The Alamo Before and After

Remember the Alamo!

Most Americans and many others know the significance of that stirring cry. The story of the Battle of the Alamo has been told and retold in print and cinema. But how much do you know about the 300-year history of the Shrine to Texas Liberty before and after the famous battle?

Established in 1718 as Mission San Antonio de Valero, the site was one of several religious outposts founded in Tejas by the Spanish Empire. Soldiers controlled the territory and its indigenous people, who were taught the Spanish language and Catholicism by priests.

The mission was moved twice, the second time due to a hurricane, settling in its current location in 1724. A stone convento to house the priests’ private quarters, offices, refectory and gardens was built first. The mission church began construction in 1740 but suffered many setbacks and was never completed while the mission was active.

Mission de Valero as imagined in 18,83; wikipedia public domain

In addition to learning Spanish and the Catholic faith, indigenous residents of the mission were taught skills such as weaving, farming, masonry, and metalworking. They also worked to harness the nearby San Antonio River and built irrigation ditches called acequias, providing water for vegetable gardens and livestock.

Mission Valero was secularized in 1793. Lands and goods acquired by the mission were distributed to the indigenous residents who became parishioners at San Fernando on the other side of the river. The former mission became a community known as Pueblo de Valero.

However, threats on Tejas’ borders from French and American explorers caused Velero to become a defensive military post by 1803. It was occupied by a Spanish cavalry unit, La Segunda Compañia Volante de San Carlos de Parras. For short, they were called the Alamo Company after their hometown of Alamo de Parras, explaining how the post got its name.

The soldiers converted the old convento into barracks and established the first hospital in Texas on the building’s second floor. The Alamo Company remained at the outpost for 32 years, through Mexico’s fight for independence from Spain that culminated in 1821, and until 1835.

With the need to protect its northern frontier, Mexico had established laws allowing colonists into Texas. Led by men such as Stephen F. Austin, immigrants flooded in, attracted by land and opportunity. Along with the native population, they lived fairly free of government interference, being far away from the capital in Mexico.

This autonomy changed with the election of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna as president in 1833. He instituted a more centralist government, leading to a civil war and Texas seeking its own independence.

I will not go into the battles that led to the 13-day siege of the Alamo, its fall and the eventual defeat of Santa Anna’s army at San Jacinto. If you wish to read a detailed account, visit this site: https://www.thealamo.org/remember/battle-and-revolution 

The Alamo drawn in 1838 by Mary Maverick; wikipedia public domain

Oct. 28, 1845—First U.S. Army Unit Arrives in San Antonio 

On Mar. 1, 1845, the U.S. Congress passed a joint resolution signaling impending Texas statehood. The U.S. Army dispatched three companies of the 2nd Dragoon Regiment – trained to fight mounted or on foot - from Fort Washita, Indian Territory, to San Antonio in the Fall of 1845 to protect the region.

The Dragoons established a camp near the Alamo in rented facilities which became known as the Post at San Antonio. The Army leased the Alamo between 1849 and 1861 and again between 1865 and 1876 for use as a quartermaster depot.

The Alamo ca. 1854; wikipedia public domain

The Depot quartermaster, Major Edwin B. Babbitt, recommended that the building be demolished and replaced with a new warehouse, but Quartermaster General Thomas Jessup vetoed that idea. Instead, he directed the building to be repaired. These repairs incorporated an arched façade to hide a new pitched wooden roof, giving the Alamo its world-famous silhouette.

“Absent Jessup’s directive…the Shrine of Texas Liberty would probably have been demolished…!” —George Nelson, The Alamo, An Illustrated History

With Texas’ secession from the union in 1861 the Alamo was under control of Confederate forces until 1865. In the late 1870s the Army began relocating its operations to what is now known as Fort Sam Houston.

Clara Driscoll, Savior of the Alamo

Clara Driscoll; wikipedia public domain

By1903, the Alamo had been neglected and was nearly torn down and replaced by a hotel. Once again, it was saved, this time by 22-year-old Clara Driscoll, whose grandfather had fought in the battle of San Jacinto. Donating her own money, she collaborated with the San Antonio chapter of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas to protect the historic mission. For her generosity, Driscoll is known as the “Savior of the Alamo.”

Born in 1881, Clara was the only daughter of Corpus Christi millionaire Robert Driscoll. Educated in Europe, she knew the importance of preserving historical sites. She wrote: “By the care of our eloquent but voiceless monuments, we are preparing a noble inspiration for our future.”

