Six different flags have flown over the land of the Tejas: the French, the Spanish, the Mexican, the Republic of Texas, the Confederate, the Union. In such a struggle for ascendancy, needless to tell, much blood was shed righteously and unrighteously; but of the battle fought at the Alamo, no justification need be given. It is part of American history, but it is the kind of history that in other nations goes to make battle hymns. Details are in every school book. Santa Ana, the newly risen Mexican dictator, had ordered the 30,000 Americans who lived in Texas, to disarm. Sam Houston, Crockett, Bowie, Travis, had sprung to arms with a call that rings down to history yet:
"Fellow citizens and compatriots," wrote Travis from the doomed Alamo Mission, to Houston and the other leaders outside, "I am besieged by a thousand or more Mexicans under Santa Ana. I have sustained a continued bombardment for twenty-four hours and have not lost a man.... The garrison is to be put to the sword if the place is taken. I have answered the summons with a cannon shot and our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender, nor retreat. I call on you in the name of liberty, and of everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid with all despatch. The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily, and will no doubt increase to 3,000 or 4,000 in four or five days. Though this call may be neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and die like a soldier who forgets not what is due to his own honor and that of his country—Victory or Death!
W. Barrett Travis
Lieut.-Col. Commanding."
In the fort with Travis were 180 men under Bowie and Crockett. The siege began on Feb. 23, 1836, and ended on March 6th. Besides the frontiersmen in the fort were two women, two children and two slaves. The Mission was arranged in a great quadrangle fifty-four by 154 yards with acequias or irrigation ditches both to front and rear. The garrison had succeeded in getting inside the walls about thirty bushels of corn and eighty beef cattle; so there was no danger of famine. The big courtyard was in the rear. The convent projected out in front of the courtyard. To the left angle of the convent was the chapel or Mission of the Alamo. Santa Ana had come across the desert with 5,000 men. To the demand for surrender, Travis answered with a cannon shot. The Mexican leader then hung the red flag above his camp and ordered the band to play "no quarter." For eight days, shells came hurtling inside the walls incessantly, dawn to dark, dark to dawn. Just at sunset on March 3rd, there was a bell. Travis collected his men and gave them their choice of surrendering and being shot, or cutting their way out through the besieging line. The besiegers at this time consisted of 2,500 infantrymen bunched close to the walls of the Alamo—too close to be shot from above, and 2,500 cavalry and infantry back on the Plaza and encircling the Mission to cut off all avenue of escape.
Travis drew a line on the ground with his sword.
"Every man who will die with me, come across that line! Who will be first? March!"
Every man leaped over the line but Bowie, who was ill on a cot bed.
"Boys, move my cot over the line," he said.
At four o'clock next morning, the siege was resumed. The bugle blew a single blast. With picks, crowbars and ladders, the Mexicans closed in. The besieged waited breathlessly. The Mexicans placed the ladders and began scaling. The sharpshooters inside the walls waited till the heads appeared above the walls—then fired. As the top man fell back, the one beneath on the ladder stepped in the dead man's place. Then the Americans clubbed their guns and fought hand to hand. By that, the Mexicans knew that ammunition was exhausted and the defenders few. The walls were scaled and battered down first in a far corner of the convent yard. Behind the chapel door, piles of sand had been stacked. From the yard, the Texans were driven to the convent, from the convent to the chapel. Travis fell shot at the breach in the yard wall. Bowie was bayoneted on the cot where he lay. Crockett was clubbed to death just outside the chapel door to the left. By nine o'clock, no answering shot came from the Alamo. The doors were rammed and rushed. Not a Texan survived. Two women, two children and a couple of slaves were pulled out of hiding from chancel and stalls. These were sent across to the main camp. The bodies of the 182 heroes were piled in a pyramid with fagots; and fired. So ended the Battle of the Alamo, one of the most terrible defeats and heroic defenses in American history. It is unnecessary to relate that Sam Houston exacted from the Mexicans on the battlefield of San Jacinto a terrible punishment for this defeat. Captured and killed, his toll of defeated Mexicans down at Houston came to almost 1,700.
Such is the story of one of San Antonio's Missions. One other has a tale equally tragic; but all but two are falling to utter ruin. I don't know whether it would be greater desecration to lay hand on them and save them, or let them fall to dust. It was nightfall when I went to the three on the outskirts of the city. Two have little left but the walls and the towers. A third is still used as place of worship by a little settlement of Mexicans. The slant light of sunset came through the darkened, vacant windows, the tiers of weathered stalls, the empty, twin-towered belfries. You could see where the well stood, the bake house, the school. Shrubbery planted by the monks has grown wild in the courtyards; but you can still call up the picture of the cowled priests chanting prayers. The Missions are ruins; but the hope that animated them, the fire, the heroism, the dauntless faith, still burn in Texas blood as the sunset flame shines through the dismantled windows.