Exodus From the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth (27 page)

But as in the past, Travis continued to refuse to believe these timely intelligence reports from Captain Juan Nepomuceno Sequín’s Tejano scouts, because they were not white, and therefore could not be trusted. His racism and personal prejudices were already in the process of spelling the doom of the Alamo garrison.
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Fortunately for the tiny band of garrison members in San Antonio, the rain-swollen Medina River had slowed down the Mexican cavalry on the afternoon of February 21. Then, upon approaching San Antonio, Santa Anna failed to order Sesma to attempt to capture both the garrison and the town, but only to reconnoiter and cut off all avenues of withdrawal. Outsmarting himself, he could not fathom that these Americans were not fully aware of the threat. Or perhaps he only wanted to lure the overconfident garrison out into the open to face the Vanguard Division, or expected a quick surrender when he arrived with overwhelming might. But what Santa Anna did not know was that Travis would not become aware of the Mexican presence until nearly noon. Therefore, Santa Anna’s ambitious plans for nabbing the garrison had vanished with the rising winter sun on February 23.

Nevertheless, the sudden approach of Mexican troops, both infantry and cavalry, relatively late in the day came as a surprise. After the Mexicans captured a handful of pickets, the Anglo-Celts just barely escaped the town to flee into the Alamo, racing down dusty Potrero Street like madmen. Ironically, no one seemed to note the irony that Cós and his men had also fled inside the Alamo when under attack—a place from which there was no escape. One of the last to flee to the Alamo was Captain Almeron Dickinson, who was staying with his wife and young daughter at the Tejano home of Don Ramón Múzquiz, where they were quartered.
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One of the foremost Mexican officers to lead the Vanguard Division men into town was the experienced Colonel José Vincente Miñon. With pride, he described how: “I was the first with a company of cazadores from the Matamoros Battalion that took possession of the Plaza de Bejar whose church was occupied by the enemy who deserted [the sacred place] at this moment, withdrawing themselves in self-defense and order to the nearby fortification of the Alamo.”
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Santa Anna described how: “Our army’s crossing into Texas was the cause of great surprise on the part of the filibusters, for they believed that Mexican soldiers would not cross again into Texas. Frightened by our invasion, they ran to a fortress called the Alamo [which had been] erected by the Spaniards.” He also mocked “the celebrated Travis,” who had become a source of contempt.
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Ironically, one of the great Alamo myths was that the legendary Long Rifle was destined to inflict a high toll on Santa Anna’s troops. In truth, the Alamo garrison lacked a large number of Long Rifles in defending the Alamo, even before the Mexicans came. And this situation only became worse thanks to the Mexican cavalry’s surprise arrival into San Antonio. So thorough was the lack of preparations that 50 invaluable rifles were left behind in San Antonio during the sprint to reach the Alamo’s safety. Incredibly, no one had thought—not even Travis—to make sure that the rifles were relocated at the Alamo, even though they knew that Santa Anna was on his way: a mere continuation of a comedy of errors.

