Alamo Traces

by Thomas Ricks Lindley

  The Travis and Bowie letter to Fannin reported they had 146 men. Brooks, Fannin’s adjutant, reported that the Alamo was manned with 156 effectives. A few hours later Travis’s letter to Gonzales reported 150 men ready for combat. Hannig reported that there were about “160 sound persons in the Alamo.” The number of “146” is probably a printing error.

  12 William Barret Travis to the Public, February 24, 1836, Bexar, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 423; William Barret Travis to Ignacio Perez, February 23, 1836, Bexar, Ignacio Perez file, AMC-TSL; Gabriel Martinez claim, June 1, 1850, Department of State Papers, No. 39, File 60, TSL, copy in Amelia Williams Papers, Box 2N494, CAH.

  13 Antonio Saez file, PC-TSL.

  14 Thomas Ricks Lindley, “Alamo Artillery: Number, Type, Caliber, and Concussion,” Alamo Journal, 82 (July 1992); “Statement and manifest of the Artillery, arms, munitions and other effects taken from the Enemy,” March 6, 1836, Bexar, Expediente XI/481.3/1655, Archivo Historico Mexicano Militar, Mexico City. Thanks to historian William C. “Jack” Davis for a copy of this Mexican document.

  15 “Testimony of Mrs. Hannig,” September 23, 1876. She claimed that the Alamo, “had provisions enough to last the besieged 30 days.” Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna to General Vicente Filisola, February 27, 1836, Bexar, English translation, Box 2/23/1063, MS-TSL. Santa Anna wrote: “. . . they [Alamo defenders] only had time to hastily seek refuge at the Alamo fortification which had been beforehand, well fortified and with plenty of supplies.” James Bowie to Henry Smith, February 2, 1836, Bexar, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 237. Bowie wrote: “We are still labouring night and day, laying up provisions for a siege, encouraging our men, and calling on the Government for relief.” Philip Dimmitt to James Kerr, February 28, 1836, Dimitt’s Point, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 453; R. R. Royall to Governor and Council, February 2, 1836, Matagorda, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 243. Royall reported that supplies had just landed at his port and that he had instructed Dimmitt to furnish the troops at Bexar and Goliad the much-needed supplies.

  Dimmitt and Noble’s departure time from the Alamo is an estimate based on the fact that they were sent out before the sighting of the Mexican force in mid-afternoon.

  16 Almonte, “Private Journal,” 16-17; Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, “Manifesto Relative to His Operations in Texas Campaign and His Capture” in Carlos E. Castaneda, trans. and ed., The Mexican Side of the Texas Revolution (1928; reprint: Austin and Dallas: Graphic Ideas Incorporated, 1970), 13.

  17 Antonio Balle affidavit, November 12, 1874, San Antonio, Antonio Balle file, PC-TSL; Juan Rodriquiz affidavit, October 24, 1874, San Antonio, Juan Rodriquiz file, PC-TSL.

  18 J. M. Morphis, History of Texas, From its Discovery and Settlement (New York: United States Publishing Company, 1874), 174.

  19 Almonte, “Private Journal,” 16-17; Seguin to Fontaine, June 7, 1890.

  20 Alamo voting list, February 1, 1836; Sutherland, The Fall of the Alamo, 22; John Sutherland statement, November 28, 1836, William Brookfield file, AMC-TSL; Lt. Colonel J. C. Neill to John Johnson, March 6, 1836, [Gonzales] and J. Snively, acting secretary of war, to John Johnson, June 22, 1837, Houston, RV 1101, GLO. According to Sutherland, the courier to Goliad was named Johnson. Given that a total analysis of the Sutherland account and other reliable evidence shows that Sutherland was not in San Antonio on February 23, Johnson may or may not have been the courier. Sutherland, however, did furnish a supporting statement for one John Johnson in regard to “one elegant Bay horse pressed by Jn. Johnson to carry the express from Bexar to Washington [on-the-Brazos] respecting the fall of the Alamo.” Sutherland rode with Johnson to the convention sometime after General Houston’s arrival at Gonzales and claimed he had seen Johnson take the $200 horse. If Johnson was Travis’s courier to Goliad, then after arriving at that location, he must have continued on to Gonzales. The February 1 Alamo voting roll shows a soldier named John Johnson who did not die at the Alamo. The copy of Johnson’s March 6 Alamo discharge signed by Lt. Colonel J. C. Neill at Gonzales indicates that Johnson traveled to Gonzales after riding to Goliad. On March 7, 1836, Johnson joined a Captain Splane’s company and continued to serve as an express rider. Therefore, Travis’s first courier to Goliad was probably Johnson.

