James Jeffrey Roche. See note on “The Fight of the _Armstrong_
Privateer.”
The Alamo was a Spanish Mission at San Antonio, founded early in the
18th century. Later it was transformed into a fortress. In addition to
the church, with adjacent buildings used as quarters for the soldiers
and for the magazine, there was a rectangular space about one hundred
and fifty yards long and fifty yards wide protected by a stone wall from
six to eight feet in height and nearly three feet in thickness. This
enclosure was defended by fourteen or more cannon. The storming of the
Alamo took place on the morning of the 6th of March, 1836. There were
188 Texans defending the place, while the Mexican force numbered from
2500 to 5000. Three women, a child, and a negro servant survived the
fight. The statement in the last line of the poem refers to the
defenders.
=l. 1.= =Houston= (Samuel, 1793-1863), a Virginian by birth, the
commander-in-chief of the army of the Texas republic. He was the second
president (first by regular election) of the Republic of Texas, and
afterward United States senator and the governor of the State.
=l. 4.= =Nueces=, a river of southern Texas emptying into Corpus Christi
Bay.
=l. 5.= =Castrillon=, a Mexican general (a Spaniard by birth) who was killed
at San Jacinto, where he had command of the artillery. It was he who had
charge of the assault on the Alamo.
=Cos= (Martin Perfecto de), a Mexican general, and brother-in-law of Santa
Anna. He was in command at San Antonio when the place was surrendered
to the Texans in December, 1835. He was released upon parole under the
promise that he would not oppose the re-establishment of the Federal
Constitution of 1824. He returned with Santa Anna the following year,
and participated in the attack upon the Alamo, hence the epithet
“perjured.”
=Sesmá= (Ramirez y), a Mexican general.
=Almontê= (Juan Nepomunceno), the son of a Mexican priest and patriot. He
was a colonel in the Mexican army, and Santa Anna’s secretary. He at one
time served as the Mexican minister to the United States. He was an
upholder of Maximilian and served in his cabinet. When that ill-fated
prince fell, Almontê escaped to France, where he died two or three years
later.
=l. 6.= =Santa Anna= (Antonio Lopez de, 1795-1876), several times president
of Mexico, and when not in power usually a conspirator against the head
of the government. He was in command of the Mexican army in the war
against the Texans, and again in the war with the United States. He
served under Maximilian, and against him. No less than six times he was
exiled, or fled the country.
=l. 13.= =Travis= (William Barrett, 1811-1836), the colonel who commanded at
the defence of the Alamo, by birth an Alabamian. He practiced law in his
native State in his early manhood, but emigrated to Texas in 1832, and
there became interested in the cause of independence. He was of fine
stature, and noted for his intrepidity.
=l. 16.= =Bowie= (James, 1790-1836), a Georgian who gained notoriety on
account of his part in a bloody mêlée which followed a duel fought
opposite Natchez, on the Mississippi, in August, 1827. It is said that
it was in this encounter that the famous knife which afterward bore
Bowie’s name was first used. The original weapon was made from a
blacksmith’s broken rasp or file. Bowie emigrated from Louisiana, where
he was living at the time of the duel, to Texas, and was active in the
Texan struggle till his death.
=l. 17.= =Evans= (Robert), a Texan major of artillery who was shot when on
the point of firing a train to blow up the magazine of the Alamo at
Travis’s order.
=l. 29.= =Crockett= (David, familiarly known as “Davy,” 1786-1836). This
noted frontiersman was a Tennesseean. He was prominent in the Creek war,
and after a wild life as a scout and hunter became a member of the State
legislature, and then of Congress. His waning influence with his
constituents, owing to the fact that he opposed Jackson, caused him to
join the Texans in their struggle for liberty.
=l. 54.= =San Jacinto.= See note on following poem.
=l. 57.= =Thermopylæ=, the pass from Thessaly into Locris where Leonidas and
his three hundred Spartans fell, B.C. 480.