When Driscoll died in 1945, her body lay in state at the mission’s chapel, in recognition of her work to preserve “the shrine of Texas Independence and glory,” as she described it.

A Battle Over Preservation

Today, the Alamo needs updates. Plaster is flaking off the walls of the nearly 300-year-old building. Its one-room space can hold only a fraction of key artifacts and is usually so packed with tourists that it’s impossible to give each exhibit the time it deserves. The surrounding plaza is a circus, packed with novelty shops and a Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum.

But Texans are deeply divided over how to renovate the Alamo. A $450 million plan proposed in 2017 turned into a five-year fight over whether to focus narrowly on the 1836 battle or present a fuller view that delves into the site’s Indigenous history and the role of slavery in the Texas Revolution.

Several defenders in the 1836 Battle were slave holders, including William B. Travis and Davy Crockett. Whether or not to point this out in future displays at the Alamo is a bone of contention between conservative groups and those who wish to tell the Alamo story from a more inclusive perspective. Indigenous leaders also want the site to respect its ancient role as a burial ground. Historians argue that support for slavery really was a motivating factor for the Texas Revolution.

Alamo Cenotaph; image by David R. Tribble; creative commons share-alike 3.0

Another virulent disagreement concerns the Cenotaph, a 56-foot-tall monument to Alamo defenders erected in the plaza between 1936 and 1940. Under the renovation plan, the Cenotaph would be moved 500 feet south and deposited in front of the historic Menger Hotel. The intent was to make the plaza “period neutral” and help visitors imagine how the Alamo looked as a mission and fort. But conservative groups rallied in armed protest and turned up at public meetings chanting “Not one inch!”

The struggle over the Cenotaph ended when the Texas Historical Commission, a state board whose members are appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott, voted to deny a permit to move it. Nearly half of the board members of the nonprofit raising funds for the Alamo renovation resigned in protest.

On April 15, the San Antonio city council voted for a new plan that leases much of the plaza to the state for at least 50 years — and leaves the Cenotaph in place. Let’s hope the new plan goes forward.

I have visited the Alamo several times and am always filled with awe for those who gave their lives there, but I agree the plaza needs to be redesigned to show more respect for the shrine. As for the matter of slavery, it distresses me to know some of our heroes owned slaves, but I’m not sure I want to dwell on that fact when I stand in the most revered site in Texas. What do you think?

Texas, The Limestone State?

I went to Texas to attend a writers conference, and when I landed, Covid-19 beat me there. The conference fell apart. It’s a long story but everyone was concerned. Some of the workshops were cancelled, and the other workshops the presenters never showed. But I had fun with fellow western writer and great friend, Cynthia Woolf. We used the time as a writing retreat.

The Alamo (Note: the fancy carving in the stone)

I also fried my computer and my phone. That’s what I get for not bringing a power strip/surge protector for my equipment. When I was packing to leave for Texas, I looked at my second/old laptop and I almost brought it with me but I didn’t. I wish I had. 

            I learned quite a bit and stayed for weeks on historical Fort Clark. My stay was longer than I expected because I couldn’t fly home. Fortunately I was with friends that are like family so it really was a restful stay.

            But before I went to Fort Clark, I visited the Alamo and of course did the River

Walk in San Antonio. I was fascinated with the Alamo and not for the reasons you might think. The Alamo is under restoration. Apparently it needs a little grooming now and then and they decided to take the time and really do it right. What they will learn by putting the Alamo through a very careful exam will help preserve other buildings.

The Alamo

When troops were stationed there, they left a little graffiti behind. That was uncovered. Okay, that was fun, but what I really enjoyed was standing there reading about what they were doing and why - add to that a docent who was very informative. There were small, drilled holes in the mortar. They are taking air samples, temperature samples, and humidity samples. Checking this area against that area and trying decipher why this area is stronger than that.They were using ultrasound equipment on the stone walls. (Wow!) I was fascinated with the modern day things that they were doing. I wish I could have seen the people actually doing it.

Texas is known for these old limestone buildings. There’s a huge quarry not far from Fort Clark. The old buildings on the fort are made of this same stuff. But maybe the most amazing thing is how these buildings are put together. They look like giraffe markings, quite unlike the granite blocks I’m used to seeing in the Appalachians. Where squares are cut and fitted together like you see when foundations are built of brick or cinder blocks. I’ve done some brickwork and I’ve tiled a few things so I know how difficult that is to keep everything square and well balanced. This limestone stuff is like a crazy quilt. It must take a very skilled mason to do it. And it’s still being done today.

