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"(He)
heard of Houston an' Austin an' so, To the Texas plains he had to go, Where freedom was fightin' another foe, An' they needed him at the Alamo. Davy -- Davy Crockett, The man who don't know fear!"* |
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"I
think we had better march out and die in the open air. I don't like to be hemmed
up."
-- David Crockett to Alamo survivor Susannah Dickinson, 1836
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David asks Travis for a position to defend: "Colonel, here am I. Assign me to a position, and I and my twelve boys will try to defend it," he says. Travis assigns to him a low, diagonal palisade of wood and mud -- the weakest position in the fort.
Low on cannonballs, David's men load their cannon with chopped up hinges, chains, nails, belt buckles, and bits of horseshoes. They prepare to defend the mission with their lives. Then... nothing happens -- outside of insults hurled by both sides as they wait.
Finally, on February 25, the first assault on the mission takes place. William Travis reports that "The Hon. David Crockett was seen at all points, animating the men to do their duty." Enrique Esparza, the eight year-old son of Alamo defender Gregorio Esparza, is sheltered in the mission rest of his family, and many years later, recalls: "Crockett seemed to be the leading spirit. He was everywhere. He went to every exposed point and personally directed the fighting. Travis was the chief in command but he depended more upon the judgement of Crockett and that brave man's intrepidity than upon his own."
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In another report, a Mexican engineer is said to be reconnoitering 200 yards from the Alamo when a man in buckskin climbs up on the southwest corner of the fort and coolly shoots him dead. The letter adds a report of David and Lieutenant Dickinson burning several jacales (primitive local houses) which are sheltering soldados from Texas artillery.
Here's a story told from the Mexican side -- by Captain Rafael Soldana of the Tampico battalion:
Santa
Anna addresses his staff. "Gentlemen, the attack shall begin." (©
1975 by James Burke; Cover
painting by Herb Tauss)
March
6: Thousands of Mexican soldiers rush the Alamo at dawn. After two charges, Santa
Anna's men cannot cross the wood palisade defended by David and his men. Retreating
twice, they finally give up on the palisade and re-group to the South, attacking
a different wall.
"He was a tall American of rather dark complexion and had on a long buckskin coat and a round cap without any bill, made out of fox skin with the long tail hanging down his back. This man apparently had a charmed life. Of the many soldiers who took deliberate aim at him and fired, not one ever hit him. On the contrary, he never missed a shot. He killed at least eight of our men, besides wounding several others. This being observed by a lieutenant who had come in over the wall, he sprang at him and dealt him a deadly blow with his sword, just above the right eye, which felled him to the ground, and in an instant he was pierced by not less than 20 bayonets." According to the alcalde, "Toward the west and in a small fort opposite the city, we found the body of Colonel Crockett...and we may infer that he either commanded that point or was stationed there as a sharpshooter." Santa Anna inspects David's body himself. According to one account, he runs his sword through it.
"A tall man, with flowing hair, was seen firing from the same place on the parapet during the entire siege. He wore a buckskin suit and a cap all of a pattern entirely different from those worn by his comrades. This man would kneel or lie down behind the low parapet, rest his long gun and fire, and we all learned to keep at a good distance when he was seen to make ready to shoot. He rarely missed his mark, and when he fired he always rose to his feet and calmly reloaded his gun seemingly indifferent to the shots fired at him by our men. He had a strong, resonant voice and often railed at us, but as we did not understand English we could not comprehend the import of his words further than that they were defiant. This man I later learned was known as 'Kwockey.'"
On
February 28, word reaches Fannin at Goliad that the Alamo defenders have repulsed
two charges so far. "Probably Davy Crockett grinned them off," says Fannin's aid,
John Brooks.
FUN
FACT: Jim Bowie celebrated his election as acting commander of the Alamo garrison by going on a drunken spree in San Antonio de Bexar, confiscating private property from the local citizens and releasing convicted felons from the local jail. (But he later apologized.)
Another
report claims "Davy Crockett and James Bowy (sic) are fighting like tigers."
Recently discovered evidence also suggests the Crockett put his old scouting skills
to use, reconnoitering outside the Alamo during the siege, and actually leading
a group of reinforcements into the mission. But
volunteers are few.
About
100 miles away at the Spanish presidio at Goliad, Col. James W. Fannin, a West
Point dropout and slave trader, has about 300 men and four cannon, but little
ammunition and few horses. He sets out for San Antonio, but three wagons break
down almost immediately. When the men make camp, they neglect to tie up their
oxen and horses, many of which wander off in the night. So Fannin returns to Goliad,
where he ignores additional pleas from Travis. (Eventually, his entire garrison
is caught out in the open by the Mexican army. They surrender, and all 300 men
are summarily executed by firing squads.)
