[H]e
and the other Mexicans who escaped from the butchery of Santa
Anna's hordes were concealed in two store rooms in the court
yard of the Alamo proper in front of what is left of the old
building, and that these rooms were on each side of the main
entrance gate which led into the court from the outside. He
also says the walls were surrounded on the outside by a ditch
"as deep as two men" and that a draw bridge spanning
this moat afforded the means of ingress and egress to and from
the place. It is known that such a wall and moat did exist and
Esparza's apparent familiarity with this is another proof of
the genuineness of his story. . . .
Esparza
says she [Madam Candelaria] was not there [in the Alamo]. She
had been in it frequently before it fell, he says, and was there
immediately afterward, but was not present when the actual fall
of the Alamo and massacre of its patriotic defenders occurred.
. . .
Early
in '36 they [the Esparza family] were warned by letter from
Vice President De Zavala, through Captain Roja, that the Mexican
hordes were coming and advised to take their families to a place
of safety. No wagons were obtainable, and so they waited. On
the morning of February 22 John W. Smith, one of the scouts,
galloped up to Esparza'a house bearing the news that Santa Anna
was near - would be upon them by night. What should they do?
was the question. Flee they could not! Should they try and hide
or go into the fortress of the Alamo? The Alamo was decided
upon by the mother, as there her husband would be fighting for
liberty. There they carried in their arms their most precious
possessions - going back and forth many times - till at sunset,
the mother Mrs. Anita Esparza, with her last bundles and her
little daughter and four sons, passed across the bridge over
the acequia into the court yard of the Alamo, just as the trumpets'
blare and noise of Santa Anna's army was heard. Within the Alamo
court yard were other refugees who were saved - Mrs. Alsbury
and one child and sister, Gertrudes [sic] Navarro, Mrs. Concepcion
Losoya, her daughter and two sons, Vitorina de Salina, and three
little girls, Mrs. Dickinson and baby (hitherto believed to
have been the only ones who escaped alive), and an old woman
called Petra.
No
tongue can describe the terror and horror of that fearful last
fight! The women and children were paralyzed with terror and
faint from hunger when the Mexican soldiers rushed in after
the Fall of the Alamo. A poor paralytic unable to speak - to
tell them he was not a belligerent, was murdered before their
eyes, as also a young fellow who had been captured some time
previous and confined in the Alamo. Brigido Guerrero, a youth,
was saved, as he managed to say he was not a Texan, but a Texan
prisoner.
A
Mexican officer, related to some of the refugees, arrived just
in time to save the women and children - but they were subjected
to terrible usage and horrible abuse. Finally, someone obtained
safe conduct for them at about 2 o'clock on the morning of the
7th to the house of Governor Musquiz, on Main Plaza. Here the
famished prisoners were served with coffee by the Musquiz domestics.
At daylight they were required to go before Santa Anna and take
the oath of allegiance. Each mother was then given a blanket
and two dollars by Santa Anna in person. The only two who escaped
this additional humiliation were the two daughters of Navarro,
who were spirited away from Musquiz' house by their father [uncle]
- Jose Antonio Navarro. The body of Esparza's father, who was
butchered with other Texans, was obtained by his brother, who
was in the Mexican army, and was buried in the San Fernando
Campo Santa, and thus he has the distinction of being the only
Texan who escaped the funeral pyre.