  21 William B. Travis and James Bowie to James W. Fannin Jr., February 23, 1836, Bexar, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 419.

  22 Almonte, “Private Journal,” 17. Almonte was the bastard son of priest Jose Maria Morelos and an Indian woman named Brigida Almonte. He was born on May 15, 1803. Almonte, because of the nature of his birth, was often called Morelos’s nephew. In 1834 Almonte conducted an inspection of Texas for Santa Anna. He wrote two reports for the government concerning the Texas tour, one public and one secret. Many Texians considered the inspection tour a deception to spy on Texas for a future military invasion. Seems they were correct.

  23 Seguin to Fontaine, June 7, 1890.

  24 Santa Anna to Vicente Filisola, February 27, 1836, Bexar, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 448; Susanna (Dickinson) Bellis affidavit, July 16, 1857, Caldwell County, James M. Rose file, C-7115, Court of Claims Collection, GLO; Jose Vicente Minon military service records, XI/111/1-135, Archivo Historico of Secretaria de la Defensa National, Mexico City, this data found in Jack Jackson research notes made on a visit in July 2000. Mr. Jackson furnished this writer a copy of his notes.

  Susanna Dickinson identified James M. Rose as one of David Crockett’s men. She also reported that during the first Mexican attack Rose barely escaped a Mexican officer. The fighting in the plaza on February 23 seems to be the only incident in which the Mexican soldiers and the Alamo defenders were in such close contact.

  25 Dimmitt to Kerr, February 28, 1836. This investigator was unable to identify the site known as the “Rovia” or learn the meaning of the name. Dr. Jesus F. de la Teja, professor of history at Southwest Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas, believes (phone conversation June 17, 1999) that the site was most likely a regular camping place on or near the Laredo road.

  Alan C. Huffines in Blood of Noble Men: The Alamo Siege & Battle (Austin: Eakin Press, 1999), 24, claims that the “Rovia” site was probably Rosilla Creek on the Goliad road. Huffines cites no source for his opinion. It appears he simply selected a geographical feature in the area that had a name that started with an “r.”

  26 Andrew Jackson Sowell, Rangers and Pioneers of Texas (1884; reprint; New York: Argosy-Antiquarian, Ltd., 1964), 136; “A list of the Gonzales Ranging Company of Mounted Volunteers mustered into service on the 23rd of February 1836, by Byrd Lockhart acting Commissioner for that purpose and Aid[e] de Camp to the acting Governor of Texas, attached to Travis’ command,” Muster Roll book, 1, GLO; Laura J. Irvine, “Sketch of Guadalupe County,” American Sketch Book (Austin: Sketch Book Publishing House, 1882), 8; J. E. Grinstead, “An Orphan of the Alamo,” San Antonio Express, November 5, 1916.

  27 Luciano Pacheco file, PC-TSL.

  28 W. B. Travis to Andrew Ponton, February 23, 1836, Bexar, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 420.

  29 Pena, Campaign Diary, 13; James Bowie to Santa Anna, February 23, 1836, Bexar, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 414; Almonte, “Private Journal,” 16-17; Travis to Houston, February 25, 1836. This investigator’s belief that the howitzer was operating from a site below the city is based on the fact that Bowie addressed his missive to the “Commander of the invading forces below Bejar.”

  Jose Enrique de la Pena was not in San Antonio on February 23. He wrote that the data concerning events in San Antonio between February 23 and March 2 he had added to his campaign diary came from a diary that had been sent to him. The writer of that diary is unknown. The Alamo’s 18-pounder was on the northwest corner. The 8-pounder was probably mounted at the southwest corner.

  In Alan C. Huffines’ Blood of Noble Men: The Alamo Siege & Battle, 26-27, illustrator Gary S. Zaboly depicts the no-quarter flag with a skull and crossbones as if it were a pirate banner. Zaboly’s source for his flag was a sketch attributed to Captain Jose Juan Sanchez Navarro
in La Guerra de Tejas: Memorias de un Soldado, an alleged account of the Texas revolution by a participant.

  Zaboly notes that the only other source that includes his Mexican pirate standard is an oil painting. Zaboly wrote: “One additional clue to the use of a blood-red banner with skull and crossbones appears in Henry McArdle’s frequently reproduced 1905 oil, Dawn at the Alamo. At center top a Mexican soldier, shot, is falling backwards and letting go of a red flag with skull and crossbones decorating it. McArdle had been gathering, for several decades, much of his research data from a number of sources, including veterans of the Texian Revolution. Perhaps one of the latter remembered this flag, which nearly parallels what Navarro had drawn.”

