of 1833–35, culminating in Santa Anna’s turn to Centralism, whipped up more than a breeze–it was more like a storm that had been brewing quietly for many years but finally broke.
Independence won
Santa Anna arrived in Béxar on February 23, 1836, to find the Alamo (the popular name of the old mission of San Antonio de Valero) fortified by a contingent led by William Barret Travis and James Bowie. Laying siege to it, Santa Anna prepared for a final assault, as those inside mobilized for defense.
On March 6, sometime around the break of dawn, some 1100 of Santa Anna’s 2600 troops began a trot toward the walled compound as the degüello, a bugle call signaling to take no prisoners, sounded. The old mission would not fall easily; its location on a slight rise afforded those inside it a clear view of their attackers. Moreover, the defenders (historians now place their number in the range of 240 to 260) had already armed the compound with twenty‐one heavy artillery pieces, and many of those inside were expert riflemen, including foremost the Tennessee marksmen led by the recently arrived volunteer Davy Crockett, a nationally famous former US congressman. Using cannon fire and long rifles, the Alamo’s defenders felled the lead soldiers responsible for positioning the ladders that would allow the attackers to scale the mission’s defenses; thus officers and more‐seasoned fighters rushing behind the first wave could only try to claw their way up and over the compound’s eight‐ to nine‐foot walls. Now fighting for their lives, the Mexicans contended with bayonets and Bowie knives. Within minutes of its start, the assault appeared to have miscarried, and Santa Anna committed 400 reserves to the engagement. As this new wave of soldiers dashed toward the fortress, their bullets hit many of the hapless conscripts who still lay bunched up at the base of the walls. Frantic effort finally took the attackers over the walls of the Alamo, where the volunteers fell back to find cover within the compound (Figure 3.6). The battle itself ended within thirty minutes, but the carnage followed for some time after, as the Mexicans ferreted out soldiers still resisting from makeshift secondary lines of defense. The assault had cost Santa Anna more than 200 deaths and total casualties of about 400.
Even though Santa Anna gave orders to spare no one’s life, several who had stood in the Alamo survived. Among them were Susannah Dickinson, her small child, and a black slave belonging to Travis. Many of the survivors were Mexicans, most of them family members of (what recent research reveals were) nine Tejanos who had chosen to stand and fight with those inside the Alamo. About six or seven volunteers–Davy Crockett probably among them–were captured and executed within minutes after the battle by orders of Santa Anna.
While Santa Anna was waging his costly victory at Béxar, Texans under the command of Colonel James W. Fannin were preparing to defend the old presidio at Goliad from Mexican forces advancing up the coast from Matamoros under the command of General José de Urrea, who had already disposed of Anglo resistance his forces had met at San Patricio, Agua Dulce, and Refugio. Fannin decided on the morning of March 19 to abandon the garrison and make a run for Victoria, reasoning that the lack of adequate provisions at Goliad undermined a capable defense. As Fannin and his men retreated, Urrea intercepted them, deterring the Texans from taking refuge at Coleto Creek, the ravined terrain of which might have allowed Fannin to dig in to mount a spirited resistance. Therefore, at the “battle of the prairie,” some two miles from the timber of Coleto Creek, Urrea forced Fannin to surrender on the morning of March 20, and then marched the enemy force back to Goliad. A week later, despite Urrea’s personal pleas for clemency for the prisoners, Col. Nicolás de la Portilla (whom Urrea had left in command at Goliad) slaughtered the Anglos at Santa Anna’s insistence. Some 312 persons met their death, but close to 30 men who had not been fatally wounded by the executioners’ first volley managed to escape into the woods.
Figure 3.6 Dawn at the Alamo. This romantic painting is exhibited at the Texas State Capitol Building. Accession ID: CHA 1989.081;
Courtesy State Preservation Board, Austin, TX; Original Artist: McArdle, Henry A. 1836–1908.
The March convention had finally given Houston command of all Texan troops–volunteers as well as regulars–creating unity of command, an element essential to fighting a war. Moreover, the defeats at the Alamo and Goliad had eliminated the soldiers’ narrow allegiances to their immediate leaders. Houston arrived at Gonzales on March 13 to take command of 374 troops gathered there, only to hear of the fall of the Alamo. Two days later, following the arrival of more men, which increased his force to around 500, Houston headed away from Santa Anna’s advancing army, toward more familiar territory in East Texas. Although he might have undertaken this maneuver in order to engage the Mexican army on the Texans’ own ground, many believed that Houston intended to retreat all the way to the Louisiana border, where the US Army might then intervene on the Texan side. Indeed, throughout the retreat, Texan officials stayed in contact with US General Edmund Gaines, who was stationed with an American force just across the Sabine River. Whatever Houston’s intentions (and he never fully revealed what they were), many Texas settlers perceived it as a mindless retreat and panic spread quickly among the plain folk of the area–a panic made worse by unfounded rumors of an alliance between Mexicans and Indians. Consequently, an exodus Texans called the “Runaway Scrape” ensued as people fled their farms and communities, seeking refuge along the Texas–Louisiana border. A sense of mortal terror propelled them forward, despite cold weather and a driving rain that turned dirt roads into quagmires and common streams into mighty rivers.
By this point, Santa Anna felt confident that his conquest of the Texan army was near at hand, and he committed a major military blunder by detaching himself and some 1300 troops from the main body of his army to pursue the rebel government near Galveston Bay. Now the pursuer became the pursued, as Houston caught up with Santa Anna at the San Jacinto River on April 20. The Mexican general audaciously made camp in a location that defied the rules of engagement; although he had the Texans boxed in, he, too, was shut off on three sides, with the enemy less than a mile in front and already poised for an attack. The San Jacinto River on Santa Anna’s right and swampy terrain behind him would make a disciplined retreat impossible (Figure 3.7).
When no attack had come by midday on April 21, Santa Anna became convinced that Houston did not intend to fight. Therefore it came as a complete surprise when, sometime around 4 p.m., Sam Houston’s forces of approximately 1000 troops (made up of volunteers from the Anglo settlements, recent arrivals from the United States, as well as a detachment of Texas Mexicans led by Juan N. Seguín) advanced on Santa Anna’s camp. Caught off guard, Santa Anna’s forces attempted to beat back the Texans, even killing a horse out from under Sam Houston and wounding the general, but their resistance amounted to little. Within eighteen minutes after the first shot had been fired, Houston’s men had full control of the enemy camp. The Mexican army, by this time already deserted by Santa Anna, had become disorganized and gave ground, with the Texans chasing Mexican troops as they fled into the river and the marsh, killing them as they came upon them. The slaying of Santa Anna’s men continued past dusk. Casualty figures showed 650 Mexicans dead and 208 wounded. Additionally, the victors took numerous prisoners. The Texans had suffered only eight or nine killed and somewhere between seventeen and thirty injured.
Captured the day following the Battle of San Jacinto, Santa Anna succeeded in negotiating an agreement whereby Houston spared his life in return for a concession that the Mexican leader order the retreat of his three armies into Mexico. The small Texan navy had succeeded in preventing Mexican forces from being resupplied, and the remaining Mexican forces under the command of General Vicente Filisola–short of provisions and further weakened from foundering in a “sea of mud” for two weeks due to heavy rains–obeyed Santa Anna’s orders, which Filisola, second in command, relayed to a bitterly
