Exodus From the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth Read online

  To the delight of land-hungry Americans who desired virgin lands of incomparable fertility, this majestic land of Texas was a paradise, a dream come true. Its broad meadows of bluebonnets, prairies, pine forests, dense cane-breaks often higher than a horse’s head, and gently rolling hills seemed endless. Moreover, despite hundreds of years of Hispanic rule, Texas was yet undeveloped: an agricultural empire could not be created without a robust population, even if it consisted primarily of chattel labor.

  Ever since the first organized Anglo-Celtic settlement sanctioned by the Mexican government in Texas, the Austin Colony settlers quite correctly “considered slavery vital to their future.” Along with the terror unleashed by the raiding Apache and Comanche who had kept Hispanic migrants away from the northern frontier for generations, the absence of slavery was one key factor to explain why both Spain and Mexico had largely failed to colonize Texas, or Tejas, as it was known. For decades, Texas had merely served as a defensive buffer protecting the northern Mexico borderland as well as cosmopolitan Mexico City and the luxurious, fertile heart of the sprawling Mexican nation, the great valley of central Mexico.

  The first American settlers of Austin’s Colony—Mexico’s initial experiment with Anglo-Celtic settlement—brought with them the most distinctive feature of southern Anglo-Celtic culture: slavery. 11 At stake was the rejuvenation of a stale economic system of the feudal world of Spanish antecedents. For the American settlers, this virtually uninhabited virgin land, distinguished by little agricultural exploitation and only modest cattle ranching and sheep herding by local Tejanos, represented a great opportunity. After three centuries of settlement, the vast expanse of Texas had a population of barely 3,000 people in the 1820s. The antiquated economic and agricultural system based upon the feudal European model was transformed by colonists bringing thousands of slaves to turn this backward region into a wealthy, productive land dominated by extensive cotton and sugar plantations. 12

  The young men and boys of the Alamo garrison were also consumed by this vision. They had recently migrated to Texas from the United States as part of the most recent wave of Anglo-Celtic settlers moving ever-farther west. Led by the restless Scotch-Irish since before the American Revolution, each new generation of Americans was motivated by the dream of acquiring more land to generate wealth for a better life for themselves and their families. And this ambition of the common man of relatively little means was always the same: continue pushing west, crossing rivers, primeval forests, Indian country, and mountains, and take the inevitable risks in settling a new land. Consumed with the ever-contagious “Texas Fever,” ambitious American settlers crossing the Sabine River only continued the drive ever-westward, or southwest in this case, in an historic migration, which also transformed Texas into the western frontier of slavery.

  The men of the Alamo—almost wholly recent volunteers from the United States and not native Texans from the east Texas settlements— fought primarily to ensure that they would eventually take possession of thousands of acres for their military service. In October 1835, the Headquarters of the Department of Nacogdoches, the historic Tejano gateway located about halfway between San Antonio and the Louisiana line (just west of the Sabine): “Volunteers are invited to our standard. Liberal bounties of land will be given to all who will join our ranks with a good rifle and one hundred rounds of ammunition.” 13

  The ambitious brother of a mountain man who roamed the Rocky Mountains in search of fur and fortune, young Charles Ferris of Buffalo, New York, was one such idealistic volunteer. He was so anxious “to be rewarded with land in Texas” for military service that he left his pregnant wife behind in a rage of fortune-seeking fever not seen again among Americans until the Gold Rush of 1849. A relative wrote how Charles fled New York in haste in order to “harvest laurels (I mean land)” in Texas. Ferris fortunately resisted his early desire to proceed to San Antonio after reaching Texas soil, and thus, unlike the Alamo’s defenders, the native New Yorker eventually won his gamble: he survived his military service to eventually lay claim to 5,400 acres. 14

  For citizens all across the United States, the initial outbreak of open warfare between the Texas colonists and Mexico in early October 1835 was viewed as the opportunity of a lifetime. The conflict—only part of a larger civil war on Mexican soil—opened the doors to a flood of zealous volunteers from the United States. In the words of Tennessee-born John Salmon Ford, of Scotch-Irish descent, one of the eager volunteers who raced to Texas, the initial fighting of the Texas Revolution “caused many men in the United States to turn longing eyes towards the new land of promise.” 15 But first the Alamo defenders would be forced to fight to make good and validate their claims. If the Mexican Army was victorious and Texas was successfully reclaimed by the mother country during the campaign of 1836, then these optimistic young men from the United States and Europe would gain nothing except an early grave in a strange land—a calculated gamble lost by the Alamo garrison.

