Toward noon a profound silence fell upon the Mexican camp. The men, officers and soldiers, from Santa Anna to the humblest private, were taking their siesta (afternoon nap).
Meantime, General Houston, after a short consultation with his officers, sent for Deaf Smith.
Deaf Smith was a bold, cool-headed, shrewd guide and spy, who had come from New York to Texas in 1821. He was hard of hearing (hence his nickname), silent and secretive in his manner, with the instinct and the unerring sight of a savage. It was Deaf Smith who had guided Fannin and Bowie from La Espada to Mission Concepcion, and led Johnson and Milam through the dark streets at the storming of San Antonio. It was he who had been sent to meet Mrs. Dickinson on her dreary journey from the Alamo; and when General Houston retreated from Gonzales, Deaf Smith, with one or two companions, was left to spy upon the movements of the enemy.
Houston dispatched Smith with secret orders to cut down and burn Vince’s bridge, about eight miles distant.
This bridge, which both armies had crossed on their march to their present position, spanned Vince’s Bayou, a narrow but deep stream running into Buffalo Bayou. To destroy it was to destroy the only means of retreat for either army.
General Houston, after making these arrangements, paraded his army. The men were in high spirits. Their eyes were dancing, their fingers itched to pull the triggers of their guns. The day was waning; it was nearly three o’clock in the afternoon. At this moment Deaf Smith galloped in, his horse white with foam, with the news that Vince’s bridge had been burned.
The order to advance was given. A single fife struck up the curiously inappropriate tune, “Will you come to the bower I have shaded for you.” The cannon were rushed forward within two hundred yards of the Mexican camp, and fire belched from the mouth of the “twins.” The left wing of infantry under Colonel Sidney Sherman began the attack. There was a cry which split the air: “Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!” and the whole force hurled itself forward like an avalanche.
The effect was appalling. The Mexicans half awake, dazed and bewildered by the sudden charge, hardly tried after their first feeble volley, to return the fire of their assailants. Within a few moments the Texans, still uttering their hoarse watchword of vengeance, had leaped the barricade, and were in the very heart of Santa Anna’s camp.
Too excited or too thirsty for revenge to load, they beat down the foe with the butts of their rifles, clubbed them with pistols, slashed them with keen-edged bowie knives. The Mexicans fled like frightened sheep, some into the muddy morass where they were caught as in a trap, others toward the bayou and the ruined bridge, others again to the cover of the timber where they made haste to surrender. “Me no Alamo! Me no Alamo!” cried many of the panic-stricken soldiers, falling on their knees before their captors.