The Texas limestone I saw was a very creamy color not yellow but had that tinge of

Historic Fort Clark and an Old Saw

yellow to the cream. It’s a soft color. It lends itself perfectly to the landscape and all the green parts of nature, but it also becomes the subtle backdrop for all the bright Mexican pottery and decorations. Everything pops against it. Nature does provide the best materials and I think I’ve fallen in love with Texas limestone.

The other thing I noticed was what I would call a hacienda-style home. The older ones all seem to have small windows. Apparently that hot Texas sun can heat up a home. Before there was air conditioning, keeping the house cool meant avoiding large windows. I’m sure a good architect can build that style house with lots of windows because an architect will use the positioning of the property, the direction of the house, and the angle of the sun to block that intense heat from entering while letting in plenty of light.

Officers Quarters and Now a Private Residence (They built walls and houses with that stone)

I can’t be certain, but I suspect that the thickness of the block also becomes a natural thermo-system. But the time summer is done the stones will have heated enough to carry into the cold winter before they cool off. This cold stone will have plenty of time come spring to help keep the heat at bay.

I remember being in old cathedrals in Europe and they were never heated or air-conditioned. But they were cool in the summer and warm in the winter. It would take months before the cold stones would heat up and by then it was winter and they kept the place warm. By the time they had cooled, it was summer once again. I suspect the limestone might be the same.

If you’ve ever admired the markings of a giraffe, you just might fall in love with these houses. They’d be out of place back east. I can’t imagine one in my neighborhood but still I would love to own one. Maybe I’ll have to move to Texas.

The Barracks now a Motel for Visitors.

OLD SAN ANTONIO

By Caroline Clemmons

There are several towns in the Southwest that are (in my opinion) unique—Santa Fe, New Orleans, San Francisco, and San Antonio. Choosing a favorite among them is difficult, but San Antonio wins. I have many happy memories of visits to this central Texas city. However, research for a recent release provided surprises.

San Antonio is located in south central Texas about 200 miles southwest of Houston and 150 miles north of the Mexican border. Spanish explorers first visited the site, then a camp of the Payaya Indians (which the Spaniards interpreted to have the name Yanaguana), on the Feast Day of Portuguese Franciscan friar Saint Anthony of Padua.

The year 1691 has been recognized as the beginning of a network of trails (caminos reales) that came to be known as the San Antonio-Nacogdoches Road or Old San Antonio Road. With stretches most likely developed from existing Indian trails, the road developed into a main artery for commerce and immigration.

But, San Antonio was not founded until 1718, when its first mission and first presidio known as San Antonio de Béxar were established at San Pedro Springs. The Mission San Antonio de Valero, later called the Alamo (Spanish for “Cottonwood”), was one of five founded in the area. The other missions are Concepción, San Juan, San Jose (called the Queen of Missions), and Estrada. Concepción Mission is the oldest continually functioning stone church in the United States. This Mission Trail has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Rose Window at the
San Jose Mission

Here is one of the truly surprising facts I encountered: In 1731 settlers from the Canary Islands laid out the town of San Fernando de Béxar near the presidio. Why did I not know this? I grew up in Texas and love Texas history. During its early years the settlement suffered from raids by Apache and Comanche tribes. By 1837 when it became a county seat of the Republic of Texas, it had been renamed San Antonio.

When the Alamo was built it included a large compound surrounded by walls. At that time the mission did not have the arch facade it now has. The arch was added when the mission was restored. At one time, there was speculation about demolishing the chapel. Fortunately, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas negotiated the mission's restoration.

Although I have never stayed at the Menger Hotel, I have wished I could. Our youngest daughter stayed there when she was in San Antonio for a conference. She was a bit disappointed that she did not encounter one of the ghosts rumored to be residing there. <g>

Early photo of the Menger Hotel

The Menger Hotel was built in 1859 by William and Mary Menger and has been in continuous operation since then. Their opening was so successful that they immediately added fifty more rooms. Mary cooked food served in the dining room. She received acclaim for her delicious food. One of her specialities was mango ice cream, flavored with mangoes growing in the hotel courtyard. 