To
the East there is even less support. Around 30 men arrive from Gonzalez, but there
still aren't enough soldiers in the fort to even man all of the cannon, let alone
cover the walls, scout for help, or cover all of the walls at once. The native
Tejanos in the garrison begin to slip away at night, reducing the number of men
ever further.
Meanwhile,
the
Texians' military commander, Sam Houston, is at Washington-on-the-Brazos for the
convention that David was hoping to attend, stumping for political control of
Texas with the Jacksonians -- as well as being in the midst of a major eggnog
bender. Knowing that the Alamo garrison favors a rival Stephan Austin regime to
run Texas, he regards Travis' pleas for help as a political ploy: He tells the
others at the convention that the melodramatic messages being delivered from Bexar
are "a fraud, and that there is no Mexican army near the Alamo." His
mind clouded by wild nights of endless drinking, he calls the letters "a
damn lie."...And does nothing. Ironically, the political process the men
in the Alamo garrison are fighting for is actually sealing their doom.
Meanwhile,
cannon constantly shell the Alamo. By March 4th, Mexican work details openly build
scaling ladders, preparing for the inevitable final assault. According to Mexican
general Vincente Filisola, the besieged men dispatch a woman to propose terms
of surrender to Santa Anna. Once again Santa Anna refuses to negotiate terms.
Santa Anna wants to be able to write back to Mexico City that he has annihilated
the rebels. David curses their situation, believing they would be better off trying
the guerilla warfare they used during the Indian wars -- but he trusts Travis
when he says reinforcements are coming.
To
kill time, David plays a fiddle, challenging bagpipe player John McGregor to see
who can make the most noise, in an effort to keep everyone's spirits up.
To hear David's actual fiddle, purchase "Davy
Crockett's Fiddle" by Dean Shostak. You can even hear the rattlesnake
tails David stuffed inside, shaking to the music!
According
to still another account from a survivor at Goliad, "When Gen. Santa Anna
was surveying the Alamo for the purpose of informing himself of the best method
of arranging an attack, [Crockett] made so good a shot at him as to come near
taking his life, which so much enraged the General, that he resolved to storm
the fort the next day and he kept his resolution."
David had told the people of Tennessee to go to hell, but now he was trapped in a place very close to it. The mission is constantly shelled by Mexican artillery, and there isn't a sewage system in place for the 200 people inside.
The food is running out, while disease is spreading among the defenders from the lack of nutrition and health concerns. God only knows how they dealt with sewage (let alone bathroom breaks on sentry duty). Soon many of the defenders are joining Bowie in sickbeds, while the psychological toll on the defenders may be even worse.
Finally,
on March 5, Travis draws the famous line in the sand. Every defender crosses the
line -- except for one: Louis Rose decides to leave. David says "you may as well
conclude to die with us, old man, for escape is impossible." But that night Rose
scales the wall, anyway, saying he's just not ready to die yet. (Miraculously,
he does escape, and lives for many years -- only to be forever ridiculed and attacked
by rabidly patriotic Texans.)
If
you believe the line is just a myth, then the Alamo defenders just dodged cannon
balls all day and braced for another attack.
However,
there is another version of "The Line in the Sand:" Enrique Esparza
reports in his first published interview, in 1901: "An Anglo they called
'Don Benito' was everywhere in the fort, giving encouragement and leadership.
The Anglos called this man 'Crockett.' After seven days of fighting there was
a truce of three days. During the truce, Don Benito held talks with Santa Anna,
and was told the Anglos could go free if they would surrender. The Tejanos, however,
would be treated as rebels. On the third and final day of the truce Don Benito
(not Travis) called the garrison together and told them the terms. No one believed
that Santa Anna would let them get out alive, and they decided to fight on."
MONDO
CROCKETT: The Blazing Dawn, by James Wakefield
Burke. Pyramid Books, New York. 1975.
"General,
may I say something?"
"Speak Almonte."
"It
will cost much."
Santa Anna reaches for his plumed
hat. "It is of no consequence what the cost may be."
He
places that hat on his head, glances at himself in a mirror that has been hung
for his convenience on one of the marquee. He then takes from a drawer underneath
his map counter a small bottle, pries the cork stopper from its large mouth with
a pen knife, carefully measures a small portion of the snow-white powder on the
knife's blade, places it on his tongue and washes it down with a sip of wine.
He replaces the stopper in the bottle, which is labeled SULPHATE OF MORPHINE.
