Alamo Traces

by Thomas Ricks Lindley

  During the last days of December 1835, the forces at Bexar abandoned the federalist cause and the Mexican national flag. On December 30 Horatio H. Alsbury, translator for the garrison and future Alamo courier, wrote Sam Houston of the garrison’s attitude toward independence and requested his opinion on the subject:

  I take the privilege of addressing you this note flattering myself that you will be pleased to know our operations at this place, but I am actuated more by the uneasiness I feel about our Country from the declaration [of independence] of Dimitt’s party at La Bahia [Goliad], & the disposition of the troops remaining at this place to a second [of] that declaration. You will excuse me therefore when I beg of you to inform me by letter the disposition of the Council & Texas in general relative to a premature declaration of independence or an immediate declaration to that purport.

  I will be truly grateful to you to give me candidly your own ideas on the subject of Independence. The army will leave this evening to the number of 300 men for Matamoros where from authentic information they will meet the enemy fifteen hundred in number.10

  Houston’s opinion was important to the American volunteers who planned to capture the Mexican port of Matamoros on the Rio Grande. On November 29, 1835, Robert C. Morris, a Greys captain, wrote Houston to reject an appointment in the Texian regular army: “There was no one [who] more ardently wished you as a leader in the Camp & your appearance there at any period previous to the taking of Bexar, would have given you the command of the army by eleven twelfths of the votes. . . . There are now here 225 men, nearly all from the U.S. Who on no consideration will enter into any service connected with the Regular Army, the name of which is a perfect Bugbear to them, & to them I promised to be one of those who lead them on the road to Matamoros & who declare in the most positive manner that should this not be undertaken they will return home direct from hence.”11

  During December’s last days or the first week of January 1836, a flag appeared at Bexar that seems to have been designed to take advantage of Houston’s popularity with the American filibusters. On January 6, 1836, Texas governor Henry Smith wrote: “I have anticipated them and ordered the commander-in-Chief forthwith to proceed to the frontier, take charge of the army, establish his headquarters at the most eligible point, and to immediately concentrate his troops, at the different points, so as to be in readiness for active operations, at the earliest possible day. A descent will be made on Matamoros, as soon as it can possibly be fitted out. . . . They have hoisted a flag at Bexar for independence, with Gen. Houston’s name upon it! This I have learned to be the fact. I find it necessary, in order to circumvent them, to order Gen. Houston to immediately take charge.”12

  Why would Smith, who supported independence and separation from Mexico, have been upset about a “Sam Houston for Independence” flag flying at San Antonio? After all, such a banner suggests loyalty and support for Houston as the commander-in-chief. The problem was that the flag did not represent the kind of separation from Mexico that Smith, Houston, and James Bowie were working to achieve. F. W. Johnson and James Grant appear to have created the Houston flag as a way to convince the U.S. volunteers that Houston supported the Johnson and Grant version of the Matamoros expedition.13

  On January 7, in a letter to John Forbes of Nacogdoches, Houston answered Alsbury’s question about independence and identified the problem with the Houston flag that Smith wanted him to solve.

  You are aware that I have been opposed to a Declaration of Independence up to this time. I was so, because I thought it premature and that some policy demanded of us a fair experiment – I now feel confident that no further experiment need be made, to convince us that there is but one course left for Texas to pursue, and that is, an unequivocal Declaration of Independence, and the formation of a constitution, to be submitted to the people for their rejection or ratification.

  It is the project of some interested in land matters, very largely, for Texas to unite with some three or four of the Eastern States of Mexico, and form a Republic – This I regard as worse, than our present, or even our former situation.

  Their [the Mexican people of those states] wars would be our wars, and their revolutions: While our Revenues, our lands, and our lives would be expended to maintain their cause, and we could expect nothing in return; but prejudice, and if we relied on them disappointment. Let Texas now Declare her independence, and it will cost her less blood, and treasure to maintain it; than it would cost her to maintain her integral interest in such a confederacy; the preponderance, would be so decidedly against her, that she would have less influence if possible, than she has heretofore enjoyed in the Congress of Coahuila and Texas.

