Alamo Traces (48 page)

Second, unbelievable claims such as: “The dead [1,600] Mexicans of Santa Anna were taken to the graveyard, but not having sufficient room for them, I ordered some of them to be thrown in the river, which was done on the same day.” This Ruiz claim is refuted by a statement Sam Houston made on March 13, 1836: “. . . all killed in the fort were burned: The Mexicans killed in the assault were buried.”
⁶⁶

Nevertheless, the figure of 1,600 Mexican dead appears to have been a rumor that started soon after the Mexican defeat at San Jacinto. On May 18, 1836, Samuel T. Allen wrote his brother: “Santa Anna says he
lost a thousand men in Storming the Alamo and about as many more at Goliad, but all the rest of the prisoners say that their loss at the Alamo was upwards of 1600 so that his victory there was worse than an ordinary defeat.” Thus, the myth of the tragic defeat as a victory was born. More likely, Santa Anna and the prisoners appear to have been trying to convince the Texians that enough enemy blood had been shed. Because the Texians were consumed with the belief that they were far superior soldiers to the soldiers of Mexico, they seem to have accepted the unbelievable figures.
⁶⁷

Also, would Ruiz, who already had at least one strike against him because his father was a delegate to the independence convention, have thrown the bodies of the Mexican soldiers into the San Antonio River, rather than giving them proper Catholic burials? Had he been caught doing such a thing, Santa Anna might have had him executed. Moreover, given the family's pro-Texian role in events, would Ruiz have remained in San Antonio?
⁶⁸

Third, Ruiz claimed he was the
alcalde
(mayor) of San Antonio during the siege and storming of the Alamo in February and March 1836. On February 28 Santa Anna wrote that there was no political authority in San Antonio, which indicates that the city fathers had departed the town for a safer situation. If Ruiz was the
alcalde
at the time and was in town, why does Santa Anna say there was no political authority in San Antonio? Given that the
ayuntamiento
had previously given Colonel J. C. Neill and the Alamo garrison a five-hundred-peso loan, it certainly makes sense that they had hit the road. The actual
alcalde
, however, was Francisco Flores, not Ruiz. Historians have assumed, without independent evidence, that Santa Anna appointed Ruiz
alcalde
to replace the absent Flores. On April 6, 1836, an election was conducted to fill the Flores vacancy. At that time, Ruiz was elected
regidor
(alderman). What happened to Francisco Flores? Other than being a pro-Texian mayor, why was Flores out of town? Was Ruiz also out of town during the Alamo siege and storming?
⁶⁹

Flores's Republic of Texas pension application indicates that he was on a mission for Alamo commanders Travis and Bowie. Flores was one of over twenty
Tejano
cart drivers who were attempting to transport ammunition, clothing, and provisions to the Alamo. The Tejanos were chosen for the job because they were the only individuals available who knew the route to Dimitt's Point on Lavaca Bay.
⁷⁰

The cart train also included Miguel Benites, whose pension application reads: “Miguel Benites, a resident citizen of this country, who being duly sworn, under oath, attests and affirms that at the declaration of independence, he took the Texian side, and volunteered his services, that soon after the taking of San Antonio (December 10, 1835) he was sent by Colonels B. Travis and James Bowie, with several others, to Port La Vaca [Dimitt's Point] in order to bring up with their carts and oxen, ammunition and stores for the troops garrisoning the city of San Ant. –
that the train was under the immediate command of Francisco Ruiz
; That, when they arrived at Camp Preston, near the La Vaca, which was commanded by Genl Th.[omas] Rusk, all the men of the train, together with their teams, were detained at said camp, by express order of said General, and employed to carry provisions and stores, for the use of the troops, that they were detained at said place till the month of February, when on returning to San Antonio, they were dismissed by the military authority.” The application includes a statement from Antonio Menchaca, Ygnacio Espinosa, and Juan Ximenes that gives the same data as Benites's statement. Menchaca, Espinosa, and Ximenes put the return arrival at San Antonio at “about the middle of February.”
⁷¹

The story, taken at face value, does not make sense. The conditions described in the Benites petition do not fit the time frame of late December 1835. First, Travis and Bowie were not Colonels or in command at San Antonio “soon after the taking of San Antonio.” F. W. Johnson was in command of the Volunteer force, and J. C. Neill commanded the Regular army in San Antonio. The only time Travis and Bowie were both colonels and in command at Bexar was between February 14 and about February 24.
⁷²