  The newcomers could reap the reward of thousands of Texas acres without ever risking their lives in battle, if Mexico City only decided not to attempt to reclaim Texas by force. By January 1836, ironically, most Alamo garrison members believed that the war was already over. They were convinced that the decisive victory already won in the 1835 campaign had decided the issue once and for all, or so they hoped. During the winter of 1835–36, consequently, these men looked forward to claiming the land that was due them for Texas military service. They elected to stay in San Antonio to focus on securing land claims instead of returning to the U.S., once the “old Texian” soldiers had returned home after the town had been captured in December 1835. Ironically, to the soldiers stationed at the remote, frontier outpost at San Antonio, the future never looked brighter—or so it appeared at the time.

  During the winter of 1835–36, these men served in San Antonio primarily to make their ambitious dreams come true. The chance of a lifetime beckoned: two distinct economic factors—hard economic times at home and plentiful available land in Texas—combined to prompt men and boys from all across the United States to risk their lives in Texas military service. An agricultural decline, a reduction of exports, an influx of currency from state banks (and hence inflation), and wild land speculation (including Texas speculation in 1835), had created an economic depression in the United States. 16 Even prosperous New Orleans was shaken by the economic shock waves. Inflation soared to new heights, leading eventually to financial panic and crisis. The old economic model was on the verge of collapse and the financial fallout hit the United States especially hard in 1836. Epidemics of fatal disease, yellow fever and cholera, that swept New Orleans in 1832 and 1833 also sent thousands of migrants to the windswept plains of Texas on ships that departed the Crescent City every five days. 17

  Representing the fulfillment of the American dream during these hard times, Texas offered the most bountiful opportunity for Americans to reap the greatest natural rewards, in terms of total acreage and fertility of the soil, anywhere on the North American continent. Combining with the economic crisis in the United States, the incentive to migrate to Texas to carve out a large slice of this rich land was further promoted by official Texas policy.

  Sam Houston was a former United States regular army soldier who had been wounded during General Andrew Jackson’s victory over the militant Red Stick Creeks at Horseshoe Bend, Alabama. He was also a former governor of Tennessee. In early October 1835, he offered the best opportunity in North America to swiftly gain wealth when he penned an appeal at the outset of the Texas Revolution: “If volunteers from the United States will join their brethren in this section, they will receive liberal bounties of land. We have millions of acres of our best lands unchosen and unappropriated.” 18 Appeals directly to United States citizens were later published in scores of leading American newspapers, such as theNew York Herald, calling for volunteers: “The people of Texas, a small number of men [now] need your assistance. We present to you one of the most delightful countries on the
face of the globe; we offer you the most liberal remuneration in land.” 19

  This almost unbelievable bonanza in land in the midst of a severe economic depression especially beckoned members of the lower and middle classes across the west and south. Another alluring appeal appeared in a March 1836 issue of the same newspaper, promising that “all volunteers shall be entitled to one mile square, or 640 acres of land, to be selected out of the public domain of Texas.” 20 This large amount of land especially impressed War of 1812 veterans who, as opposed to their Revolutionary forebears, had received only a paltry number of acres for their military service. When the young American nation had been on the verge of its second war with Great Britain in less than thirty years, Congress had authorized an increase in the number of regular troops, sweetening the pot of patriotism with the promise of 160 acres for wartime service. 21

