by Walter Lord
A hot, muggy afternoon replaced the morning drizzle. The Mexican guns died, the townspeople crawled out from their houses again. Once more noncombatants slipped back and forth across the lines, providing the gossip either side wanted most to hear.
But that evening there was no serenade by Santa Anna’s band. At 9 P.M. the wind shifted and a norther soon lashed at attacker and defender alike. Still, it was not an idle night for the Mexican Army. Sesma’s rear units had been arriving all day, and finally there were enough troops to start maneuvering in true European fashion.
Colonel Morales led a detachment to dig trenches protecting the hard-won ground in La Villita. Two new batteries were also planted across the river—one about 300 yards south of the Alamo, the other near the powderhouse 1,000 yards to the southeast. The Matamoros battalion moved up to support both. The cavalry occupied the hills to the east and the Gonzales road by the old slaughterhouse—it was now time to stop that absurd stream of enemy messengers gallivanting over the country.
Travis didn’t let all of this go unchallenged. A hail of grape and rifle fire greeted a Mexican unit testing the Alamo defenses on the north. Later a group of Texans sortied out on the east for a skirmish with some of Sesma’s men. Another squad of defenders raided La Villita to the south. They yanked down a few of the shacks for firewood—always a problem at the Alamo—and burned others to clear the area in front of the new Mexican earthworks.
But it was clear things couldn’t go on this way. The Mexicans were moving closer, drawing the ring tighter all the time. Feeling the pressure, several of the local Mexican defenders slipped out during the night, crossed the lines and gave themselves up. They asked to be taken to Santa Anna, but were coldly told that His Excellency had gone to bed and couldn’t be disturbed until morning.
In the Alamo Travis dashed off a new appeal for help— this time addressed to Sam Houston himself. If anyone could get action, it ought to be the Commander-in-Chief. But how to send the message? Those ominous mounds of earth—the mysterious noises in the dark—showed all too clearly that the garrison now was completely surrounded. No one seemed especially anxious for the assignment of carrying the message out.
A council of war debated the problem. As the men talked, the argument centered more and more on Captain Juan Seguin as the logical courier. He knew the country; he spoke the language; he even was a Mexican. But, Travis argued, that was just why he needed Seguin in the Alamo. There might be more dealings with Santa Anna; if so, who could be more useful? Travis finally lost out. When it came to a vote, Seguin was elected to carry the message.
Darting across the yard to the hospital, Seguin asked Jim Bowie if he could borrow his horse. Bowie, tossing with fever, was now so weak he could barely recognize anybody. Finally he understood. Yes, of course, it was all right.
Into the rain-swept night rode Seguin and his orderly Antonio Cruz. As they passed out of the fort, the two were briefly insulted by the sentry on the northern wall. In the time-honored tradition of all enlisted men everywhere, the man could only see that another officer was heading for a safe place.
Turning onto the Gonzales road, Seguin and Cruz soon came upon the Mexican outpost—a guard of dragoons, dismounted and resting by the wayside. Ever so casually, the two horsemen approached. A challenge in the dark. The answer—two friends, good Mexicans. Almost at the outpost, they suddenly spurred their horses, raced by the startled sentries. Excited yells … a fusillade of shots whizzed harmlessly overhead. The two men rode on, building a lead that even the superb Mexican horsemen could never overcome.
And just as well, for the message Seguin carried was the fullest, the most detailed yet. Describing Santa Anna’s gradual encirclement, Travis concluded:
Do hasten on aid to me as rapidly as possible, as from the superior number of the enemy, it will be impossible for us to keep them out much longer. If they overpower us, we fall a sacrifice at the shrine of our country, and we hope posterity and our country will do our memory justice. Give me help, oh my Country!
But a “relief expedition” was already in train. At Goliad, Colonel Fannin was now on the move, spurred to action by Travis’ first message which had arrived that morning. Orders went out immediately to collect rations, get ready to march. They would go to the Alamo, whatever the cost. As Fannin’s young aide, Captain Brooks, wrote his sister that day: “We have resolved to do our duty and to perish under the walls of the Alamo, if stern necessity requires it.”