Second, if the cart train had departed Bexar in late December, why did J. C. Neill write on January 28: “I have respectfully to advise that the efforts of the government be all concentrated and directed to the support and preservation of this town, that supplies of Beef, port, hogs, salt & c be forthwith forwarded, and if wagons cannot be procured let as much as possible come by hand, men, money, rifles, and cannon powder are also necessary. I shall consult with some of the influential Mexicans known to be attached to our cause, about obtaining the effectual assistance of these citizens of whom I judge that 4/5 would join us if they entertained reasonable expectations of reinforcements.” Neill does not write like he was expecting twenty or more carts loaded with supplies and ammunition to
arrive at any moment. One would think if over twenty local citizens had been sent to the coast to obtain supplies for the Alamo, Neill would have mentioned it.
⁷³

Then, on February 2, James Bowie continued the complaint about the lack of supplies: “
Relief
at this post, in men, money, & provisions is of
vital
importance & is wanted instantly.” On February 14 Bowie and Travis (in joint command) wrote the council: “We had detained Mr. [Samuel] Williams [a government contractor] for the purpose of saying that the Garrison is in a very destitute situation we have but a small supply of provisions and are without a dollar.” Clearly, Bowie and Travis were not expecting a supply train's arrival.
⁷⁴

Third, ammunition, clothing, and other provisions from New Orleans did not reach Dimitt's Point until early February 1836. On February 2, R. R. Royall wrote the governor and council: “I herewith send you a copy of a bill of lading, of supplies for the Texas Army, which arrived in our Port [Matagorda] on the day before yesterday. I have no orders from the Government, and no discretionary powers, but will take the liberty to order the supplies, to Dimmit's Landing on the La Baca (well knowing that our troops at Goliad and Bexar are much in want of Provisions) and shall instruct Capt. Dimmit to furnish the proper officers of the Government, such Provisions as they may require. . . .” On February 16, acting governor James W. Robinson wrote Philip Dimmitt: “I have sent you a commission as public store keeper at your own residence. . . . I have given order to Cols. [J. C.] Neill & [James W.] Fannin, [at Goliad] & Lt. [Francis W.] Thornton [at Goliad] to draw on you for supplies, out of the said stores.”
⁷⁵

Fourth, Thomas J. Rusk, though he was inspector general of the army, was in East Texas in January and February 1836. Rusk was brigadier general of the Texian army between May 4 and October 31, 1836. When General Rusk reached Victoria at the end of May 1836, he was for the first time about 30 miles nortwest of Dimitt's Point, and the one thing he did not have was over twenty cartloads of supplies.
⁷⁶

Lastly, five other pieces of evidence show that Francisco Ruiz's cart train must have left San Antonio shortly before the arrival of Santa Anna's force, probably around February 20 or 21, instead of late December 1835, as the pension claims. First, on February 16, Travis sent G. B. Jameson's “Plan or Demonstration of the Alamo & its present state of defense” to Henry Smith. The ending of Travis's note is supposed to
have read: “Men, money, and provisions are needed – with them this post can & shall be maintained & Texas [that is] the colonies, will be saved from the fatal effects of an Invasion.” At that point it appears the Alamo was still in need of supplies and there was no plan in effect to send a cart train to Dimitt's Point. Second, soon afterward, Travis and Philip Dimmitt, who was in Bexar, probably received Robinson's February 16 missive that ordered the Alamo and Goliad troops to obtain their supplies from Dimitt's Point. Third, in late February, Fannin pressed a number of
Tejano
carts into service to transport supplies from Dimitt's Point to Goliad. Travis or Bowie made no statement about a cart train having been sent from Bexar in February. Nevertheless, Fannin's cart activity is evidence that such an event could have also been taking place at the Alamo.
⁷⁷

