About
nine in the morning, the President Santa Anna arrived and joined
with his escort and staff, the column which was now in the vicinity
of San Antonio. We marched upon the place and were received
by the fort with one or two cannon shots; those in the Alamo
raising a red flag.
Santa
Anna then ordered a parley to be sounded, which was answered
by the chiefs of the Alamo, and the
President
commissioned the Mexican Colonel Batres to confer with Bowie
and Travis, both Colonels of the Texan forces holding the Alamo.
This was on the 26th of February, 1836.
The
President Santa Anna proposed to Travis and Bowie that they
should surrender at discretion, with no other guarantee than
that their lives should be spared. The said Texan chiefs answered
and proposed to surrender the fort on being allowed to march
out with their arms and go join their government (as they had
permitted the Mexican forces under Generals Cos and Filisola
when they capitulated to the Texans at the Mission de la Espada
and were allowed to march out with their arms, munitions of
war, provisions, etc., and join the Mexican army then in the
field against Texas), and if this was not willingly conceded
to them, they would willingly take all the chances of war.
The
bombardment was effectually commenced on the 27th of the same
month. During this time the Mexican forces were joined by several
bodies of infantry, making about four thousand men.
On
the 4th of March the President Santa Anna called a council of
war to consider the mode of assault of the Alamo, and they decided
to make the assault on the 6th, at daybreak, in the following
manner: On the north, Col. Don Juan Baptisto Morales with the
Battalion "Firmas," of San Luis Potosi; on the west,
Col. Don Mariano Salas, with the Battalion of Aldama; on the
south, Col. Jose Vincente Minon, with the Battalion of Infantry;
on the east, a squadron of Lancers, flanked by a ditch, to cut
off the retreat at the time of the assault. These Lancers were
commanded by Gen. Don Joaquin Ramires y Sesma.
The
assault took place at 3:30 a.m. on the 6th, and was so sudden
that the fort had only time to discharge four of the eighteen
cannon which it had.
The
Fort Alamo had only one entrance, which was on the south; and
the approach was made winding to impede the entrance of the
cavalry. The Mexican infantry, with ladders, were lying down
at musket-shot distance, awaiting the signal of assault, which
was to be given from a fort about a cannon-shot to the east
of the Alamo, where the President Santa Anna was with the music
of the regiment of Dolores and his staff to direct the movements.
In the act of assault a confusion occurred, occasioned by darkness,
in which the Mexican troops opened fire on each other. A culverin,
or 16 pound howitzer, fired from the fort, swept off a whole
company of the Battalion Aldama, which made the attack on the
point toward San Antonio.
After
that we all entered the Alamo, and the first thing we saw on
entering a room at the right was the corpses of Bowie and Travis.
Then we passed to the corridor which served the Texans as quarters,
and here found all refugees which were left. President Santa
Anna immediately ordered that they should be shot, which was
accordingly done, excepting only a negro and a woman having
a little boy about a year old. She was said to be Travis' cook.
Sixty-two
Texans who sallied from the east side of the fort, were received
by the Lancers and all killed. Only one of these made resistance;
a very active man, armed with a double barrel gun and a single-barrel
pistol, with which he killed a corporal of the Lancers named
Eugenio. These were all killed by the lance, except one, who
ensconced himself under a bush and it was necessary to shoot
him.
There
in front of the fosse were gathered the bodies of all those
who died by the lance, and those killed in the fort, making
a total to two-hundred and eighty-three persons, including a
Mexican found among them, who, it appears, had come from La
Bahia (Goliad) with dispatches; and here they were ordered to
be burned, there being no room in the campo santo or burying
ground, it being all taken up with the bodies of upwards of
four hundred Mexicans, who were killed in the assault.