  The citizens of Texas can never be happy, until they are confident in the certainty of their rights – so long as they are subject to Mexican policy they never can be confident; Then if these are truths sanctioned by experience – Texas must be free, that her citizens may be happy.14

  In early February 1836, Governor Smith stated his and Houston’s political and military goals in a private letter. He wrote:

  . . . The first of March will give the death blow to their main project, as I have no doubt the independence of Texas will be proclaimed to the world, and then a long farewell to all Mexican policy. . . .

  “This country can never prosper until a few of that baneful faction are immolated on the alter of their own perfidy. The convention will, I hope, afford the grand corrective.

  “Owing to their [James Grant and F. W. Johnson] base management, much confusion prevails among our volunteer troops on the frontier, but, by using much vigilance, I have now got Bexar secure. On the last advices the enemy were concentrating on our border in considerable numbers and every exertion used, and everything put in requisition for a formidable campaign against the colonies in the spring. Flying rumors have been sent in to delude us, by saying many of the Eastern States have declared in opposition to the dictator. In this, however, I have no confidence, believing it is intended to delude us.

  “Copano has been assigned as our headquarters for the present, until we make a declaration and have a sufficient number of men and means to operate on, when we will immediately remove to the west, of which you will be informed from this department.15

  Then on January 7 Houston responded to Smith’s concern about the flag at Bexar and the political position it represented by departing for Goliad to seize control of the Matamoros expedition to stop Johnson and Grant from using it as their opening engagement in a campaign to create a new Mexican/Texian republic.16

  In opposition to the Johnson and Grant design for a new nation, Bowie was already on the road to Goliad with orders from Houston to organize a volunteer force that could take Matamoros in the name of independence and secure the land all the way up the Rio Grande, which Smith and Houston erroneously believed was Texas’s southwestern border. On January 10, probably unaware that Houston was on the road, Bowie wrote the general: “Some dark scheme has been set on foot to disgrace our noble cause. I shall leave with Captain Blount in an hour, and shall reach Goliad by daylight, and put a stop to Grant’s movements.” The Bowie, Houston, and Smith “noble cause” was simple. They wanted a Texas that was free of Mexican political dominance and influence that could be quickly annexed to the Untied States. Any successful Anglo-Celtic alliance with Mexican federalists, be it the Johnson and Grant project or the one advocated by Lt. Governor James W. Robinson and the Council, that defeated Santa Anna’s centralist government would have prevented a union of Texas and the United States.17

  Houston, after arriving at Goliad, received news from Lt. Colonel James C. Neill, the commander at San Antonio, reporting an expected attack on that city and the reinforcement of the Mexican garrison at Matamoros. A part of the letter, which has been overlooked by historians, mentions the Bexar flag: “You [Houston] will learn what sneaking and Gambling has been done, to operate against you by J [Johnson] & G [Grant]. You will hear all about the Houston flag, and the Houston House in Bexar, f
or fear you would be elected Commander of the Volunteer army, they never would let it come near an election, but shuffled it off, and threw all the army into confusion several times, and the responsibility on the heads of the several Captains.”18

  In the end, Houston, Bowie, and Smith’s attempted invasion of Matamoros was postponed until after the convention. Santa Anna’s arrival at Bexar, however, prevented the move to the west until the Mexican War in 1846. Still, the evidence suggests that in January 1836, the Bexar troops were flying a flag for independence with Sam Houston’s name on it, which appears to have represented the Johnson and Grant proposed new republic made up of Texas and three or four Eastern Mexican states. Was that flag the Alamo flag?19