Therefore, with some disbelief, Santa Anna boasted in his report: “Fifty rifles, of the rebel traitors of the North, have fallen in our possession” when capturing San Antonio. Ironically, along with the chronic lack of ammunition, some of which was likewise evidently left behind in the town, this timely capture of a good many rifles helped to ensure that the Alamo’s defense would sorely lack long-range firepower from the Long Rifle. Even more, evidence reveals that the weapon of choice, even for Travis and garrison members like Dr. John Sutherland, at the Alamo was in fact the shotgun and not the Long Rifle.
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But, in reality, this coup was small consolation. Santa Anna’s failure to capture San Antonio and the Alamo left the generalissimo in a particularly bad mood only two days after his forty-first birthday. Ironically, this was a repeat performance for him. At only age 19 back in the hot summer of 1813, he had first seen San Antonio as a member of an invading Royal Spanish Army dispatched to crush rebels, including many Anglo-Celts. He now unfairly blamed Sesma, who had been only ordered to block the garrison’s withdrawal rather than capture the town, and even the rainy weather—much like Napoleon had blamed winter weather for his failings in Russia in 1812. Offering an excuse, he wrote how this advance cavalry task force “should have fallen on Béxar in the early morning of February 23 [and] although the city was captured, the surprise that I ordered to be carried out would have saved the time consumed and the blood shed later in the taking of the Alamo.”
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The garrison’s existence now depended upon what Bowie, Travis, and Fannin would do in the next few days. All three men had already tired of the war, wanting to resign rather than fight to the bitter end. A thorough lack of preparation at the Alamo fueled Travis’ plea, dispatched by courier, to Fannin at Goliad: “We have all our men into the Alamo. . . . We have one hundred and forty-six men [and] We have but little provisions, but enough to serve us till you and your men arrive.”
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Ironically, almost no adequate defensive preparations had been made for withstanding a siege at the Alamo. Supplies, munitions, including even a good many rifles, and even firewood in the cold winter weather had not been brought into the compound in the past period of relative inactivity. Even worse, neither Travis nor Bowie had ensured open fields of fire around the Alamo by eliminating obstacles, such as jacales, that would prove advantageous to an attacker. Clearly, the garrison would have to pay a high price for its inexperience and untrained leaders to learn the art of war on the job. Ironically, this “surreal” situation was comparable to when Napoleon, then the complacent, overconfident master of Europe, had himself paved the way for one of the greatest disasters in military history by remaining in Moscow too long without preparing for either winter or a retreat from Russia.
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Because they had placed their faith in an indefensible position, the trapped Anglo-Celts could only cling to the fatal illusion in the faint hope of the arrival of reinforcements from Goliad: Fannin and his command, around three times the size of the Alamo garrison. Unfortunately, however, Texas lacked not only a unified overall military command, but was also deprived an acting provisional government—which had collapsed into chaos and seemingly endless in-fighting in February—to support it or hurry up aid and reinforcements to the Alamo. Even worse, the relatively few troops in Texas were hopelessly divided into two garrisons, San Antonio and Goliad—offering Santa Anna a perfect model for divide and conquer.

Texan leaders were divided not only about the best strategy—offensive or defensive—but the proper place to fight the war—Texas or Mexico—and even where to make a defensive stand if the location was ever agreed upon, which it was not. Some people in Texas wanted to declare independence, others did not. Therefore, by early 1836, the Alamo garrison was most of all expendable, representing the relatively few soldiers in Texas who supported the disposed Governor Smith, now facing possible impeachment. Making things worse, they aligned themselves against the commander-in-chief, Houston, who had wanted to evacuate San Antonio and the Alamo.
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Houston had predicted that “Dissension will destroy Texas,” and, of course, the Alamo garrison. These young, inexperienced volunteers, or unruly members of “the ultra-democratic mob,” were already expendable. For Houston, these independent-minded novices, who had rejected him as commander, had no permanent part in his long-range strategic plan of creating a professional, regular army of disciplined veterans. Many Texan politicians viewed the Alamo soldiers as “not only slackers but as inept and possibly corrupt.” Houston wanted neither San Antonio as a strategic position nor its diminutive, always-troublesome garrison, and neither, or so it seemed, did the people of Texas.
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Unfortunately for Alamo garrison members, the personal qualities—weakness, folly, blindness, doggedness, and overconfidence—of top civilian and military officers, such as Neill, Bowie, Houston, Fannin, and Travis, plus the feuding politicians, all contributed to sealing their fates in the end. Commanding the Texas Regular Army and not the volunteers at the Alamo, Houston saw the tiny garrison at that remote outpost as expendable, pawns to be sacrificed for the greater good, especially his own. Even their immediate commanders, Neill, Bowie, and Travis, had let the Alamo men down. Indeed, there would have been no Alamo to defend and no destruction of the garrison without the disastrous chain of miscalculations and erroneous decisions of leadership. The Alamo commander had failed to move sufficient supplies, including food, water, and ammunition, for an extended defensive stand at the Alamo, despite knowing that Santa Anna’s Army was on his way north. Some provisions were collected, but most remained in the town, with Travis and Bowie believing they yet had plenty of time to move them into the Alamo. Garrison members had simply grabbed what they could during a wild dash for the Alamo before being cut off by Mexican cavalry upon Santa Anna’s arrival on February 23.
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The garrison now paid a high price for Travis’ belief, as expressed to Governor Smith only ten days before on February 13: “By the 15th of March I think Texas will be invaded,” and not before.
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He was wrong.