  Mr. Zaboly’s opinion notwithstanding, an examination of McArdle’s research materials for the painting (McArdle’s Alamo Scrapbook, TSL) reveals another answer for the skull and crossbones in his painting. The flag of no quarter is only identified as a blood-red banner. There is no mention of the flag having a skull and crossbones in the center. A photograph of McArdle’s original crayon sketch of the red flag and the falling Mexican soldier shows only a red flag, no skull and crossbones. Thus, it appears that McArdle added the skull and crossbones to the final painting as symbols of death to explain the meaning of the banner. Otherwise, a red flag would have only had meaning to those viewers who knew exactly what the standard represented. To others, the banner would just have been a red flag, without meaning.

  In sum, there is no valid source for the red flag with the skull and crossbones. If the Sanchez Navarro drawing is authentic, which this investigator believes is not the case, the skull and crossbones are probably a symbol for death, not an element that actually appeared on the Mexican banner. More likely, the creator of the Sanchez Navarro drawing based the flag on the McArdle flag.

  30 L. Smither to All the Inhabitants of Texas, February 24, 1836, Gonzales in Green, “To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World,” 503-504; Nathaniel Townsend to Jn. Adriance, February 26, 1836, San Felipe, John Adriance Papers, CAH.

  The Smither missive reports that he left San Antonio at 4:00 p.m. on February 23. The Townsend letter reports that: “An express came in at 9 o’clock last night [February 25] from Bexar in 53 hours, from Col. W. B. Travis. . . .” Townsend then quoted part of Travis’s letter to Andrew Ponton at Gonzales. The fifty-three-hour travel time shows that the express had departed Bexar at 4:00 p.m. on February 23. Most historians believe that Dr. John Sutherland was Travis’s first courier to Gonzales. See endnote number 34, Chapter One and Chapter Eight for an explanation as to why Sutherland was not an Alamo express rider.

  31 Bowie to Smith, February 2, 1836; Almonte, “Private Journal,” 17; J. C. Neill affidavit, December 13, 1835, Bexar, Green B. Jameson file, AMC-TSL.

  The belief that Bowie dictated the short note to Juan Seguin is based on a comparison of the note’s handwriting to a sample of Bowie’s handwriting. The Bowie signature on the note, which is uneven, matches known examples of Bowie’s signature. The text of the document does not match Bowie’s handwriting. The text handwriting, however, does match an example of Seguin’s handwriting.

  The J. C. Neill statement is in Jameson’s siege and storming of Bexar army discharge. In it Neill mentions Jameson’s skill with his rifle.

  32 Almonte, “Private Journal,” 17; Vicente Filisola, Wallace Woolsey, editor and translator, Memoirs for the History of the War in Texas (2 vols., Austin: Eakin Press, 1986, 1987), II: 149-150; Santa Anna to Joaquin Ramirez y Sesma, December 7, 1836, San Luis Potosi, Jenkins, ed., Papers, III: 114. Travis believed that he faced 2,000 enemy soldiers, but at that point in time this was not the case.

  33 Ibid. Some individuals think that after Martin returned to the Alamo and informed Travis of the conversation with Almonte, Travis responded by firing another cannon shot at the Mexican force. That does not appear to have been the case because Almonte reported: “After these contestations night came on, and there was no more firing.”

  34 Seguin to Fontaine, June 7, 1890.

  35 Potter, “The Fall,” 6.

  36 Almonte, “Private Journal,” 17; Travis to Convention, March 3, 1836.

  37 Jesse Badgett interview, April 15, 1836. Badgett reported that the garrison had fourteen men on the sick list when he departed for the convention, which was about February 19. The six men who left on February 23 were (1) John Johnson, Goliad courier, (2) Nat Lewis, merchant, (3 & 4) A. J. Sowell and Byrd Lockhart, who were out searching for cattle, (5 & 6) Philip Dimmitt and Benjamin Noble, scouts.

  In 1876 Susanna Dickinson reported there were fifty to sixty wounded men from the siege and storming of Bexar in the Alamo. That appears to have been a mistake on her part or the person who interviewed her misunderstood what she said. She may have said fifteen or sixteen.

  38 [Susanna Dickinson] “Survived the Alamo Massacre,” San Antonio Express, February 24, 1929.