  Other evidence strongly suggests that the Houston flag was most likely the Alamo banner. When Santa Anna’s army approached San Antonio sometime after 2:00 p.m. on February 23, the Alamo defenders welcomed them with a flag that appears to have flown from the San Fernando church tower. Colonel Juan N. Almonte described the standard with these words: “The enemy, as soon as the march of the division was seen, hoisted the tri-colored flag with two stars, designed to represent Coahuila and Texas. The President with all his staff advanced to Camp Santo (burying ground.) The enemy lowered the flag and fled, and possession was taken of Bexar without firing a shot.”20

  In spite of Almonte’s belief, it is extremely unlikely that the standard represented Texas and Coahuila. Texians had been working to separate Texas from Coahuila since the early 1830s. At this time there is no other evidence that clearly defines the two-star tricolor. Speculation, however, suggests that the banner was probably the Sam Houston flag for independence. The stars, a United States design attribute, most likely represented the Anglo-Celtic American and Mexican partnership in the proposed Grant and Johnson confederacy. The Mexican tricolor element probably symbolized the proposed nation’s genesis from Mexican soil. The use of Sam Houston’s name, probably on the reverse of the two-star panel, was an attempt to convince the volunteers from the United States that Houston supported the confederacy. Even if this explanation for the design is off base, the two-star tricolor appears to have been the Alamo standard.21

  Almonte’s words and two other eyewitness reports indicated that the two-star tricolor was the flag flown from the Alamo fortress during the thirteen-day siege. Pablo Diaz, a young man in 1836, reported in 1906: “. . . From the mission [Concepcion] I could see also the flag of the Constitutionalists [federalists] floating from the Alamo. The later flag was not the flag that was afterward adopted by the Texas Republic, with its blue field and single star and a stripe of white and one of red, but the flag of Mexico under the Constitution and prior to the usurpation and assumption of the dictatorship by Santa Anna.”22

  Antono Chavez, who was nine years old in 1836, reported in 1907: “I was born under the Mexican dominion. Its constitutional flag of A.D. 1821, against which Santa Anna contended and prevailed, was floating over the Alamo when he came here in 1836. He captured it together with the Alamo and annihilated its brave defenders.”23

  Diaz and Chavez are wrong about the Alamo flag having been the national federalist Mexican flag. As Walter Lord said, the Alamo defenders were supporters of independence. They would not have flown a federalist flag. Diaz, however, seeing the flag from the Mission Concepcion would not have been able to tell the difference between the two-star tricolor and the federalist tricolor. As for Chavez, it is possible that as a young boy, he did not realize there was a difference in the two flags. He may have assumed the two-star tricolor was another version of the federalist banner.

  The important element in the Diaz and Chavez evidence is that both reported the Alamo banner appeared to be a Mexican tricolor, which coupled with Almonte’s report and the Houston independence banner evidence, suggests the flag that was flying over the Alamo was the two-star flag. That flag was also most likely captured by the Mexican army. Still, Mexican historians, like Lord, mistakenly believe that the banner captured during the dawn attack was the New Orleans Greys flag.24

  Several reasons strongly indicate that the Greys flag was not the emblem the Mexican troops captured on March 6. Given that the captured flag was most likely ripped from its pole, it would have probably been torn. The Greys flag does not appear to have been damaged in such a manner. Also, the banner had no eyelets or cords to attach it to a pole.25

  Moreover, the Greys flag includes the motto “God and Liberty,” a Mexican saying that dates to Mexico’s first attempts at independence. General Santa Anna and other Mexicans officers closed their correspondence with the dictum. The flag and its adage were appropriated during the siege and storming of Bexar when the Texian forces were fighting under the Mexican national flag of federalism. During the Alamo siege, however, it is extremely hard to believe that when Travis wrote on February 24, “. . . our flag still waves proudly from the walls,” he was writing about the Greys banner.26

  Nevertheless, Mexicans appear to accept the Greys flag as the Alamo standard because it was the one Santa Anna sent to Mexico City with his March 6 report of the final assault. The Mexican narrative detailing the capture of the Alamo flag, however, is probably close to the truth. It reads:

  Three officers formerly of the old 70th [Infantry Regiment] (at that time in the Jimenez Battalion) lively carried the tri-colored flag [Mexican national pabellon that represented the centralist government], they fell dead in succession before reaching the height in order to replace the flag, the names of these heroic soldiers, as important as they were, were carelessly lost to our military history.