During the Civil War, it was used as a hospital but did not close its doors. After William's death in 1871, Mary and her son Louis William continued. They sold not too long afterward so that Louis William could concentrate on the family brewery next door. Over the years the hotel has sold several times and gone through numerous renovations to retain its status as a luxury hotel.

Vendors in the plaza

One of the places I enjoy in San Antonio is the River Walk. I also love the river taxis one boards at the Casa Rio Mexican Restaurant. Of course, I could eat Tex-Mex food every day given the chance, so I look forward to eating at Casa Rio when we visit. The plans for what would become the River Walk were designed by Robert Hugman in 1929. I admit I am grateful for his vision.

1839 sketch of the Alamo

On February 23, 1836, Texas soldiers garrisoned in the Alamo began their fateful stand against the larger Mexican army under the command of Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna, who ordered the siege and ultimately the final assault that took place on March 6, 1836. The battle of the Alamo, which Alamo historian Stephen Hardin has characterized as the “most celebrated military engagement in Texas history,” immortalized San Antonio’s converted first Franciscan mission and its Texan defenders as symbols of sacrifice, and generations would recognize the rallying cry of “Remember the Alamo.” 

Facts about San Antonio abound. Due to museums, sports, theme parks and events it’s a popular tourist destination.

One of my favorite songs about San Antonio is “San Antonio Rose” by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you would enjoy reading a fictional book with historically correct facts 

about San Antonio, AN AGENT FOR MAGDALA, a Pinkerton Matchmaker Series romance, is available from Amazon in e-book and print and is in KU. The buy link is https://www.amazon.com/Agent-Magdala-Pinkerton-Matchmaker-Book-ebook/dp/B07V3G4QHY

‘Remember Goliad!’

The Alamo wasn’t the only massacre during the Texas Revolution.

Presidio la Bahía today. In 1836,
the Texians who died there called it Fort Defiance.

On March 19 and 20, 1836, two weeks after the Alamo fell, Col. James Fannin and a garrison of about 300 Texians engaged a Mexican force more than three times as large on the banks of Coleto Creek outside Goliad, Texas. Without food or water and running low on ammunition, unwilling to run and leave the roughly one-third of his men who were wounded or dead, Fannin surrendered.

Led to believe they were prisoners of war and would be allowed to return to their homes within a couple of weeks, the Texians were marched to Goliad, where they were imprisoned in their former fortress, Presidio Nuestra Señora de Loreto de la Bahía, which they had christened Fort Defiance. Unbeknownst to the Texians, on December 30 of the previous year the Mexican congress had decreed all armed insurgents were to be executed as pirates.

Diagram of Fort Defiance by Joseph M. Chadwick,
March 1836. Tents mark the location where various
companies camped. Chadwick was among those
executed. The U.S. federal government reprinted
the map in 1856 with the locations of Fannin’s
and Chadwick’s executions marked.

On Palm Sunday, March 27, acting on orders from Mexican President Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Col. José Nicolás de la Portilla separated into three columns the 303 Texians who were well enough to walk. Sandwiched between two rows of Mexican soldiers, the men were marched out of Fort Defiance along three roads. There, they were shot point-blank. Any who survived the fusillade were clubbed or stabbed to death.

Inside the fort, thirty-eight who were wounded too badly to march, were executed by firing squad.

Fannin, 32, was the last to die, after watching the executions of the men who served under him. As the commandant of the garrison, he was allowed a last request. He asked three things: that his possessions be given to his family; that he be shot in the heart, not the head; and that he be given a Christian burial.

The soldiers took his possessions, shot him in the face, and burned his body along with the bodies of the other 341 executed prisoners.

The Goliad massacre galvanized the Texians. Three weeks later, on April 21 — shouting the battle cry “Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!” — the ragtag Texian army, under the command of Gen. Sam Houston, captured Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. Disorganized, demoralized, and leaderless, the Mexican army retreated.

Urged to execute Santa Anna as revenge for the depredations at the Alamo and Goliad, Houston decided to let el presidente live. On May 14, Santa Anna ceded Texas to the Texians in the Treaties of Velasco.

Though Goliad was one of the seminal events of the Texas Revolution, more than 100 years would pass before the State of Texas erected a monument to the men who died. In 1936, as part of the Texas Centennial celebration, the state earmarked funds for a memorial. The monument was built over the mass grave of Fannin and his men, and dedicated in 1938. The pink granite marker, bearing the sculpted image of the Goddess of Liberty lifting a fallen soldier in chains, bears the names of the executed Texians and their comrades who died at the Battle of Coleto.