Fannin too was firm now. Writing his friend Lieutenant Governor Robinson that day, there were no more self-doubts, no secret dread of command. He felt that his march to the Alamo was militarily unsound but it simply had to be done: “The appeal of Colonels Travis and Bowie cannot be resisted, and particularly with the description of troops now in the field—sanguine, chivalrous volunteers. Much must be risked to relieve the besieged.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“I Don’t Like to Be Penned Up”
JAMES ROSE, WHO STAMMERED when excited, must have been hopelessly lost for words. There to the east, in the first light of February 26, swept a detachment of Sesma’s cavalry, circling toward the rear of the Alamo. A group of Texans raced out the northern postern to meet them head-on. Rifles blazed, the Mexicans veered off, and another threat was over.
There was little rest for anyone this cold, bleak day. The dramatic Travis was the last man to want a static defense, and he worked hard to hold the initiative, to keep the enemy off-guard until help could come. He sent a squad to the south to pull down more of the nearby shacks for firewood; another to the west to scoop up buckets of water from an irrigation ditch. After dark, still another group sallied out to La Villita, burning more of the huts that gave the enemy cover.
In the Alamo, Green Jameson’s men dug more trenches, threw up more earthworks to bolster the walls and serve as parapets. Ticklish work, for they had to dodge a steady hail of Mexican shot—Sesma’s eight guns were now to the west, south and southeast. The Alamo replied only occasionally; ammunition was running low and orders were out to hold fire. The gunners whiled away the time as best they could—Almeron Dickinson with his wife, John McGregor with his bagpipes, Henry Warnell with his endless opinions on horses.
No rest for the riflemen. They kept a keen, sharp-eyed watch on La Villita, happily blazed away at any Mexican rash or careless enough to show his head. By now the Texans had it down to a science. For cover, they used the nearby irrigation ditches as well as Jameson’s earthen parapets. For faster fire power, each man kept four or five loaded rifles by his side. And of course they were all deadly shots.
Take the case of that Mexican engineer, reconnoitering across the river some two hundred yards from the Alamo. He worked in the open, apparently sure he was safe. A man in buckskin climbed up on the southwest corner of the fort—a living monument against the bleak, gray sky—and coolly shot the Mexican dead.
Of course everyone always said the Texan was Crockett. No one will ever know for sure, but Captain Rafael Soldana of the Tampico battalion later pictured a Texan that gives food for thought:
A tall man, with flowing hair, was seen firing from the same place on the parapet during the entire siege. He wore a buckskin suit and a cap all of a pattern entirely different from those worn by his comrades. This man would kneel or lie down behind the low parapet, rest his long gun and fire, and we all learned to keep at a good distance when he was seen to make ready to shoot. He rarely missed his mark, and when he fired he always rose to his feet and calmly reloaded his gun seemingly indifferent to the shots fired at him by our men. He had a strong, resonant voice and often railed at us, but as we did not understand English we could not comprehend the import of his words further than that they were defiant. This man I later learned was known as “Kwockey.”
The Mexicans soon learned to keep down. Even if only wounded, they faced the fresh peril of their medical service. In contrast, the Texans sometimes stood in full view, openly challenging the enemy to do his worst. It was hardly fai
r. Sesma’s troops were indeed poor shots, but even the brilliant Tennesseans could have done little with ancient smoothbores that reached only seventy yards.
All day on the 26th the Texan sharpshooters braved the bitter north wind, nor was there much relief that evening. The night was filled with alarms, bugle calls, distant shouts, the nerve-racking feeling that the enemy was always inching closer. Why didn’t help come?
Saturday, February 27, found the norther still blowing. Travis continued his strategy of active defense, but strain and weariness were beginning to tell. No sorties, little firing from the Alamo this day. And the defenders suddenly found themselves facing a new peril—Mexican troops by the mill to the north were blocking the irrigation ditch, hoping to cut off the fort’s water. Jameson put a squad to work on a half-finished well at the south end of the plaza.