The fourth piece of evidence is from Santa Anna. On the evening of March 3, the general wrote General Jose Urrea. Among other things, he ordered Urrea to “detach a body of troops with a chance of intercepting the provisions that the enemy is going to receive by the La Vaca river, according to the information that I have received.”
⁷⁸
This appears to refer to the Ruiz cart train that might have been returning to San Antonio by way of a road that ran from Lavaca Bay north to intersect the Gonzales/Columbus road. Almonte described the route with these words: “At La Baca, coming from Gonzales, and about a mile from the farm [an abandoned farm on the Lavaca River], the road goes to the mouth of the La Baca, a small harbor where the articles destined to Gonzales arrived. All along the La Baca, (below) there are small farms about two leagues apart, with cattle, hogs, good pasture, and wood.” In 1837 Camp Preston appears to have been located near the Gonzales/Lavaca Bay road.
⁷⁹

Lastly, James W. Fannin offers evidence that the Lavaca effort to supply the Alamo took place in February 1836. On March 1, 1836, he wrote: “I have some quantity of beef cattle and hope soon to have more, and flour, clothing & e. I immediately forwarded an express to Washington, Dimitts Landing & c. And one after any provisions that might be on the way to Bexar and inform them of our movements also the committee of safety of Gonzales – I will soon bring to bear this place – which I think can be defended some time by 200 men and am informed by persons from Victoria that Col. [John A.] Wharton crossed the Guadalupe on Saturday with 270 men and 9 carts with about 70 barrels of flour and proceeded toward Bejar.” Wharton was at that time a public contractor for the Texas
army. Thomas J. Rusk had also been a contractor for a short time in December 1835. Thus, Benites, Flores, and their witnesses probably mistakenly identified Wharton as General Rusk.
⁸⁰

Given that the cart train appears to have departed San Antonio four or five days past mid-February 1836, why did Flores, Benites, and their witnesses claim the train departed the city in late December 1835 and returned in mid-February? The claims were made almost forty years after the event; it could have been a memory problem. Also, the claims were not the first time Antonio Menchaca and other Seguin men placed an 1836 incident in 1835. In November 1839 Antonio Menchaca, Manuel Flores, Ambrosio Rodriguez, and Nepomuceno Flores claimed: “Certify that we know that Don Erasmo Seguin furnished to and for Col. [James W.] Fannin's Division one hundred and twenty beeves, twenty five fanegas of corn, two yoke of oxen, one cart, seven horses and five mules, in the year 1835. We were present and saw the same in possession of Capt. [Francis] Desaque who was sent by Col. Fannin to receive the same.” The event actually took place in late February 1836 or during the first days of March.
⁸¹

If Francisco Ruiz was not in San Antonio on March 6, and the evidence strongly suggests that was the case, his absence would explain the many problems with his account of the fall of the Alamo. In other words, Ruiz told a story of what he
may have heard
about the Alamo from other individuals—truth, hearsay, rumor, and fiction.
⁸²

1
Jose Enrique de la Pena,
With Santa Anna in Texas: A Personal Narrative of the Revolution
, Carmen Perry, ed. and trans. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1975), 61.

2
Sutherland,
The Fall of the Alamo
, 43-44; Ruiz, “Fall of the Alamo,”
80-81
.

3
La Guerra de Tejas: Memorias de un Soldado
was self-published at Mexico City in 1938 by Carlos Sanchez-Navarro. The Pena memoir manuscript was also self-published at Mexico City in 1955 by J. Sanchez Garza under the title of
La Rebelion de Texas: Manuscrito inedito de 1836 Por Un Oficial de Santa Anna. With Santa Anna in Texas
, the English translation of the Pena manuscript, was published in Texas in 1975. The Sanchez and Pena accounts have been accepted by many historians as authentic without any critical examination of those narratives.

4
Filisola,
Memoirs
, II: 68; Rafael Ugartechea to General Cos, October 28, 1835, Bexar, Jenkins, ed.,
Papers
, II: 254-255.

According to Filisola the second gun was an iron 16-pounder, and Texians captured both cannon. Texian sources report that the Mexican force had two guns, but that a long bronze 6-pounder was the only one captured. Also, Filisola's identification of the second gun as a 16-pounder appears to be wrong. The cannon was probably a long 12-pounder; the same long iron gun that is on display on the Alamo grounds today.

The meaning of “
guerrillas
” is not clear from the content of the document. The two sections may have been irregular units made up of local horsemen, or the term may refer to the manner in which the troops were operating on the field of battle.