  The almost unheard-of amounts of prime acreage being offered to those who signed up to fight for Texas seemed nearly unbelievable to the average American. As one United States citizen wrote with amazement: “I was offered by Texas 50,000 acres of land on going there” to serve. 22 The Texas General Council requested additional volunteers from the United States: “We invite you to our country—we have land in abundance, and it shall be liberally bestowed on you [and] every volunteer in our cause shall not only justly but generously be rewarded.” 23 A journalist of a leading newspaper proclaimed, “Now is the moment for all young men, who want to create a name, and make a fortune, to bestir themselves. Go to Texas. Enroll yourselves in the brave army of [Texas] . . . A splendid country is before you. You will fight for a soil that will become your own [because Texas is] a territory equal to that of France—a soil far superior—a climate as healthy as any in the world [and all can be gained] If men will avail themselves of the tide now setting in for fame and fortune.” 24 Even Tejanos could not resist the lure. As a “Texas soldier,” Gregorio Esparza “was promised much land” for his service, recalled his son, who lost his father at the Alamo. 25

  The life of David Crockett, who had once been an indentured servant like so many other Scotch-Irish in early America, provides one of the best examples of the real motivations of Alamo garrison members, from top leaders to the lowest soldier in the ranks. Crockett had a lengthy track record of alternate success and failure in business and politics, and had been unable to fulfill his lofty dream of transforming himself from a hardscrabble west Tennessee farmer into a gentleman planter. He sought a quick renewal of personal fortunes by gaining large amounts of Texas land. This was the magical formula for success and almost unimaginable prosperity that was otherwise unattainable for lower and middle class Americans in the United States at this time.

  Like his Scotch-Irish forefathers who had steadily pushed toward the setting sun, Crockett most of all traveled southwest to Texas in the hope of acquiring vast acreage for a new start on the Texas frontier for himself and his hard-pressed Tennessee family. Crockett was motivated by the hope of restoring his sagging personal and financial fortunes— combined with his budding political ambitions in a new Texas republic—by “staking out a very large ranch in Texas.” 26Little short of an act of desperation, his decision to “go to the wilds of Texas,” as he put it in a letter at age 49, had little, if anything, to do with a struggle for liberty. Disgusted by United States partisan politics and the sudden demise of his once bright political career, he embarked on a hunting foray and scouting expedition in the autumn of 1835 to “explore” and discover east Texas and to start life anew. 27

  Like most Americans who migrated to Texas, Crockett made his decision primarily on economic grounds. He sought to escape longexisting debts and the prospect of impoverished status for the rest of his life after the abrupt end of his Congressional career. Contrary to the popular stereotype, he had gone forth with no initial intention of joining the struggle for Texas independence. With harsh economic realities continuing to hound him, Crockett decided to go to Texas much as a gambler bets on his last roll of dice—it was “the culmination of his efforts to get out of debt [because] he needed a big break and was looking for a homestead in a new country.” 28

  Texas more than fulfilled Crockett’s expectations. Exploring the lush woodlands, broad meadows, and grassy prairies of east Texas, he viewed a pristine, primeval wilderness. A luxurious bayou country that was well watered and heavily forested, the region around the Red River’s headwaters was little short of a natural paradise, full of game, fine timber, and clear waters. Most of all, Crockett’s mind was consumed with the prospect of securing a “league of land.” He excitedly penned a letter to his family: “I expect in all probability to settle on the Border of the Chactaw [Choctaw] Bro [Bayou] of Red River that I have no doubt is the richest country in the world.” 29

  After exploring the Red River country that left him breathless, a gleeful Crockett wrote with unbounded optimism in what would be his last letter—written on January 9, 1836 from San Augustine, barely two months before his death at the Alamo—to his oldest daughter, Margaret: “What I have seen of Texas, it is the garden spot of the world, the best land & prospects to any man to come here, and I do believe it is a fortune to any man to come here; there is a world of country to settle, it is not required to pay down for your league of land; every man is entitled to his headright of 4438 A[cres] and they may make the money to pay for it off the land.” 30 Even the most impoverished American citizen or recent immigrant from the urban squalor of Europe without a penny in his pocket could own thousands of prime acres of rich Texas land. After viewing the available opportunities, Crockett enthusiastically told his family in the same letter: “I am in great hopes of making a fortune for myself and family” in Texas “by way of large land-holdings.” 31

