Just before dawn on March 6, 1836, Mexican General Santa Ana led his large army in attack on the men at the Alamo. This artist rendition was done much later. (Wikipedia Commons)
Yesterday was a sad and solemn day in San Antonio and the rest of Texas. It marked the 172nd anniversary of the Fall of the Alamo in 1836. Some say it is also the Beginning of the Republic of Texas. Actually the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed on March 2, 1836 at the tiny village appropriately named Washington on the Brazos. None of the defenders in the Alamo ever knew.
If you didn’t know, Texans are exuberantly proud of their heritage, albeit much of which is somewhat fictional. So here is a brief attempt to add a few true tidbits to the Alamo Legend.
Thanks to Hollywood we are aware of three of the heroes of the Alamo: James Bowie, David Crockett, and William Travis. There is an old adage that Texas was settled by men who wanted to escape the bill collector, the law, or a bad marriage. That applies to these three men and many others.
Bowie came to Texas from Louisiana where he had a good trade in forging land titles for settlers there until the law discovered his talent. The attorney William B. Travis sneaked out of town in Alabama to escape the debt collector leaving a wife and children. David (he hated the nickname Davy) Crockett served in the U. S. Congress from Tennessee. When defeated he told his former constituents they could go to Hell, but he was on his way to Texas. An unhappy marriage may have helped send him on his way. But along the way, legend has it he found a tree full of bees. He named the spot Honey Grove, now a small town in Fannin County here in Northeast Texas.
When the Republic of Texas was formed Sam Houston was appointed Commander in Chief of the Texas Army, such as it was. Houston also filled the image of a man coming to Texas to get away from something. In his case, Houston served with Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812, elected to the House of Representatives from Tennessee, and then elected governor of Tennessee. He resigned from office, abandoned a new bride before heading to Indian Territory to live with the Cherokees for several years. Rumors still abound about Houston and his first wife.
As Commander in Chief, Houston sent Jim Bowie to San Antonio to tell the men holed up in the Alamo to abandon it and remove all weapons and artillery pieces before heading east to join the new Texas Army. Upon arrival in San Antonio, Bowie decided to keep those orders secret and joined Travis and others.
In late February 1836 General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana with a massive Mexican army camped south of San Antonio to lay siege upon the Alamo. The old church became an armed fortress about that time. It was there that the rag-tag army of Anglos with a few wives, children, and slaves, and about a dozen Mexican Nationals known as Tejanos attempted to defeat or at least slow the Mexican Army.
Even after the siege began thirty-two men from the town of Gonzales made their way through enemy lines to reinforce those in the Alamo. On March third, James Butler Bonham, the messenger from Travis returned to join the defenders. All were killed. The few women, children and slaves were escorted to Goliad with the news of the fate of the Alamo and this message for Houston. Santa Ana was on his way to stop the rebellion, once and for all.
The fear of debt and banks by the early Texans carried over into the Republic of Texas Constitution of 1845 which prohibited corporate banking. First national bank was organized in Galveston in 1865. Private banks provided services.
No solution for avoiding the lawyers of deserted wives made it into the constitution. 🙂
That’s a hilarious illustration, depicting the chapel with its current facade profile during the battle. The chapel was never completed and did not look like that until the facade was modified with that embellishment that they just sort of made up.