Part 7

San Patricio, where Grant and Johnson were encamped, was surprised on the night of the 28th of February by Urrea’s soldiers. The volunteers, with the exception of Johnson himself and four of his companions who managed to escape, were all captured or killed. Grant, who was out with a squad of men collecting horses, was killed some days later and his body frightfully mutilated.

2. IN CHURCH AND FORTRESS.

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.

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.

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.

3. FORT DEFIANCE.

On the 1st of March the General Convention met at Washington on the Brazos. On the 2d, while Travis’ signal guns were still sending their sturdy boom across the prairies, a declaration of independence was read and adopted.

Houston was made commander-in-chief of the armies of the Republic of Texas. David G. Burnet was elected President and Lorenzo D. Zavala Vice-President. Thomas J. Rusk was made Secretary of War.

Sunday, the 6th of March, the day the Alamo fell, Travis’ last appeal reached Washington—after the hand that wrote it was cold in death. His letter was read by the President to the members of the convention; it produced a powerful effect. In the first burst of feeling it was even proposed that the convention should adjourn, arm, and march to San Antonio.

Houston spoke earnestly against such a step, and as soon as quiet was restored, he himself with two or three companions left for Gonzales, where the new volunteers were ordered to gather.

The air as he rode westward was thick with rumors. He arrived at Gonzales on the 11th. The same day came the first tidings of the fall of the Alamo. It filled the town with a wail of desolation. Of the thirty-two men who had marched from Gonzales to the relief of Travis, and to their own death, twenty had left wives and children behind them.

The arrival of Mrs. Dickinson with her child, and her story of the siege with all its ghastly details, added to the gloom. The moans of the widow and the fatherless mingled with the dreary bustle of preparation for flight. For it was rumored that the bloodthirsty Mexicans were approaching.

General Houston had found three hundred recruits at Gonzales. But they were unprepared for an attack; they had neither provisions nor munitions of war; the place was without defenses of any kind. He therefore gave orders for retreat. At nightfall on the 13th the forlorn handful of women and children mounted horses, or clambered into wagons where a few household goods had been hastily piled; the troops formed around them, and at midnight the march began.

As they moved away across the prairie a light reddened the sky behind them. It came from the flames of their own burning houses. A cry burst from the women, and the eyes already swollen with weeping overflowed again at the sight of their desolated hearthstones.

When Colonel Fannin found himself unable to march to the relief of the Alamo, he reëntered Goliad. He now knew that Urrea was advancing rapidly, and he made haste to strengthen his position. He had at this time five hundred men under his command. They occupied the Mission of Espiritu Santo, called by Fannin Fort Defiance. Earthworks had been thrown up around the old church, ditches dug, and cannon mounted. But the defenses were weak, the men were poorly fed and scantily clad. They were often compelled to mount guard barefoot. Fannin was filled with gloomy forebodings, although the signal-guns of the Alamo, which were to be fired as long as the flag continued to wave over that fortress, were not yet silenced.

About the 12th of March Captain King was sent by Fannin with a small detachment of men to bring away the women and children from Refugio, a small town about twenty miles distant. King was attacked by the advance guard of Urrea’s army, and had barely time to throw himself into the mission church at Refugio. From there he sent to Fannin for more troops. Colonel Ward, with one hundred and twenty-five men, immediately joined him in the church where he was entrenched.

The next morning (14th) Captain King with his men left the fort on a scouting expedition. About three miles from the mission they were surprised by a large body of Mexicans, to whom they surrendered. A few hours later they were stripped of their clothing by their captors and shot. Their unburied bodies were left to decay on the open prairie.

The same morning, about ten o’clock, fifteen of Ward’s men were sent from the mission to the river about a hundred yards away to get water. They had filled two barrels and placed them on a cart drawn by a couple of oxen, and were about returning to the fort when some bullets sang over their heads. A glance showed them the Mexican army on the other side of the river, not half a mile distant. They hurried on as fast as they could, and reached the mission in safety with a good part of the water. One barrel was emptied of about half of its contents through a hole made by a shot from the advancing enemy.