  In order to reinforce the column of attack that was progressing slowly, and in order to spare more bloodshed, they rushed in the reserve formed by the battalion of Sappers under the command of the then Lieutenant Colonel Romulo Diaz of the five companies Grenadiers of the permanent battalions of Matamoros, Jimenez, and Aldama and the active of Toluca and San Luis, unorganized at that time.

  A Lieutenant of Sappers, Jose Maria Torres was one that planted the three colors on the flagstaff. According to official data, that lieutenant lost his life after finishing his epic exploit. It is another name to unite to the heroic saviors of the Flag and among those who have surrendered the due honor dying for her!27

  It is appropriate that Mexican historians honor the brave Mexican soldiers who fought and died at the Alamo for their government. On the other hand, it is important to note that it would be a disgrace and insult to the memory of the Alamo defenders to trade the Mexican unit flags captured at the Battle of San Jacinto for the Greys flag. The United States banner did not represent the Alamo unit because the Greys were disbanded after the fall of Bexar. A few men remained in San Antonio and joined the garrison under Lt. Colonel James C. Neill as the San Antonio Greys. The other members were either discharged or joined the Johnson and Grant expedition that moved down the road to Goliad.28

  Besides, in reality, the Greys flag no longer truly exists. In 1961 Lord reported: “The flag remains in Mexico City today . . . it is not on exhibit but buried in the files . . . crumbling to pieces in brown wrapping paper. Thanks to the courtesy of the Mexican government, it was recently brought out once again, and enough of it pieced together to identify it beyond any doubt.” The banner that former governor Bush and Truan wanted to return to Texas is essentially a replica that contains an unknown number of scraps of the original material. The two politicians might as well purchase a replica of the Greys flag from the IMAX Theater in San Antonio.29

  In sum, any Texan politician who exchanges the San Jacinto flags for the Greys banner will be giving back to Mexico the flags that truly symbolize the victory that Travis, Bowie, Crockett, and the men, women, and children of the Alamo were fighting for and died for; a triumph to create an independent and prosperous Texas based on North American political principles. The captured Mexican banners represent the San Jacinto victory that gave birth to Texas, and the Alamo defenders’ deaths were its down payment. That fact should not be forgotten or dishonored by moder
n political ambitions.

  Alamo Independence

  Were the Alamo defenders fighting for independence or for the federalist constitution of 1824?

  On this question, there is no doubt. The defenders were for independence. As previously stated, Alsbury said on December 30, 1835, the troops at Bexar were disposed to second the Goliad Declaration of Independence. On January 12 William R. Cary wrote: “The Colo. [James C. 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. . . . We have sent and made known our situation to them, and as the safety of Texas depends mostly upon the keeping of this place they certainly will soon as possible do some thing for us especially when we expect to declare independence as soon as the convention meets.”30

  Later in January, Joseph M. Hawkins wrote Governor Henry Smith a letter of support. Hawkins closed with: “May God bless you and prosper you is the sincere wish of an honest son of Erin and a friend of Texian Independence.”31

  Then, at the end of January, Amos Pollard, the Alamo’s surgeon, also sent a supportive missive to Smith. He said: “I hope that the provisional government would continue till we could establish another and a more firm one – This we shall endeavor to do in March and God grant that we may create an independent government.”32

  On February 1, 1836, the citizens of Bexar elected Jose A. Navarro, Jose F. Ruiz, and Gaspar Flores to represent them at the convention to be held in Washington-on-the-Brazos on March 1, 1836. On February 13 Pollard again wrote Governor Smith. Pollard made it clear as to what was expected of the three Tejanos at the convention. He wrote: “However, I intend that those representatives shall distinctly understand, previous to their leaving, that if they vote against independence, they will have to be very careful on returning here.”33