The men hit water all right, but they also undermined an earth and timber parapet by the low barracks. The mound collapsed, leaving no way to fire safely over the wall.
Midafternoon. The Alamo lookouts suddenly yelled and pointed. A handsomely mounted Mexican general was passing along the enemy lines, surrounded by a glittering corps of aides and dragoons. The Texans fired away at this inviting target, but it must have been out of range, for no hits were scored. The men’s disappointment would have been even greater had they realized the flashy horseman was Santa Anna himself.
In the cold, windy night Travis penned one more of his fervent calls for help. This time to Fannin again. And this time he handed the message to the man he trusted most. James Butler Bonham, the South Carolinian, had shown his devotion by getting back to the Alamo after the siege began. Now he would have another chance to prove his loyalty. The northern postern opened briefly and Bonham galloped off into the night.
February 28, and another gray day. The norther was dying down but a dreary drizzle seemed almost worse. The men huddled under soggy blankets, or vainly tried to keep warm by damp, smoky fires. Little rest, little food, little reason to be cheerful. They could see a Mexican squad making another attempt to cut off their water. A second enemy detachment was busily planting a new battery by the old mill, perhaps eight hundred yards to the north. The other Mexican guns were stepping up their fire; and finally there was always that red flag on the church tower. It had no snap today—just a wet rag hanging limp in the rain—but it still meant no quarter.
Bowie, though desperately ill, did his best to encourage the men. He had his cot brought out … urged them to keep fighting, whatever happened. Crockett turned on the tested charm that had never failed him yet. His favorite device during these dark days was to stage a musical duel between himself and John McGregor. The Colonel had found an old fiddle somewhere, and he would challenge McGregor to get out his bagpipes to see who could make the most noise. The two of them took turns, while the men laughed and whooped and forgot for a while the feeling of being alone.
Still, stunts and encouraging talk could only accomplish so much. Nothing could hide the fact that the trap was closing, that the Mexicans were drawing the ring ever tighter. Artilleryman Henry Warnell jammed his huge quid of tobacco against the side of his mouth and blurted the words that so many felt: “I’d much rather be out in that open prairie. … I don’t like to be penned up like this.”
Santa Anna would have been pleased. Along with Napoleonic tactics, psychological warfare was his forte. It was his idea to fill every night with bugle calls, cheers, volleys of musketry, bursts of artillery—all designed to harass the Texans, break them down, wear them out.
But as the days passed, the Mexicans were wearing down too. Colonel Almonte found practically no supplies in San Antonio, and the troops’ skimpy rations were fast running out. Everything depended on the wagon trains somewhere to the rear. If Travis wondered where Fannin was, Santa Anna was growing no less concerned about Filisola, Gaona and the rest. Miserable sluggards, were they never on time?
On the 27th, he sent more couriers to prod them along. A barrage of orders pricked and needled the methodical Filisola: “Speed up the march” … “Send ahead all supplies you can gather” … “Hurry the money held by the Commissary General” … “Be sure to send us two to three hundredweight of salt, none here—not a grain—and we need it badly.”
Actually, Filisola was still dawdling by the Rio Grande. But he soon pushed ahead into Texas, trying his best to please his impulsive, impatient chief. He was sadly aware that His Excellency would never understand the problems—finding water, spurring the men, giving them even an ounce of desire, when all along the way they saw nothing but the broken debris of Santa Anna’s own march—dead mules, abandoned oxen, smashed cases, wrecked carts left even with their harnesses dangling.
In San Antonio, Santa Anna finally improvised. That local Mexican Manuel Menchaca had always been helpful. Now the General sent him to find some food. Menchaca knew just where to go. He led a raiding party straight to the Seguin and F1órez ranchos—both owners sympathized with the Texan cause. He soon cleaned them out of corn, beef and hogs.
Feeling better, Santa Anna despatched another courier on the night of February 27—this time to Mexico City, reporting his success to date. His Excellency glowingly described the capture of San Antonio, but totally ignored the fact that across the river over 150 defiant Texans still held out in the Alamo.