Urrea attacked the barricaded church. The battle lasted nearly all day, but late in the afternoon he drew off his beaten and discouraged force; he had two hundred killed and wounded. Ward’s loss was three wounded.

But the ammunition of the besieged was nearly exhausted, and that night, after supplying the three wounded men with water, Colonel Ward and his men stole quietly out of the church and slipped unseen past the Mexican sentinels.

On the 21st, after weary marches through swamp and thicket and constant skirmishes with the enemy, they surrendered on honorable terms to Urrea, and were taken back to Goliad.

4. PALM SUNDAY.

Fannin turned away from General Houston’s messenger on the morning of the 13th (March) with an anxious and gloomy face. The messenger, Captain Desauque, had just come in from Gonzales, leaving woe and despair behind him. He brought the black tidings of the fall of the Alamo, and he bore orders from the commander-in-chief for Fannin to blow up the fort, bury or throw into the river such of the cannon as he could not bring away, and retreat to Victoria on the Guadalupe River.

There was scant time in which to mourn the fall of the Alamo, but the dark looks on the men’s faces, as they buried the guns and demolished the fortifications, told of what they were thinking.

Fannin sent a courier to Ward and King, ordering them to return at once from Refugio; this courier, as well as others sent later, was captured by Mexican scouts.

Fannin waited five days in great suspense, loth to abandon these officers and the women and children whom they had been sent to protect.

At length came the news of Ward’s retreat from Refugio. The remaining works of Fort Defiance were destroyed, the buildings were set on fire, artillery and ammunition were loaded on wagons; the drums called the men from their ruined quarters. Mrs. Cash, the only woman left in Goliad, was placed in their midst, and, with a last glance at Fort Defiance, Fannin began his fatal retreat.

This was on the 19th of March.

The wagons, enveloped in fog, creaked their way across the San Antonio River and over the prairie beyond. The troops marched steadily. An ominous silence reigned everywhere; not even a Mexican scout was to be seen.

Several miles from Goliad Fannin halted an hour in the open prairie to allow his jaded and hungry ox-teams to graze. At the moment the march was taken up, a line of Mexican cavalry came out of the wood skirting the Colita (Co-lee′ta) Creek two miles away. Their arms glistened in the sunlight, for the fog had lifted. A compact mass of infantry followed. Urrea’s entire army was upon them.

Fannin immediately formed his men in a hollow square with the wagons and teams in the center. His position had the double disadvantage of being unprotected and in a miry hollow some feet below the surface of the prairie around. But his men received the Mexican advance with a volley from the artillery and a galling fire from their rifles.[23]

The cannon, for want of water to sponge them, soon became useless. With small arms alone, charge after charge of the enemy was repulsed; the prairie was soon covered with dead and dying men and horses.

Early in the action Fannin received a severe wound in his thigh, but in spite of this he continued to direct his men with great courage and coolness.

Many a poor fellow loaded and fired his gun with his own life-blood wetting the sod about him. One lad, named Hal Ripley, fifteen years of age, after his thigh was broken by a ball, climbed, with Mrs. Cash’s help, into her cart. There, with his back propped and a rest for his rifle, he fired away calmly until another bullet shattered his right arm. He had, in the meantime, killed four Mexicans. “Now, Mother Cash,” he said cheerfully, “you may take me down.”[24]

At dark the Mexicans ceased firing and made their camp in the timber. Their bugles sounded shrilly the livelong night. That night was one of agony in the bloody little camp on the prairie. There were but seven Texans killed, but more than sixty were badly wounded. These groaned in the darkness, begging for water which could not be had, imploring aid which mortal hand was powerless to give. Those who were not wounded lay breathless and exhausted on the trampled ground, staring up at the sky and wondering what the morrow would bring forth.

The morrow brought no help to them. To the already large force of Urrea it brought reinforcements to the number of three or four hundred men with artillery, ammunition, and supplies.