Beneath this is a skull-and-crossbones poison symbol printed in red. He steps
outside, surveys his staff, thrusts his right hand inside his jacket. As he feels
the first wave of euphoria, his hand gently squeezes his left mammary and gives
the awaited order for the attack to begin. "Sound the bugles!"
The
Mexican army first breaks into the mission over the north wall, where Travis is
shot in the forehead. Santa Anna sends in more troops, bringing the assault forces
to nearly 1,800. The Mexicans fight their way through the compound, inch by inch,
room, by room. Forced out of the compound by sheer numbers of soldados, fifty
defenders flee the compound over the low east wall, only to be slaughtered by
Mexican lancers positioned outside the fortress. Bowie is slain in his sickbed,
the enraged Mexicans tossing his body atop their bayonets like hay. Cut off from
the rest of the compound, David and his Tennesseans are finally surrounded near
or inside the church. The fight in the plaza turns to vicious knife, pistol, gunstock,
and hand-to-hand combat between the Mexicans and Crockett's men.
FUN FACT: William Travis kept a detailed diary in Texas of every sexual tryst he had after abandoning his wife and children in another state. He also acquired syphilis, which he is rumored to have passed on to General Santa Anna through a San Antonio prostitute. YEA, TEXAS!!!
--Sergeant Felix Nuñez, Mexican Army.
By dawn, the battle is over. A cook at Santa Anna's headquarters, Ben, has seen the former congressman before (evidently while working at a hotel in Washington), and is sent into the fort to identify Crockett's body. Ben says that David is surrounded by about 16 dead Mexicans, his knife stuck in one. According to two of the survivors, Joe (Travis' slave), and Susanna Dickinson, David's body is found immediately outside the doors of the Alamo chapel. Susanna adds that Crockett's "peculiar" cap is by his side. Joe says that the number of dead soldiers around Crockett is actually 22. Minutes after the fighting ceases, Alcalde Francisco Ruiz is ordered to identify the bodies of the dead Texans, especially those of the leaders.
CROCKETT
AT THE ALAMO: "When
I war at the battle of the Alamo, whar the creturs thought to catch us like a
weazel asleep I heated my gun red hot in firing so quick, and thar war no need
in pulling a trigger, and drawin a lead, for the gun went off nat'ral and kilt
a Mexican sojer every time. After my ammunition war gone, I swept down twelve
of 'em with one sweep of my musket. It war the best job that kill-devil ever did.
I think it war a duty to clear the country of setch varmint's as much as foxes
and wolves and crocodiles. Arter that battle, I counted about fifty that had killdevil's
mark on 'em, for I knowed every bullet-hole that cum from them balls of killdevil's.
Luke Wing took off scalps enough to make his wife a Sunday petticoat with the
hair hangin' down, and she said it war the warmest Sunday petticoat she ever had
on. I never fout so hard before but wonst, and that war when thar war a feller
running agin me for Kongress, and I dared out all that voted for him. That time
I put seventeen eyes into my pocket, but at the Alamo, I might have took a smart
chance of eyes if I had wanted to do it : but thar eyes war so far in the head,
it war not worth my trouble to dig 'em out: so I let 'em lay and rot on the field
; but I took a bundle of scalps and sent 'em home to Mrs. Crockett, to sew 'em
together and make a patchwork bed-quilt of 'em"" --The Idle Hour
Book, or Scrapiana; Being a Nerve-Worker, Care Destroyer, and Genuine Countenance
Disturber . . . Containing all the Information Necessary to Raise a Laugh at the
Shortest Notice. . . . New York: Turner & Fisher, ca. 1848
Santa
Anna's official report, dictated at 8 a.m. that morning, states there were four
columns and a reserve in the Mexican attack, totaling 1,400 soldiers. Resistance
was stubborn, the reserve was committed, and fighting lasted an hour and a half.
The spectacle, he writes, was extraordinary. The Mexicans fought heroically, while
the fire of the defenders lit up the interior of the fortress, its walls and ditches.
He lies that 600 defenders were killed, and adds that the bodies of Crockett,
Travis and Bowie were among them. (In reality, 189 defenders appear on the official
list, but ongoing research may increase the final tally to as many as 257, counting
the defenders who fled the fort. Best estimates place the number of Mexicans killed
and wounded at about 600.)
David
is dead. His body is burned along with the other Alamo defenders, in one of
three funeral pyres.
| * The Ballad of Davy Crockett, by Tom Blackburn; Music by George Bruns. Copyright 1954 Wonderland Music Co., Inc. |
The information contained in these pages is intended for educational purposes. Copyrights held by various and respective owners.
Music: "Deguello de Crockett " from "The Alamo" (2004), by Carter Burwell.