Travis had been killed at the northwestern angle of the parapet, while working one of the cannon defending a small breach that had been made. After repeated attempts, General Amador succeeded in scaling the walls at this point, and a swarm of Mexicans followed him. Under Morales and Miñon, the outer defenses of the stockades had been occupied, the cannon captured, and the defenders forced to retire to the main part of the Alamo and the long barracks attached. The Texans soon fired their last shots, then swung their clubbed rifles against the mobs that pressed upon them with bayonet and sword. As these drove the Americans against the walls, their keen-edged knives were drawn for a moment of desperate conflict before they fell dying one by one. Bowie was lying in an almost helpless condition in an upper room of the barracks, but when the enemy rushed in upon him he shot down several with his pistols before he was despatched. Bonham, who had been one of the most active of the garrison, had been killed while loading a cannon. Crockett had retreated with the others into the plaza in which the long two-story barracks opened. The last that is known about him is that his mutilated body was seen near the main walls of the Alamo by Mrs. Dickinson, whose life was spared by the Mexicans. The story of his capture behind a pile of dead men, whom he had killed before being overpowered, is not true. Like most of his companions, he died in his tracks, disdaining to ask for quarter. A few of his comrades are known to have attempted escape by hiding in the barracks, an act which was entirely justifiable, for the fighting was over, and longer resistance was useless. The Mexicans stood at last within the walls of the Alamo, surrounded by the dead, with no hand raised against them.
The conflict had been terrible, but was soon over. It was yet an hour before the rising of the sun upon the plains when the calm, sweet notes of a bugle sounded from the midst of drifting smoke above the captured fort. The bands without were hushed, and the fierce Degüello was no longer needed to incite to fury and frantic assault. The Lone Star flag that had been so proudly raised upon Washington’s Birthday lay trampled in the dust, and in its stead the tri-color of Mexico flaunted in the morning breeze. There was a rolling of drums as the victorious Santa Anna appeared before the open gates of the Alamo. Five men who had secreted themselves in the barracks were brought before him. Their captors asked what disposition should be made of the prisoners. For answer Santa Anna wheeled his horse until his back was turned. Disregarding all the tenets of military discipline, the guard about him broke ranks and fell upon the captives like a pack of wolves, and in a moment’s time the last of the defenders of the fort had gone to his final accounting.
It has been generally supposed that Crockett and a few others were massacred by Santa Anna’s command; but the best evidence now disproves this, though it confirms his savage cruelty in ordering the shooting of Colonel Fannin and his men, afterwards captured at Goliad.
Five hundred dead and dying Mexicans met the gaze of the victorious commander-in-chief as he rode into the fort; and the total losses of the Mexican army were between fifteen hundred and sixteen hundred men. Almost two hundred Americans lay among the ghastly harvest they had reaped.
The bodies of all the Americans, with the possible exception of Bowie, whose wife was a sister of the wife of Santa Anna, were at once laid upon a pile of wood and brush and burned. The Mexicans’ own dead were buried, and preparations were made for the extermination of the last vestige of rebellion.
In February, 1837, Colonel Seguin removed the ashes and charred bones of the funeral pile of the defenders of the Alamo, and buried them near the fort. In after years a small monument was set up in the entrance to the State House at Austin, built from fragments of the stockade against which the tide of battle swept with such fury on that quiet Sabbath morn. Upon this monument are the names of one hundred and sixty-six men who met death before the bugle rang above the old church walls. Among the first is the name of Davy Crockett.
The Alamo is now cared for by the Society of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. The patriotic ladies who compose this Society have done everything possible to restore and preserve the historic building. The four-foot walls are intact, and the roof has been rebuilt. A custodian is always in charge, and many objects of interest have been collected and placed on exhibition. Pictures of Crockett, Travis, Milam, Burleson, and others are hung upon its walls. The most characteristic of all the pictures of Davy Crockett is one painted by John L. Chapman in 1834, while Crockett was in Congress. It shows him as he looked as scout and hunter, and reveals in every feature a kindly and sympathetic nature, liable to strong emotion and sensitive to every slight. Another picture, now in the Alamo, is that of Crockett in more fashionable attire. The two are by different artists, but are so alike in almost every lineament that each is a guaranty for the other. For the use of the first of these pictures, the publishers are indebted to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.
The death of Davy Crockett and the other brave men who fell in the Alamo could not be made the occasion for interference by the United States, but thousands of Americans took up their cause, and it was not long before the Stars and Stripes were lowered in salute before the battle-scarred fortress, as our army passed by on its way to Mexico.
What visions came to Davy Crockett in the smoke and flame of his last fight, we do not know; but the love of his own, like an attendant angel, stood by him as he met his enemies one by one; and when the last ray of light had faded from his soul, the glory of his sacrifice grew out of the ghastly ending of a life unspoiled by false ideals, and never unfaithful to those who shared his humble home. The soft airs of the Southland play about his resting-place, and the thrush and robin sing their plaintive songs above his dust. While the laurels glorify the Limestone’s rugged hills, and the mayflowers scent the Nolichucky’s wilderness, he sleeps unmindful of their fragrance and beauty, or the singing of the birds. But his memory cannot die; his epitaph is upon the walls of the Alamo—
THERMOPYLÆ HAD ITS MESSENGER OF DEFEAT:
THE ALAMO HAD NONE!