This Monument marks the common grave where the charred remains
of the 342 Texians massacred at Goliad are buried.

Though “Remember the Alamo!” is famous around the world, those with the blood of Texas in their veins still recite, with reverence, the whole battle cry: “Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!”

A Texan to the bone, Kathleen Rice Adams spends her days chasing news stories and her nights and weekends shooting it out with Wild West desperadoes. Leave the upstanding, law-abiding heroes to other folks. In Kathleen’s stories, even the good guys wear black hats.

Her short story “The Second-Best Ranger in Texas” won the Peacemaker Award for Best Western Short Fiction. Her novel Prodigal Gun won the EPIC Award for Historical Romance and is the only western historical romance ever to final for a Peacemaker in a book-length category.

Visit her hideout on the web at KathleenRiceAdams.com.

Juana Navarro Pérez Alsbury - Alamo Survivor

By Anna Kathryn Lanier

A couple of years ago, I attended the re-enactment of the Battle of San Jacinto. This is the battle where the Texas forces defeated Santa Anna to win the Texas Revolutionary War. While there, Professor Mary L. Scheer with Lamar University in Beaumont gave a talk on Women of the Texas Revolution.  She also had her book, Women and the Texas Revolution for sale. Of course, I bought one.  It is a selection of essays on women and events during the Revolution.  One such essay written by Dora Elizondo Guerra is “Two Silver Pesos and a Blanket: The Texas Revolution and the Non-Combatant Women Who Survived the Battle of the Alamo.” Most people when asked about women and children who survived the Battle of the Alamo will tell you only one woman and child did, Susanna Dickinson and her daughter.  However, it is a known fact that at least six other women, all Hispanic, and their six children, were also in the Alamo during the thirteen day siege and final battle. 

 

Evidence of these six women comes to us via interviews done with the survivors themselves.  The most inclusive interview comes from an 8-year-old eyewitness, Enrique Esparza. He, along with his three siblings and his mother, Ana Salazar Castro Esparaza took refuge inside the Alamo because his father, Gregorio Esparaza was an Alamo defender. In 1901, at the age of 73, Enrique gave an interview with the San Antonio Light.  He recalled “within the Alamo courtyard were also the other refugees who were saved—Mrs. Alsbury and child and sister, Gertudes [sic] Navarro; Mrs. Concepción  Losoya, her daughter and two sons; Victoriana de Salina and three little girls; Mrs. Susanna Dickinson and baby…and an old woman Petra.” (I know, if you add them up, there are ten children, not six. However, other sources site six.).

Mrs. Alsbury was Juana Navarro Pérez Alsbury, 24 years old.  She and her unmarried sister, Gertudis, 20 were the daughters of politician, businessman and rancher José Angel Navarro. They were also the nieces of landed, political activists José Antonio Navarro and José Francisco Ruiz, both signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence.  Their mother died when they were young and both girls went to live with their aunt Josefa Navarro Veramendi and her husband, Juan Martin de Veramandi, governor of Coahuila y Téjas. Josefa and Juan’s daughter Ursula, cousin to Juana and Gertudis, married James Bowie.

Juana married Alejo Pérez in 1832 and the couple had a son, Alejo. Her husband was a merchant and “was given a permit in August 1833 to transport goods to and from Monclova.” He died in 1834 or 1835 during a cholera epidemic.  A few months later, Juana married Dr. Alexander Alsbury. (I have discovered various dates for 1) Alejo’s death and 2) the marriage of Juana and Alexander….which is said to have taken place in either 1835 or 1836).

At the time Santa Anna marched in San Antonio, Dr. Alsbury was out of the town on a military mission.  Therefore, it is believed that James Bowie, a cousin-in-law, had Juana, her son and her younger sister take refuge inside the Alamo.  It has been reported that it was most likely Juana who nursed Bowie when he took ill, as she was a relative.

On her experience of the siege and ultimate battle, Juana gave this report:

                As the firing approached their room, her sister Gertudis called out to the soldiers not to fire. They instead broke into the room and searched for loot, stealing Juana’s personal belongings.

                A rich Texan in the room tried to protect the women and was killed, as was a Tejano who ran into the room seeking cover.

                Looting began in earnest. One officer removed them from the room and another officer moved them from being in the way of cannon fire.  Then her ex-brother-in-law (brother to her first husband and a sergeant in the Mexican army) found them and moved them to safety. The firing went on until noon.

