A line of blood and flame seemed indeed to be closing upon Texas.
General Urrea, after destroying Grant and his volunteers, was advancing
toward Goliad with one thousand men. Santa Anna, with an army of seven
thousand, had invested San Antonio.
The defeat of General Cos had filled the haughty dictator of Mexico with
fury. It was past belief that a handful of the despised colonists, armed
with hunting-rifles, should have put to rout his own well-equipped
regulars. He determined to punish this insolence as it deserved. And not
only to punish, but to set an iron heel upon the rebellious province.
[Illustration: THE ALAMO, SAN ANTONIO]
All prisoners were to be shot; all who had taken part in the revolution
were to be driven out of the country; the best lands were to be divided
among the Mexican soldiers. The expenses of the rebellion were to be
paid by the Texans. All foreigners giving aid to the rebels were to be
treated as pirates.
By the 1st of February Santa Anna had sent General Urrea to Matamoras, a
town near the mouth of the Rio Grande River, with orders to proceed from
that place against Refugio and Goliad. He himself took command of the
main army, with General Filisola (Fee-lee-so′la) as second in command.
General Cos and his men, who had taken oath not to bear arms again
during the war, joined the army at the crossing of the Rio Grande River.
On the 23d of February the first division of this united force appeared
on the heights of the Alazan, west of San Antonio.
The soldiers of the garrison were scattered about the town. No warning
of a near approach of the enemy had come, and things looked tranquil
enough that morning, with the soft winter sunshine flooding the yellow
adobe walls and glinting the limpid river.
A cry from the sentinel posted on the roof of San Fernando Church
startled the stillness; its echoes leaped from street to street; the
alarum bells burst into a clanging peal. The Mexicans were already
pouring down the slopes west of the San Pedro River.
The garrison hastily crossed the San Antonio River and entered the
fortress of the Alamo. One of the officers, Lieutenant Dickinson,
galloped in on horseback, with his baby on his arm and his wife behind
him. Some beef-cattle grazing around the fort were driven in and the
gates were closed.
Colonel William B. Travis had succeeded Neill in the command of the
fort, which was garrisoned by one hundred and forty-five men. Travis was
but twenty-eight years of age; confident, bold, determined, and full of
patriotic ardor. Colonel James Bowie was second in command.
Among other defenders of the Alamo were Colonel James B. Bonham of South
Carolina and David Crockett of Tennessee—“Davy” Crockett, the
backwoodsman, bear-hunter, wit, and politician. Crockett had reached San
Antonio just before the siege, with a small company of Tennesseeans, and
offered his services to Travis. He was a picturesque figure in his
fringed and belted buck-skin blouse and coon-skin cap. His long rifle,
Betsy, had “spoken” in the war of 1812, and echoed since on many an
Indian trail. Its last word was to be spoken at the defense of the
Alamo.
[Illustration: David Crockett.]
The Mission of the Alamo, established in 1703 and several times removed,
was finally built, in 1744, on the spot where it now stands. Like the
other missions, it was both a church and a fortress. It is on the east
side of the San Antonio River, facing the town to westward. The
cross-shaped church, slit with narrow windows and partly roofless, stood
on the southeast corner of a walled plaza several acres in extent. The
other buildings—convent, hospital, barracks, and prison—were within the
enclosure. There was also a small convent-yard adjoining the chapel. All
of the buildings were of stone; the enclosing walls were built of adobe
bricks. The sacristy of the church was used as a powder magazine. The
place was defended by fourteen pieces of artillery.
Santa Anna arrived in person on the 23d. He took possession of San
Antonio town and sent a summons to the rebels in the Alamo for
unconditional surrender. Travis received and dismissed the messengers
with courtesy; then answered by the mouth of a cannon, “No.” At the
defiant boom which stirred the peaceful air of the valley, a blood-red
flag was placed upon the tower of San Fernando, proclaiming “no
quarter”; and a thunder of guns opened the attack.
The besiegers at first made little headway. If they ventured across the
river they were within reach of those unerring rifles they had such
cause to dread. It was the third day before they succeeded in planting a
battery between the fort and the bridge.
