Alamo Traces (18 page)

San Antonio de Bexar, Main Plaza

Photo courtesy Library of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas at the Alamo

Travis, either before firing on the flag or right afterward, sent out his letter to Gonzales. The courier was Dr. Launcelot Smither, an old settler who spoke Spanish and knew the lay of the land. At that point Bowie and Travis appear to have believed that they faced two thousand Mexican soldiers, commanded by General Ramirez y Sesma.
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Bowie, however, was not ready to fight and wanted to know what the enemy had to offer the Texians. On February 2, 1836, Bowie had boldly declared to Governor Henry Smith that he would “rather die in these ditches than give it [the Alamo] up to the enemy.” Also, in the same
missive and seldom mentioned by Alamo historians, Bowie observed: “Our force is very small, the returns this day to the Comdt. is only one hundred and twenty officers & men. It would be a waste of men to put our brave little band against thousands.” Thus, Bowie, with that thought in mind and apparently too sick to write, dictated a short note in Spanish to Juan Seguin. Bowie wanted to know if it was true that the enemy had requested a parley before Travis had fired on the flag. Bowie then signed the message with an unsteady hand and had Green B. Jameson, the garrison's sharpshooting engineer, meet with Almonte under a white flag.
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Mexican lancer

Photo courtesy Joseph Musso collection

Of the meeting on the bridge over the San Antonio River, Almonte reported: “I conversed with the bearer . . . he informed me of the bad state [150 effectives versus 1,541 troops] they were in at the Alamo, and manifested a wish that some honorable conditions should be proposed for a surrender.” Almonte sent Bowie's note to Santa Anna, who instructed
another aide, Jose Batres, to answer Bowie and Jameson. Batres wrote: “. . . the Mexican army cannot come to terms under any conditions with rebellious foreigners to whom there is no other recourse left, if they wish to save their lives, than to place themselves immediately at the disposal of the Supreme Government from who alone they may expect clemency after some considerations are taken up.” The “considerations” would have been the immediate execution of Travis, Bowie, most of their officers, and the United States volunteers.
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As the day edged toward the night, Travis maintained his boldness and sent Captain Albert Martin out with another offer for the Mexican officer. According to Almonte: “He [Martin] stated to me what Mr. Travis said, ‘that if I wished to speak with him, he would receive me with much pleasure.' I answered that it did not become the Mexican government to make any propositions through me, and that I had only permission to hear such as might be made on the part of the rebels. After these contestations night came on, and there was no more firing.”
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Sometime during the negotiations with Almonte, Travis's scout John W. Smith returned to the Alamo. Seguin, in his old age, said that Smith returned at “about five o'clock saying ‘there comes the Mexican army composed of cavalry, infantry, and artillery!' ” Travis, however, already had a pretty good idea of what he and his men faced across the San Antonio River.
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Soon afterward Travis is said to have called his soldiers together for a short address. Little is known about the talk. Historian Reuben M. Potter claimed: “When informed of this [the Mexican demand for an unconditional surrender], Travis harangued his men and administered to them an oath that they would resist to the last.”
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That night Santa Anna's soldiers set up a second artillery battery for two long nine-pounders on the river. The site was on the west side, near the Veramendi house, Bowie's Bexar home.
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In the Alamo, Travis undoubtedly worried about the people in his charge. He only had 150 men to fight over 1,500 of the enemy. Six men had departed since Travis and Bowie had written Fannin that morning. At the minimum fourteen men were in the fort's hospital. Escape was impossible and the defenders knew it. They could not abandon the women and children. Their only chance was the possibility that sufficient reinforcements might arrive in time to ensure a Texian victory. Even at that, many of the defenders would surely die.
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Besides the Alamo soldiers, a large number of civilians were in the Alamo. Some were family members. Anthony Wolf's two boys, aged eleven and twelve, were there. Men on the Texas frontier considered such boys as being close to full grown. Texian mothers, however, might have viewed sons in that dangerous situation as their “darling baby boys.”
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Other citizens were a number of Tejanos who, as volunteers, had fought against the Mexican army in the siege and storming of the town in 1835. They, however, were not members of Bexar garrison or soldiers in the Texian army on entering the Alamo. The group appears to have included Juan N. Seguin, Antonio Menchaca, Ambrosio Rodriguez, Eduardo Ramirez, Pedro Herrera, Salvador Flores, Manuel Flores, Simon Arreola, Cesario Carmona, Vicente Zepeda, Jose Maria Arocha, _____ Silvero, Matias Curvier, Antonio Fuentes, and Antonio Badillo. Addition of the men's family members probably made their total twenty or more.
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The last civilians to enter the Alamo that day appear to have been members of the Gregorio Esparza family who entered an hour before sunset. The accounts vary, but it appears that John W. Smith, sometime that morning, had advised the family to enter the Alamo. Gregorio, who was twenty-seven, was probably a member of Bowie's makeshift crew. Besides Gregorio, there was his wife, Ana Salazar Esparza, and their four children: Maria de Jesus, ten years old; Enrique, eight years old; Manuel, five years old; and Francisco, an infant.
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Enrique Esparza, in his old age, would remember others who had been in the Alamo. He listed: Juana Losoya Melton, wife of defender Eliel Melton; Concepcion Losoya, Juana's mother, and her sons, Juan and Toribio; Vitorina de Salina and three little girls; Madame Candeleria; a woman named Trinidad Saucedo; and an old woman called Petra Gonzales. There may have been other women and children in the Alamo, but their names have not survived in the known records and accounts of the fall of the Alamo.
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In addition to the soldiers, dependents, and civilians in the fortress that first day, the compound housed individuals who were not there by choice but because of forced circumstance—the slaves. Joe, in his early twenties, was Travis's manservant. Sam and Betty, who belonged to Bowie, were most likely house servants from the Veramendi house, Bowie's home in San Antonio. Joe later identified another slave, a black female, whose name and owner are unknown.
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Alamo reinforcement routes