At the conclusion of the battle, the women and children were marched out of the Alamo. As they were taken to the main plaza, they were jabbed, demeaned and prodded by the soldiers who viewed them as traitors. They stayed the night at Don Ramón Musquiz’s house and were taken before General Santa Anna the day following the battle. After questioning the women and forcing them to pledge allegiance to Mexico, he personally awarded each woman “two silver pieces and a blanket.”  

Because of her family connections, Juana fared better after the war than others. As the daughter and adopted daughter of two prominent Hispanic families, she inherited land, cattle, and homes. Unlike most of the female survivors, Juana did not lose her husband. Although the Texas Revolution did cause a loss in social status, her Spanish legacy of legal and property rights remained intact. Her signature appears on numerous Bexar County land documents and in the state archives on legal petitions to the Texas legislature. 

Dr. Alsbury was very much involved in the revolutionary activities in Mexico, along the Rio Grande and in south Texas.  In 1842, Dr. Alsbury was marched into Mexico along with the other captives of Adrian Woll’s San Antonio invasion.  Juana followed the Texan prisoners as far as Candela, Coauila where she waited until Dr. Alsbury was released from Perote prison in 1844.  The couple made their way back to their home in San Antonio. However, the call to fight returned and Dr. Alsbury fought in the Mexican War. He was killed, presumably in Mexico, sometime in 1847.

As gender roles were not affected by the Texas Revolutionary War and women still had to sustain themselves through family ties, Juana remarried after Dr. Alsbury’s death. Her third husband was her first husband’s cousin, Juan Pérez.  In 1857, she petitioned the state for a pension for replacement of the items she lost in the looting of the Alamo, as well as her service there. The petition was granted.

Juana died in 1888, at her son’s ranch on Salado Creek in Bexar County. Alejo Pérez,  only eleven months old (and thus the youngest survivor) at the time of the Battle of the Alamo, was a long-time San Antonio city official. He served in the Confederate Army 1861-1864 and was twice married.  Between his two wives, Maria Antonia Rodriguez and Florencia Sappo Valdez, he fathered eleven children. When he died in 1918, he was the last known Alamo survivor.

Works Sited:

WOMEN AND THE TEXAS REVELOUTION by Mary L. Scheer

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/alamo/peopleevents/p_jnavarro.html

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fal49

http://www.thealamo.org/history/the-1836-battle/women-and-children.html

http://hotx.com/Alamo/esparza.html#juana

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txsaghs2/LibraryHoldings-PDF/FamilyWall/A48story.pdf

http://www.stoppingpoints.com/texas/sights.cgi?marker=Alejo+de+la+Encarnacion+Perez&cnty=bexar

Anna Kathryn Lanier

www.aklanier.com

Into the Valley of Death: Texas’s Immortal 32

By Kathleen Rice Adams

Bejar, Feby. 24th. 1836

To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World—

Fellow Citizens & compatriots—

I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna — I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man — The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken — I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls — I shall never surrender or retreat.  Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch — The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country — Victory or Death.

William Barrett Travis.
Lt.  Col. comdt.

A stone memorial on the Alamo grounds honors
the Immortal 32. (courtesty TheConduqtor)

At dawn on March 1, 1836, the only reinforcements to respond to Travis’s urgent appeal fought their way into the Alamo. The Gonzales Ranging Company of Mounted Volunteers, a hastily organized cadre of boys and men ages 16 to 54, forged through a line of 4,000 to 6,000 Mexican soldados, dodging fire from their compatriots atop the mission’s walls.

All but three of the rangers rode into history as the Immortal 32.

The story started months earlier in Gonzales, a settlement in DeWitt’s Colony, one of the original empresario land grants in the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas. Established in 1825, Gonzales became known as “the Lexington of Texas” when the first shot in the Texas Revolution was fired there Oct. 2, 1835. The Battle of Gonzales began over a cannon the Mexican government had given the Texians in 1831 so they could protect themselves from frequent Indian attacks. In September 1835, as disputes between the Texians and the Mexican government heated up, the governor of Coahuila y Tejas sent 100 Mexican soldiers to retrieve the cannon.

The men of Gonzales — all eighteen of them — refused to give up the artillery. Defiant to the core, they told the soldados to “come and take it.” The Mexicans tried, the men of Gonzales — later known as the Old Eighteen — held their ground until reinforcements arrived, and the resulting skirmish went to the Texians.

