weakening ourselves by going to Bejar, a garrison without any political or military importance [and] This was the unanimous opinion of all the military.” 147
Ironically, by early 1836, the only folly greater than the disastrous decision to defend the Alamo was Santa Anna’s eventual decision to attack it at all. Quite simply, the Alamo was strategically unimportant. Santa Anna could have easily won his war had he simply marched his army past the Alamo to continue east to strike the settlements of east Texas. All Texas was ripe for the taking by early 1836.
Santa Anna’s wiser subordinates advocated a far more sound strategy. They implored that wiping out the Texas rebellion called for a simple solution: a swift march past San Antonio to overrun the east Texas settlements and capture the unofficial capital of the Austin Colony at San Felipe de Austin, ending the Texas government in one stroke. But to Santa Anna, San Antonio, a place of some romance and nostalgia for him, became an enduring symbol of opposition and revolution that needed to be eliminated. In this regard, political and personal considerations, and even emotional and psychological factors, of Santa Anna far outweighed sound strategic axioms when it came to his decision to capture San Antonio and the Alamo. 148
Historian Stephen L. Hardin noted: “Given the strategic importance of the coast, which was obvious to both sides, Santa Anna’s earlier drive against Béxar was a wasteful digression [and attacking the Alamo] made little sense from a strategic viewpoint . . . an assault on the Alamo was pointless.” 149
Mirroring Santa Anna’s strategic error in targeting the Alamo, the folly of attempting to defend the Alamo with an ill-clothed, powderand-cannonball-short, half-starved band of untrained and undisciplined soldiers was only reinforced by the fact that tons of war supplies and munitions—including invaluable United States muskets, flints, and black powder—that had already poured into Texas ports such as Matagorda and Brazoria, from New Orleans in January 1836, would never reach the Alamo’s doomed men, who were destined to die without the essentials to adequately defend themselves. 150
Even citizens across the United States realized that the Alamo and its small garrison were doomed. In the February 29, 1836 issue of the New York Herald, Americans learned about the height of folly at San Antonio in the latest segment, “Latest From Texas”: “A letter received at New Orleans from Texas, states that a force of 2,500 men had a short time before at Laredo, and that 1,500 of them had advanced as far as the Rio Fio, 80 miles from San Antonio. An attack on the city was daily expected. In the Alamo there were but 75 men, and very little provisions,” and an almost non-existent chance for a successful defense. 151
THE FORGOTTEN MEXICAN SOLDADO
Meanwhile, Santa Anna and his army continued to march north at a rapid pace toward a rendezvous with destiny at an old, crumbling Spanish mission. Unlike Alamo garrison members, who stood to gain their fortunes if they survived this war, the common Mexican soldier, or soldado, possessed no such dreams of reaping vast rewards for his military service. This mostly Indian peasant in uniform w
as paid only twelve and a half cents per day, and his future promised to be as bleak as his past.
Some minor consolation for the hard life of the average fighting man in Santa Anna’s army was the large number of soldaderas who accompanied the march northward. Continuing a tradition extending back centuries to the warrior societies of the Mesoamerican past and in the 1810 Wars of Independence, these female soldaderas functioned as an unofficial, logistical support system and quartermaster corps that supported the soldados by foraging, cooking, washing, and other services—an effective female logistical network. Some women had even fought as warriors during the struggle to liberate Mexico from Spanish rule. Playing key roles, other Mexican women administered to the sick and wounded in the absence of trained physicians and medical assistants in the Army of Operations during the 1836 Texas Campaign. Unlike the Alamo defenders, who were far from home and families, Santa Anna’s soldiers benefited much from the women who followed the army north.
In this sense, Santa Anna’s Army was not unlike a large traveling Mexican community, including the wives, lovers, and children of many soldados in the ranks. Indeed, more than 1,500 women and children followed Santa Anna’s troops across the Rio Grande, but only around 300 would reach San Antonio because of the lengthy, punishing march.
This unofficial arm of the Mexican Army was needed not only for logistical and medical reasons. Such an emotional and psychological support system also helped to make harsh army life more tolerable for the common Mexican in the ranks. Not unlike the 19th-century British Army and Navy, Mexican army life was brutal, with severe punishments. Under harsh discipline, Mexican fighting men were often flogged for the slightest infractions. Reflecting the heritage of their Indian ancestors and the Spanish, some solados wore earrings, for which they were punished because aristocratic officers believed that such “feminine ornaments . . . lowered the military profession.” 152
Exodus From the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth Page 19