By now it was time for a brief dalliance. Always an admirer of beautiful women, Santa Anna had surveyed the local scene well, and a couple of accommodating ladies were soon incorporated into his entourage. Their presence was later wrapped in intrigue and romance by Sergeant Francisco Becerra, perhaps the most unreliable of all the Mexican participants who spun yarns for the Texans in years to come. Becerra loved to tell how a mock marriage ceremony was performed by a rascal disguised as a priest, linking Santa Anna to the purest of San Antonio’s pure.
Be that as it may, there was certainly a girl. And delectable too, for His Excellency ultimately rewarded her well. He had his own carriage take her back to San Luis Potosi, where she might be saved from the confining life of the provinces. As a parting gift, he gave the girl and a companion 2,000 pesos.
Such pleasant interludes were rudely shattered on February 28. On that day word suddenly reached Santa Anna that Fannin was coming to the Alamo’s rescue—marching from Goliad with 200 men.
Good espionage, but actually Fannin’s force was even stronger. After frantic preparations, he had started from Goliad on the afternoon of February 26 with 320 men and four cannon. Down the hill toward the San Antonio River his troops doggedly made their way. Heads bent low against the biting wind, for the norther was blowing hard. The men moved slowly, unevenly; most were on foot, and the oxen that drew their guns were never more stubborn.
Two hundred yards from town, while still in clear sight of the Goliad mission, a wagon broke down. Everything stopped for repairs; then the whole caravan crept on down to the river edge. Now two more wagons came apart; and worse yet, the single yokes of oxen weren’t strong enough to drag the guns across.
Aimless hours of waiting around, while the oxen were double-teamed for each gun. It was late afternoon by the time all the artillery was over, and the men were weary and discouraged. Fannin decided to let them rest. They couldn’t have gone on anyhow, for the ammunition wagon was still on the wrong side of the river.
As evening approached, Fannin made another carefully considered decision. They certainly couldn’t march in the dark, so they might as well camp for the night and start fresh in the morning. He ordered the men to stack their arms and turn the oxen loose to graze. Spirits drooped lower, as the wind continued to blow.
Dawn on the 27th brought an unpleasant discovery. During the night the oxen had wandered off. Fannin sent out working parties to herd them back … and more hours passed.
It must have been midmorning when he got the request to hold a council of war. Normally Fannin dreaded the democratic process in military affairs (“Spare us, in God’s name, from elections in camp”), but this time he s
eemed almost relieved. A meeting of all his officers convened in the bushes, and hesitantly someone raised the question that troubled more than one mind: was this expedition really a wise idea?
The firebrands seemed shocked, but Fannin had not been to West Point for nothing. He knew something about logistics, and he patiently pointed out their supply situation: they had only a little dried beef, half a barrel of rice, and no cattle except those needed to draw the guns. The nearest supplies lay at Seguin’s ranch, seventy miles away, altogether a dismal prospect.
But ignore the Alamo’s call for help? Fannin sympathized; however, he was a trained soldier, taught to weigh military odds realistically. Here they were—320 volunteers, four cannon, little ammunition. Against them—thousands of well-equipped, superbly drilled Mexican troops.
But abandon the men in the Alamo? Well, a professional military mind must consider the over-all strategic picture. If they went to San Antonio, Goliad would be left practically undefended. An enemy attack would easily overrun the small rear-guard—endangering the supplies at Dimitt’s Landing, exposing the Texans’ whole left flank.
Sound tactics ruled the day. The guns and wagons were painfully withdrawn across the river, and the relief expedition trudged back up the hill to the old stone compound they called Fort Defiance.
By the 28th—when Santa Anna got first wind of the march—Fannin’s feet were planted firmly back in Goliad. In fact, if Henry Warnell hated being penned up in the Alamo, Colonel Fannin seemed to relish the prospect in his own stronghold. “I have about 420 men here,” he wrote Joseph Mims, “and if I can get provisions in tomorrow or next day, can maintain myself against any force.”
