Victory
belongs to the army, which at this very moment, 8 o'clock A.M.,
achieved a complete and glorious triumph that will render its
memory imperishable.
As
I had stated in my report to Your Excellency of the taking of
this city, on the 27th of last month, I awaited the arrival
of the 1st Brigade of Infantry to commence active operations
against the Fortress of the Alamo. However, the whole Brigade
having been delayed beyond my expectation, I ordered that three
of its Battalions, viz: the Engineers-Aldama and Toluca-should
force their march to join me. These troops, together with the
Battalions of Matamoros, Jimenes, and San Luis Potosi, brought
the force at my disposal, recruits excluded, up to 1400 Infantry.
This force, divided into four columns of attack and a reserve,
commenced the attack at 5 o'clock A.M. They met with a stubborn
resistance, the combat lasting more than one hour and a half,
and the reserve having to be brought into action.
The
scene offered by this engagement was extraordinary. The men
fought individually, vying with each other in heroism. Twenty-one
pieces of artillery, used by the enemy with most perfect accuracy,
the brisk fire of musketry, which illuminated the interior of
the Fortress and its walls and ditches-could not check our dauntless
soldiers, who are entitled to the consideration of the Supreme
Government and to the gratitude of the nation.
The Fortress is now in our power, with its artillery, stores,
&c. More than 600 corpses of foreigners were buried in the
ditches and entrenchments, and a great many who had escaped
the bayonet of the infantry, fell in the vicinity under the
sabres of the cavalry. I can assure Your Excellency that few
are those who bore to their associates the tidings of their
disaster.
Among
the corpses are those of Bowie and Travis, who styled themselves
Colonels, and also that of Crockett, and several leading men,
who had entered the Fortress with dispatches from their Convention.
We lost 70 men killed and 300 wounded, among whom are 25 officers.
The cause for which they fell renders their loss less painful,
as it is the duty of the Mexican soldier to die for the defense
of the rights of the nation; and all of us were ready for any
sacrifice to promote this fond object; nor will we, hereafter,
suffer any foreigners, whatever their origin may be, to insult
our country and to pollute its soils.
I
shall, in due time, send to Your Excellency a circumstantial
report of this glorious triumph. Now I have only time to congratulate
the nation and the President, ad interim, to whom I request
you to submit this report.
The
bearer takes with him one of the flags of the enemy's Battalions,
captured today. The inspection of it will show plainly the true
intentions of the treacherous colonists, and of their abettors,
who came from parts of the United States of the North. God and
Liberty!