Map courtesy of Jack Jackson

As the Alamo inhabitants consumed their first supper in the old mission that night, Dr. Alsbury, A. J. Sowell, and Byrd Lockhart arrived at Gonzales, on the Guadalupe River, eighty miles due east of San Antonio. The Gonzales ranger company was quickly notified. The provisional government had only created the unit on February 4. Three commissioners, Matthew Caldwell, Byrd Lockhart, and William A. Matthews, had been instructed to raise and organize two platoons of twenty-eight men each, for a total company strength of fifty-six rangers. The company was to be commanded by a captain. Each platoon was under the direct command of a first lieutenant. The captain was paid $60 per month, the lieutenants $55. The noncommissioned officers were the first sergeant or orderly sergeant, second sergeant, and a corporal for each platoon. Each platoon would have had a first lieutenant and a second lieutenant. The platoons would have been divided into two squads of fourteen troopers each, with a lieutenant as the squad leader. The officers would have been chosen by company election. The term of enlistment was three months. Privates received $1.25 per day for themselves, horse, arms, and ammunition and $5.00 per month for provisions. The force was part of the ranger battalion commanded by Major R. M. “Three-Legged Willie” Williamson, Travis's former law partner and probably his best friend in Texas.
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Travis probably knew it on the first day, but clearly the weight of the garrison's critical situation wore heavy on him the second day. For on that day he wrote the most famous letter sent from the Alamo during those fateful thirteen days. The document reads:

Today the dramatic missive is admired as the paramount expression of American sacrifice in a combat situation. Writer Jeff Long, however, saw the letter in a different light. He wrote: “Certainly it was Travis's masterpiece, romantic, pointed, and abundant with ego. Travis repeated its suicidal melody in the next (and last) four dispatches he sent from the Alamo, but never quite captured the high tragedy of this February 24 message.”
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The key word in Long's statement is “pointed,” for it is doubtful that Travis or contemporary readers thought of the letter as romantic. Travis had a concise and singular point to get across: If a sufficient number of armed men did not arrive in time, he and his men would have to fight to the death. In a time when there were only two methods of communication, speech and the written word, Travis used language to
emotionally move
the people. The missive, more than reflecting Travis's ego, showed his urgent need to influence citizens of a like mind to speed to the garrison's rescue. At least one contemporary writer left his impression of Travis's missive. William F. Gray wrote: “Another express is received from Travis, dated the 24th, stating that Santa Anna, with his army, were in Bexar, and had bombarded the Alamo for twenty-four hours. An unconditional surrender had been demanded, which he had answered by a cannon shot. He was determined to defend the place to the last, and called
earnestly
[italics added] for assistance.”
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