  Another incredulous Alamo defender who could hardly believe he could own so much fertile land was 27-year-old surveyor David P. Cummings of Lewistown, Pennsylvania. Writing to his father, a wealthy “canal man” and a friend of Sam Houston, Cummings sent a letter from Gonzales, Texas, just east of San Antonio, on January 20, 1836: “I have the satisfaction of beholding one of the finest countries in the world and have fully determined to locate myself in Texas.” 32 The golden, once-ina-lifetime opportunity to acquire such large amounts of Texas land was almost like winning the lottery for lower-class Americans. Clearly, U.S. citizens from Crockett to Cummings were primarily on Texas soil because of their “intention of acquiring headright certificates and of becoming the owner of a princely domain.” 33 Later, from San Antonio, Cummings ecstatically penned on February 14, 1836: “I believe no country offers such strong inducements to Emigration [sic], affording all the convenieces [sic] of life that man can devise. ” 34

  Born in South Carolina, James Butler Bonham, a young lawyer from Montgomery, Alabama, was a founder of the volunteer military unit known as the Mobile Greys, and a friend of Travis. Bonham, too, was convinced by his friend to migrate to Texas primarily because it was “a place to build a fortune.” 35 This great opportunity to “build a fortune” and live a long, healthy life was more probable in Texas, thanks to the healthy, mild climate. The long growing season only reinforced the seemingly limitless agricultural possibilities.

  On a journey from New Orleans to San Antonio, George Wilkins Kendall, the founder of the New Orleans Picayune, was amazed by the sheer natural beauty in the rolling prairie lands just east of San Antonio. He favorably compared the milder, dryer climate, in contrast to the disease-ridden lowlands around New Orleans and even east Texas: the fertile grasslands of the Texan central plains were free from “the bilious fevers and debilitating agues so prevalent upon the Colorado, the Brazos and other muddy and sluggish rivers of Eastern Texas . . . no finer or more healthy openings exist in America.” 36 Kendall’s words of praise were no exaggeration. In describing the success of the prosperous Austin Colony, the editor of the Connecticut Herald wrote in the September 22, 1829 issue: “The rivers running through the colony are the Brazos and the Colorado, besides many large creeks. The soil of the m
argins of the Colorado and Brazos are in general alluvial [which] the planters considered equal to any soil in the world.” 37

  Incredibly, even though they knew that Santa Anna’s Army was about to push north to San Antonio to initiate the 1836 Texas campaign, Cummings and ten other Alamo garrison members yet planned to take the time to stake out their headright claims, so obsessed were they about securing rich Texas lands, instead of working hard to make the Alamo’s defenses stronger. One of these was Micajah Autry, a 42– year-old slave-owner from Tennessee who was destined to die at the Alamo as a member of the Tennessee Mounted Volunteers. Somewhat of a Renaissance man, he benefited from a fine education as a son from a leading North Carolina family, and was a die-hard romantic who wrote poetry and “played the violin beautifully” on summer nights. He also sketched both nature and people with skill, although his drawings failed to depict the slaves that he or his family owned. After his overly ambitious literary plans met frustration, the young man was forced to become more realistic about life’s expectations. Texas then became his new passion, supplementing youthful fantasies and unrealistic visions.

  On January 13, 1836, the optimistic Autry wrote a letter to his wife, whom he was planning to bring to Texas once the conflict with Mexico ended, that emphasized a far brighter future than offered in Jackson, Tennessee. He wrote: “From what I have seen and learned from others there is not so fair a portion of the earth’s service warmed by the sun [than Texas]. Be of good cheer Martha, I will provide you a sweet home. I shall be entitled to 640 acres of land for my services in the army and 4,444 acres upon condition of settling my family here. For a trifle here, (one) may procure a possession of land that will make a fortune for himself, his children and his children’s children of its own increase in value and such a cotton country is not under the sun.” 38 For Autry and other Alamo garrison members, such sentiments were not hyperbole. With their gangs of slaves laboring in vast cotton fields and reaping a fortune for their owners with hard work, Texas planters produced the highest quality cotton that ever existed in the cotton market in New Orleans. 39