With the dead and dying strewn around, Santa Ana entered the fort. What he saw there, we cannot attempt to describe, but a few things we must mention. In his own room they found Colonel Bowie dead in his bed, where he had lain too sick to rise; but he had had strength to use his weapons, for four Mexicans had fallen, shot to death in the room, while a fifth lay across the bed with the Colonel’s terrible knife sticking in his heart. Near the door of the magazine it is said that they found Major Evans, the master of ordnance, shot down with a burning match in his hand, before he could fire the powder and blow the fort and his enemies into the air.
Upon a high platform in one corner, there was a small cannon which was turned upon the Mexicans in the fort and did terrible execution. Who handled it is not exactly known, but near it were found the bodies of David Crockett and five of his companions. It is said, though possibly without much foundation, that when Santa Ana stepped into the courtyard he found Crockett and his companions still fighting.
Concealed in one of the rooms under some mattresses, five men were found, and under a bridge crossing an irrigating ditch another was discovered. All these were immediately shot by the orders of Santa Ana, and so hastily and excitedly was it all done that a Mexican was killed with them by accident. The wife of Lieutenant Dickinson, a negro servant of Travis, and a few Mexican women were the only human beings whose lives were spared.
Thus fell the Alamo. In thinking of this bloody tragedy, we must remember that these were simple citizens, bound together by no tie save their affection for one another and their loyalty to a state of whose independence they were as yet ignorant, for though Texas was then the “Lone Star State,” no intimation of the Texas declaration of independence had reached Travis or his devoted followers. According to the report of General Santa Ana, the action lasted but thirty minutes from the time the enemy entered the walls till the resistance was completely quelled.
So many false reports have been made of the number engaged in this struggle that it is impossible even now to tell definitely. We do know that the number of Texans was less than two hundred, and it is probable that about twenty-five hundred Mexicans were engaged in the assault. All the Texans were killed, and from the various accounts we are led to infer that about five hundred Mexicans fell, a number which shows that the defense of the Texans was indeed fierce and bloody.
The history of our country does not show any incident of greater bravery or more heroic self-sacrifice, and it is hardly to be conceived that such a defense will ever be excelled. This was no disciplined force fighting under trained officers, but a group of simple, manly men, not agreeing in all things, but united with the one idea of fighting against cruelty and oppression.
On the Capitol grounds at Austin, Texas, a monument was erected in 1891 to the heroes of the Alamo. On it is this inscription:
“Thermopylæ had her messenger of defeat:
The Alamo had none.”