The
Honorable Davy Crockett died like a hero, surrounded by heaps
of the enemy slain. Colonel James Bowie was sick and unable
to rise. He was slain in his bed: the enemy allowed him a grave-probably
in consideration of his having been married to a Mexican lady,
a daughter of the late Governor Berrimundi [Veramendi].
The
enemy had made daily and nightly attacks upon the place for
10 days. The garrison was exhausted by incessant watching; at
last the enemy made a final assault with 4000 men, half an hour
before daylight, on the morning of the 6th instant. It was dark,
and the enemy were undiscovered until they were close to the
walls, and before the sentinels had aroused the garrison, the
enemy had gained possession of a part of the ramparts.
The
garrison fought like men who knew there was but a brief space
left them in which to avenge the wrongs of their country's possession.
When driven from the walls by overwhelming numbers, they retired
to the barracks, and fought hand to hand and man to man until
the last man was slain-no, there was a man yet left; a little
man named Warner had secreted himself among the dead bodies,
and was found when the battle was over, and the dead men being
removed without the walls of the fort. He asked for quarters;
the soldiers took him to Santa Anna, who ordered him to be shot.
The order was executed, and the body was taken out and burnt
with the heroes who deserve as bright a remembrance as those
who died on the pass of Thermopylae.