But in truth, Travis had actually believed that Santa Anna, if he marched upon San Antonio, would do so in the summer of 1836. He only emphasized the March 15 date to order to pressure the governor to send supplies and aid as soon as possible. John Sutherland described the true situation in which “no danger was apprehended [because so] Many had persuaded themselves, that Santa Anna would never attempt to conquer Texas [because] he was afraid to meet us.” Incredibly, therefore, Travis and his men actually were convinced that Santa Anna, having learned his lesson with Cós’ defeat, would “postpone his operations until the summer.”
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Despite being in part responsible for the upcoming disaster, when it was already too late, a prophetic Governor Henry Smith implored the people of Texas to awake to the growing threat facing Texas and rush to aid them, so as “not to permit [the Alamo garrison] to be massacred by a mercenary foe.”
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And then, acting Governor James W. Robinson, designated by the Council to replace Smith— who had been dismissed by that ever-dysfunctional body of bickering statesmen and then promptly dissolved it—predicted “disastrous consequences” for not only the Alamo garrison, but also Texas.
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But such frantic pleas were not only too late, but also largely in vain across Texas. By this time, the Alamo garrison continued to be expendable to the established, longtime Texas leaders and residents, because the government had laid plans that had been more in line with remaining under Mexico’s jurisdiction in the hope of preventing exactly what had happened: a large Mexican Army suddenly descended upon Texas like a howling “blue norther.”

Therefore, the band of volunteers of the Alamo were largely expendable to not only the old Texian settlers, but also the government at San Felipe de Austin, which planned to establish a regular army for Texas and not a volunteer one. It was no wonder that the Alamo garrison now found itself abandoned, doomed by a combination of top-level political and military decisions by those both at the Alamo and at highest governmental levels. Consequently, especially because it had fallen apart, the Texas government never raised funds for the purchase of black powder, cannonballs, other munitions, or further reinforcement so vitally needed by the garrison.
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Launcelot Smither, who had been dispatched to Gonzales to secure reinforcements for San Antonio in February, was realistic about the stern challenges facing the Alamo garrison. From Gonzales, he sent a note to Nacogdoches with the unforgettable, prophetic words: “If every man cannot turn out to a man, every man in the Alamo will be murdered.”
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Smither’s sentiments only echoed earlier warnings by Tejano women, who lamented to the passing Anglo-Celts and handful of Tejanos as they dashed through San Antonio’s streets on February 23, to take final refuge in the Alamo when Santa Anna’s troops first appeared: “Poor fellows, you will all be killed.”
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Nevertheless, the Alamo garrison was convinced otherwise. Incredibly, and indicating more their cultural bias rather than military experience, both Bowie and Travis yet believed that any number of Mexicans could be defeated, even though they only had around 150 men, approximately 850 soldiers short of what it would have taken to adequately man the sprawling perimeter. Based upon an overestimation in their own military prowess, and a gross underestimation of the Mexican fighting man of mostly Indian descent, this unbreakable, taken-for-granted faith—despite its delusional character—was based upon the belief that their weapons, such as Long Rifles, muskets, and cannon, could easily prevail over any Mexican Army, even if the odds were ten to one. And these men, from leading officers to the lowest private, were convinced that all Texas, both Fannin at Goliad and east Texas settlements, could quickly rally to their support. Such hopeful beliefs—although entirely illusionary and faulty—helped to ensure that the Alamo garrison would undertake no attempt to escape during the thirteen days of siege.
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What was unmistakable was the fact that Santa Anna’s masterstroke in pushing so swiftly north was brilliant, catching an unwary, smug opponent completely by surprise. Perhaps B. H. Duval said in best in a late winter 1836 letter: “Contrary to the expectation of every one, he has invaded the Country when least expected.”
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