  39 Barnes, “The Alamo’s Only Survivor”; Pedro Herrera army discharge claim (ADC), August 1, 1836, AMC-TSL; Simon Arreola ADC, July 31, 1836, AMC-TSL; Cesario Carmona ADC, February 14, 1837; Vicente Zepeda ADC, January 15, 1837, AMC-TSL; Jose Maria Arocha ADC, January 17, 1839, AMC-TSL; Matias Curvier file, PC-TSL; James L. Fushears to William Steele, February 6, 1875, San Antonio, AJC-TSL; Manuel Flores bounty grant, Travis 46, GLO; Filisola, Memoirs, II: 178.

  The discharge claims and the one land grant identify the individuals as members of Seguin’s company. The start and end dates for the military service indicate that the men were in service at the start of the Alamo siege on February 23.

  Historian R. M. Potter claimed: “J. N. Seguin, a native of San Antonio, who had been commissioned as the senior Captain of Travis’ corps, joined him at the Alamo, and brought into the garrison the skeleton of his company, consisting of nine Mexican recruits, natives, some of the town aforesaid and others of the interior of Mexico.” Bluntly said, Potter did not know what he was talking about, and it suggests that he never talked with Seguin about the Alamo.

  Seguin had been offered a cavalry commission, but he rejected it. Instead, he was elected the first judge of San Antonio. Nevertheless, Seguin claimed in his 1858 Personal Memoirs that he accepted the commission. To the extent that Seguin had a company in the Alamo, the men were volunteers. The true organization of Seguin’s unit took place after he had departed the Alamo as courier.

  Filisola reported that the Alamo garrison contained: “. . . some twenty people and tradesmen of the city of Bexar itself.” Filisola was not aware that most of those individuals left the fortress during the siege.

  40 “Children of the Alamo,” Houston Chronicle, November 9, 1901; San Antonio Express, November 22, 1902; Groneman, Alamo Defenders, 43-47.

  In the 1902 article, Enrique Esparza, Gregorio’s son, reported that his father belonged to “[Placido] Benavides’ company in the American army.” Enrique placed his father’s unit in Goliad before his father returned to San Antonio. If that remembrance is accurate, then Gregorio Esparza most likely served under James Bowie because Benavides and his men were aligned with Bowie when he was at Goliad.

  41 Ibid.; Barnes, “The Alamo’s Only Survivor”; John S. Ford, “Memoirs of John S. Ford - 1815-1836,” John S. Ford Papers, CAH. In addition to the names given by Esparza, Ford reported: Dolores Cervantes and Desidora Munoz. Ford’s source for the two women is unknown.

  42 John S. Ford, “The Fall of the Alamo,” Texas Mute Ranger, April 1882; [Joe’s account] in “Letter from Texas,” Frankfort [Kentucky] Commonwealth, May 25, 1836.

  43 Barrett et al. to Governor, February 4, 1836, San Felipe, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 249; “A list of the Gonzales Ranging Company,” February 23, 1836; George C. Kimbell pay certificate, November 29, 1839, AMC-TSL; James George pay certificate, January 15, 1839, AMC-TSL; William Dearduff pay certificate, January 15, 1839, AMC-TSL; John G. King pay certificate, January 15, 1839. The four certificates identify the men as rangers in “Major Williamson’s command.”

  This Gonzales ranger c
ompany should not be confused with the twenty-member ranger unit G. W. Davis was authorized to organize at Gonzales in November 1835. Davis’s company was to operate from “the big spring, on the head of St. Marks [San Marcos] river.” This investigator has not been able to find any evidence that verifies Davis actually organized the company. As the siege of Bexar was taking place at that time there would have been few men available for a ranger company in Gonzales.

  44 William Barret Travis to the People of Texas & all Americans in the World, February 24, 1836, Alamo, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 423. Travis’s battle cry, “Victory or Death,” had been the watchword for General George Washington’s assault on the British garrison at Trenton, New Jersey, in the American Revolution. Also, this is the only Travis missive from the Alamo that he signed with his full name. The other letters are signed W. Barret Travis.

  45 Long, Duel, 190.

  46 Gray, From Virginia, 120.

  47 Ibid.

  48 “A list of the Gonzales Ranging Company,” February 23, 1836; George C. Kimbell pay certificate, November 29, 1839, AMC-TSL; Thomas Jackson pay certificate, March 4, 1840, AMC-TSL; “Muster Roll of the Gonzales Volunteer Militia Company,” [October or November 1835], Austin Papers, CAH. Albert Martin was the commanding officer of the volunteer militia unit. Jackson should not be confused with Thomas R. Jackson, the quartermaster officer for Travis’s Legion of Cavalry.