The besieged within the fortress were calm and confident, though they
were kept day and night at rifle and cannon. But they were fighting at
fearful odds. Travis sent out an impassioned appeal to the council for
aid. He also dispatched Colonel Bonham to Goliad, asking for Fannin’s
assistance. At the same time he proudly wrote: “I shall never surrender
or retreat.”
On the eighth day of the siege thirty-two volunteers from Gonzales
succeeded in passing the Mexican lines and entered the fort. Two days
later Colonel Bonham slipped in alone, but bringing news that Fannin
would march at once with men and artillery. On the 1st of March Travis
wrote to the council; it was his last letter. “I shall continue to hold
this place,” he said, “until I get relief from my countrymen, or I shall
perish in the attempt.”
But steady as was his spirit, he could not shut his eyes to the fact
that the desperate game was well-nigh played out. On the 4th of March he
called his men together and made them a short but ringing speech. There
was, he told them, no longer any hope of reinforcements; death was
staring them all in the face, and nothing remained but to sell their
lives as dearly as possible. “Now,” he concluded, drawing a line on the
ground with his sword, “whoever is willing to die like a hero, let him
cross this line.” There was not a moment of hesitation. Gravely and
silently, one by one, the men, with one exception,[22] stepped across
the line and ranged themselves beside their leader. Bowie, who was sick,
had himself lifted over in his cot.
Sunday morning, March 6, between midnight and dawn, the final assault
was made by the besiegers. The Mexican bugles sounded the notes of
_Duquelo_ (no quarter); the thunder of cannon followed. The devoted
little band of Texans, weary and worn with constant watching and
incessant fighting, sprang to arms as cheerfully and quickly as to a
holiday parade.
The Mexicans, two thousand five hundred strong, closed about the walls.
They were provided with scaling ladders, axes, and crowbars. A cordon of
cavalry was placed around the fort to prevent escape.
The enemy advanced in the gray dawnlight, under a deadly fire from the
fort. Twice they placed their ladders against the walls, and twice they
recoiled before the terrible hail of shot and shell poured upon them
from the fort. The third time, driven by their officers at the point of
the sword, the soldiers climbed the walls and swarmed over into the
enclosure. Then began a stubborn and bloody combat, which strewed the
plaza with corpses. The Texans fought grimly, silently, furiously, with
pistols, with knives, with the butts of their rifles, dropping one by
one, but sending as they fell scores of Mexicans to a bloody death.
It was in the old church, dedicated to peace and prayer, that the last
conflict took place. Here Crockett was killed, with Betsy, his long
rifle, whose voice had resounded clearly above the uproar, in his hand.
Bowie was slaughtered in his cot, after killing several of his
assailants. Major T. C. Evans was shot in the act of putting fire to the
powder magazine, as he had promised to do in case things came to the
worst.
Mrs. Dickinson and her child, with two Mexican women, were in a small
arched room to the right of the chapel door. They were saved by the
kindness of the Mexican officer, Colonel Almonte.
The tall form of Travis had towered for an instant only above the
battle-waves near a breach in the north wall; then he had gone down, his
brave heart stilled forever. With his last breath he cried in a voice
which rang above the deadly tumult: “_No rendirse muchachos!_” (Don’t
surrender, boys!)
Bonham fell near him and almost at the same moment.
Before nine o’clock the butchery was complete. Two thousand five hundred
Mexicans, cavalry, artillery, and infantry, fresh and unwearied, had
conquered after eleven days’ siege a handful of poorly armed, outworn
“rebels.”
Santa Anna directed the assault from a battery near the river. After the
carnage was ended he came into the fort. He surveyed the bloody scene
with a smile of satisfaction. His victory had cost him a thousand or
more of dead and many wounded; but what did that matter? Not a Texan was
left to tell the tale of the Alamo!
The next day the dead bodies of the Texans were collected in heaps and
burned. The smoke of that fire ascended to high heaven like a prayer for
vengeance. The answer when it came was terrible.
Mrs. Dickinson and her child, two Mexican women, and a negro servant
belonging to Travis were the only survivors of this massacre. Mrs.
Dickinson was placed on a horse with her child in her arms and sent by
Santa Anna to the colonists with an insolent message announcing the fall
of the Alamo.