The Mexican Army did not take the defeat well.

This cannon, displayed at the Gonzales Memorial Museum,
may be the disputed artillery. (courtesy Larry D. Moore)

Four months later, when Travis, already besieged, sent his final appeal, the men of Gonzales and the surrounding area felt honor-bound to go to the defense of the Alamo defenders. Twenty-five men left Gonzales on the evening of Feb. 27. More joined the group as it traveled. When they reached San Antonio de Béxar, they spent two days trying to figure a way past the sea of Mexican troops. At 3 a.m. on March 1 — knowing their chances of survival were slim — the rangers made a mad dash for the mission gates, braving the fire of Mexican soldiers and Alamo sentries who mistook them for enemy combatants.

The Immortal 32 fell with the Alamo on March 6, never to see the wild land for which they died become an independent republic. They composed about 20 percent of the Anglo casualties. Mexican troops burned the bodies of all the Alamo defenders, whom they considered traitors.

The majority of the Immortal 32 were husbands, fathers, and landowners. Five had been among the Old Eighteen, and one was the younger brother of an Old Eighteen member.

The Immortal 32

Isaac G. Baker, 21
John Cain, 34
George Washington “Wash” Cottle, 25 (brother of an Old Eighteen member)
David P. Cummins, 27
Jacob C. Darst, 42 (Old Eighteen)
John Davis
Squire Daymon, 28
William Dearduff, 25
Charles Despallier, 24
Almaron Dickinson (Old Eighteen)
William Fishbaugh
John Flanders, 36
Dolphin Ward Floyd, 32
Galba Fuqua, 16
John E. Garvin, about 40
John E. Gaston, 17
James George, 34
Thomas Jackson (Old Eighteen)
John Benjamin Kellogg II, 19
Andrew Kent, 44
George C. Kimble, 33
William Philip King, 16
Jonathan L. Lindley, 22
Albert Martin, 28 (Old Eighteen)
Jesse McCoy, 32
Thomas R. Miller, 40 (Old Eighteen)
Isaac Millsaps, 41
George Neggan, 28
William E. Summers, 24
George W. Tumlinson, 22
Robert White, 30
Claiborne Wright, 26

A crypt in the San Fernando Cathedral purports to hold the
ashes of the Alamo defenders. Historians believe it is
more likely the ashes were buried near the Alamo.

Three men who rode into the Alamo with the Immortal 32 survived because they were sent out March 3 as couriers or foragers. All three were attempting to return to the Alamo when it fell.

Byrd Lockhart, 54, later served in the Texas army.
John William Smith, 44, became the first mayor of San Antonio.
Andrew Jackson Sowell, 21, became a Texas Ranger.

A monument in the Alamo Shrine commemorates the valor of the Immortal 32, as does an entire cemetery in Gonzales's Pioneer Village.

The Runaway Scrape

By Anna Kathryn Lanier

At the beginning of 1836, General Santa Anna and his Mexican troops of 4,000 men and artillery crossed the Rio Grande River. As news of this invasion spread from San Patricio, Refugio and San Antonio, panic also increased and families fled. When the Alamo fell on March 6, 1836, full-fledged terror set in. Sam Houston, commander of the Texas Army, was in Gonzalez at the time. Thirty-two of the town’s men were killed at the Alamo, so everyone was related to or knew of someone who died.  Expecting Santa Anna to continue his march across Texas, Houston ordered the evacuation of and the burning of the Gonzalez to prevent the Mexican army any provisions. Thus began the largest exodus to take place in the United States as thousands of Texans made their way east toward the Louisiana border (and the United States).

People packed and left so fast that it is said one household left a dinner of fried chicken, coffee and a fresh pitcher of milk on the table. Families quickly hauled clothes, bedding, provisions onto sleighs, wagons, handcarts and often, their backs.  Recently widowed women gathered up children and babes in arms and made for safety in America. The travel, however, was anything but swift and sure.

Recent and continuing rains made the wagon trails boggy and muddy.  People slogged along in the sucking muck. Rivers were raging waters that made each crossing a horrifying event.  Horse thieves, claiming to be with Army, would steal the animals. Indian war parties struck families that fled, as well as those who stayed behind, kidnapping women and children.