Fannin watched the enemy ranging his men under the morning sky and dragging his cannon into place; then his haggard eyes sought his own brave little band. They were without food, drink, or ammunition; their teams were killed or disabled; their cannon were useless; the cries of their wounded rose mournfully on the heavy air. He called his officers together and submitted the question: “Shall we surrender or not?” The private soldiers were then asked to decide for themselves.

During this consultation Mrs. Cash went to the Mexican camp to beg for water for the wounded men. She was accompanied by her son, a boy of fourteen years, who, like Hal Ripley, had fought the day before with the best and the bravest. They passed over the prairie strewn with the dead and dying, and entered the presence of the Mexican general. “I have come, sir,” she said, fearlessly, “to ask you before the fighting begins again, to give me water for our wounded.” Urrea looked at her without replying, and then his eyes fell upon the shot-pouch and powder-horn of the boy. “Woman,” he demanded sternly, “are you not ashamed to bring a child like that into such scenes?” The boy himself answered with his blue eyes kindling: “Young as I am, sir,” he said, “I know my rights, as everybody in Texas does, and I mean to have them or die.”

What the general might have said in answer to this insolent speech cannot be known, for at that moment a white flag was raised in the Texan camp.

The majority of Fannin’s men were in favor of surrender, though many thought in their hearts it would be better to die with arms in their hands like the defenders of the Alamo. Fannin himself was opposed to surrender. “We beat them off yesterday,” he declared, “and we can do it again to-day.”

Favorable terms were secured from General Urrea by Fannin, and the prisoners of war were marched back to Goliad and placed in the mission church—Fannin’s Fort Defiance. The wounded were brought in the next day and housed in the barracks; and several days later Ward and his men were thrust into the overcrowded church.

The prisoners were ill fed and badly treated. But when the first shock of their defeat had passed, they began to look forward eagerly to their release. They were told that they were to be placed at once on ships and sent to New Orleans, where they would be paroled and set at liberty.

On the Saturday evening after their capture, the sounds of gay laughter echoed from the time-stained walls of the chapel. The men sang “Home, Sweet Home,” to the music of a flute played by one of their number. Fannin talked of his wife and children far into the night.

The next day was Palm Sunday.

In the old days of the mission, the Indian converts were accustomed on Palm Sunday to walk up the aisles of the church bearing green branches in their hands, in memory of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem; and hymns of joy and praise mingled with the incense which arose from the altar.

At just the sunrise hour, when in those old times the converts came carrying their dewy sweet-smelling boughs from the forest, the prisoners were awakened by their guards and marched out of the church. They were formed into four divisions and hurried away under various pretences. Some were even told that they were starting home.

Three-quarters of a mile from the fort they were halted, drawn up in sections, and ordered to kneel. Everything had been so orderly, so natural, so swift, that only at the last moment did the men realize what was about to happen. “My God, boys,” cried a voice that echoed like a shot on the clear air, “they are going to kill us.”

The guns of the guards were already turned upon the prisoners. A deliberate discharge followed this despairing cry; another, and another, and a heap of writhing, bleeding bodies was all that remained of Fannin’s gallant band. A few escaped, struggling to their feet and fleeing to the swamp pursued by shots and curses. The surgeons and one or two others were saved by the kindness of Colonel Garay, a Mexican officer.[25] One of these, Dr. Shackelford, captain of the Red Rovers, heard the firing as he entered the tent of his preserver. He did not know that anything had gone wrong; but he trembled and turned pale, and well he might! For three of his young nephews and his own son were among the killed.

Señora Alvarez, a Mexican woman, concealed several prisoners until after the massacre, and afterward helped them to escape. It was her tears and entreaties which moved Colonel Garay to risk keeping the surgeons in his tent. While the butchery was going on, she stood in the plaza, with her black hair streaming over her shoulders; and with flashing eyes she denounced Santa Anna and called down the vengeance of heaven upon his head. When she learned that Dr. Shackelford’s son had been shot, she burst into tears and cried out, “Oh, if I had only known, I would have saved him.”

Her husband was one of Urrea’s officers, and her kindness to the Texan prisoners throughout the war ought never to be forgotten. “Her name,” writes one of the survivors of the massacre, “should be written in letters of gold.”