Conrad Juergans and his very pregnant wife Mary stayed behind, thinking Santa Anna’s army would pass north of them, which they did. Shortly afterward, though, a party of Indian braves attacked the cabin.  Conrad was injured, but managed to escape to the woods.  Mary and her two young sons, however were taken captive and forced to trek toward the Red River valley.  Three months later, Mary appeared at a trading post within Indian Territory. Her family arrived and paid the $300 bounty for her release.  She had given birth to a daughter while in captivity (am not sure if she had her daughter with her or not). The fate of her two sons is unknown.

One excellent source of the Runaway Scrape was documented by Dr. Pleasant W. Rose, who lived with his family near Stafford Point.  In 1900, his daughter, Dilue Rose Harris published an account of the Runaway Scrape in the Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association. While recalling her own memories as an eleven-year-old at the time of the Scrape, Dilue relied heavily on her father’s journal, which by 1900 had been lost for some time, but that she had read it multiple times before its disappeared.  The events of the Rose family were typical of other fleeing families.

Dilue recalled that the family quickly put belongings into a sleigh and traveled eastward with several other local families. The family’s hardship began at the Trinity River. Though the family made it across the treacherous river, the last trip made by the ferry boat, it swamped badly, leaving them stranded for several hours in the middle of the river. Finally they were rescued, but their river ordeal was only one of many faced by the evacuees.

W.G. Dewees recalled another river crossing. “There were about seventy-five wagons in the company and on arriving at the river we found no way to cross; the river was up to the top of the banks and there was no ferry.” Eventually, two large pine trees were cut down “so their length might be sufficient to reach across the river…that we might place the wagons on them and pull them across…with a rope.”

At Cedar Bayou, Emily Bryan Perry took charge of a situation when the cart of a woman and two small girls became stuck in the middle of the stream, efficiently blocking everyone else’s progress.  Emily handed off her new born baby, climbed down from her wagon and waded out to the woman. She spoke softly but firmly to the woman, encouraging her to try again.  “Up Buck!  Up Ball! Do your duty!” the woman yelled as she cracked the whip over the oxen’s head. The oxen strained hard, and managed to pull the cart free.

Dilue Rose reported seeing “children falling from the wagons which still kept on leaving the children behind, till another wagon came along and picked them up. Mothers in this manner have been separated from their children for days, and some for weeks, as the wagons would often take a different course.” William Fairfax Gary relayed seeing a family that had found a small, unattended infant. The family now had the care of the child, which they and others took turns carrying.

After a very difficult trip in mud and muck, the Roses finally arrived in Liberty. It was there that Dilue’s little sister died. The rigors of the escape proved hard, illnesses ran rampant through the groups heading toward Louisiana, and infants, small children and the elderly were particularly vulnerable. Many families lost a loved one to such diseases as cholera.

The Roses stayed in Liberty for several weeks and one day heard what they thought was distant thunder. Instead, it was the sound of cannon fire.  Sam Houston and his troops had caught up with Santa Anna and his troops. The Battle of San Jacinto could be heard thirty-five miles away. On April 21, 1836, in less than fifteen minutes, Sam Houston overtook the Mexican Army and forced their surrender.  Texas had won the war.

When word of the defeat of Santa Anna’s army reached the evacuees, they made their way back homes.  Some were burned to the ground, others had been ransacked, while others were found to be as they’d been left. The Roses returned home to find the hogs running wild. Her father’s bookcase had been toppled and his medical books and supplies scattered on the ground, the hogs sleeping on them. Emily Perry’s plantation near Peach Point didn’t fare any better. Although the house was not robbed, it was in disarray. “The hens had taken possession of beds, closet, bureaus,” Emily’s cousin wrote.   On the upside, there was an abundant supply of eggs.

In Women and the Texas Revolution, edited by Mary L Scheer, it says “The Runaway Scrape occurred in several stages. It began as an evacuation, starting South of San Antonio in February before it spread eastward to Gonzalez and Victoria early in the following month, culminating in civilian flight from the Colorado and Brazos valleys in mid- to late March.” (pp 159). Thousands, mostly women and children joined the flight away from the Mexican Army. It was an event that would define their life and the memories outlasted most of the hardships.

Works cited:

In Women and the Texas Revolution, edited by Mary L Scheer ISBN 978-57441-469-1

Texas Monthly - http://www.texasmonthly.com/content/texas-primer-runaway-scrape

Anna Kathryn Lanier
Romance Author, A GIFT BEYOND ALL MEASURE

http://aklanier.com/

Never let your memories be greater than your dreams. ~Doug Ivester