Remembering the Alamo: vastly outnumbered and with no hope of relief, the Alamo's defenders courageously gave their lives and bought precious time for Texans to rally resistance. (History--Struggle for Freedom).

Daniel Cloud, a 21-year-old Kentuckian lawyer, had been on sentry duty for hours in the bell tower of the San Fernando Church. Like most of the other "Texians" who had gathered in the town of San Antonio de Bexar, Cloud had retired late following the previous night's fandango celebrating George Washington's birthday, and the chilly February weather did little to dispel his torpor.

The previous day's celebration began with a lengthy patriotic speech by Davy Crockett at noon, and continued well into the evening, as Texians--their spirits buoyed by a string of victories over the Mexican army--feasted on tamales washed down with skull-splitting mescal, and diverted themselves with dancing, horse races, and cockfights. The festivities may have continued well into the morning hours had it not been dampened by two developments: A sudden midnight rain shower; and a message warning Jim Bowie that General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the military dictator of Mexico, had encamped with several thousand troops on the Medma River--just a few miles south of the mission-fortress called the Alamo.

This dire intelligence was greeted skeptically by some, particularly William Barret Travis, the Alamo's tall, red-haired, 27-year-old commandant. Travis believed it unlikely that Santa Anna would choose to move his army across the barren 300-mile expanse (much of which Texian scouts had burned) separating his stronghold at Saltillo from San Antonio. Without adequate forage for his army's horses, Santa Anna would have to wait until spring--at least, that's how Travis sized up the strategic situation. Jim Bowie, the legendary adventurer from Kentucky with whom Travis grudgingly shared command, saw the situation much differently.

On the morning of February 23rd, 1836, as William Cloud kept watch on the western horizon, and other Texian fighters slept off the previous day's indulgences, Jim Bowie was seriously ill and gravely worried. "The message he had received last night at the dance was far from the first such warning," recorded historian Lon Tinkle in 13 Days to Glory. "For two months there had been rumors, vague murmurs impossible to verify, mostly wrong--but maybe, as Bowie suspected, right." Some young Mexican scouts loyal to Bowie reported that bakeries in small border towns along Santa Anna's probable route were suddenly thriving, suggesting that they were helping stock a large army.

Bowie had led a colorful (and not entirely commendable) life before settling in San Antonio in 1830. Although he never officially enlisted and held no formal commission, he fought with the Texas volunteers in three victorious engagements in the fall and winter of 1835. After arriving at the Alamo on January 19, 1836, Bowie teamed up with Major Green Jameson, the Alamo's chief engineer, to fortify the small mission--which was little better than a mud fort.

Abandoned by the Catholic Church in 1793, the mission took its name from los alamos--cottonwood trees that lined nearby ditches. Mexican troops occasionally used the facility as an outpost. At its heart was a rectangular three-acre lot called the "plaza," flanked by two barracks areas. The Alamo's most prominent--and, in event of battle, defensible--feature was a thirty-foot high chapel made of cut stone and mortar; its walls were four feet thick and twenty-two feet high.

Undistinguished though it was, the Alamo was the only significant outpost between the Mexican armies to the south, and the mass of Texian colonies along the Sabine River, In October 1835, after armed rebellion against Mexican rule had broken out, soldiers under General Martin Perfecto de Cos--Santa Anna's inept, vain brother-in-law--took control of the Alamo. Cos had arrived in San Antonio with 21 artillery pieces and a 1,200-man army, half of which was used to occupy and fortify the Alamo, the rest deployed at barricades in the center of the town. In December, Cos surrendered the Alamo after his army suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of 300 Texas volunteers. When the Texians reoccupied the mission, they found it had been fortified with trenches, cannon emplacements, and a stockade.

Any Mexican military campaign against the Texas rebels would run through San Antonio, and the force commanding the Alamo would control San Antonio. Sam Houston, commander-in-chief of the revolutionary army of Texas, sent Bowie to San Antonio in January 1836 with orders to destroy the Alamo, salvage its store of weapons, and retreat to Goliad. About two weeks later Travis arrived, with similar orders from Governor Thomas Smith. Bowie and Travis conferred with Colonel James Clinton Neill, the former commandant of the Alamo, who had also been ordered to destroy the mission. In a fashion typical of the strong-willed, independent-minded men who had settled in Texas, these three men disobeyed orders from their superiors, choosing to fortify the Alamo rather than destroy it.

With Bowie's help, Jameson set to work building platforms of earth and timber to use as parapets and gun mounts. They also threw up an improvised barricade on the compound's south side, connecting the low barracks with the chapel. Though flimsy, this crude fortification closed a critical gap and provided cover for fighters armed with rifles and cannon. By February 1836, writes historian Mary Petite, as many as 21 guns had been mounted along the Alamo walls, and the Alamo boasted "the biggest gun in Texas" --an 18-pounder that "could throw a solid iron ball more than half a mile beyond the western outskirts of town." Although they disagreed about the exact timetable, Bowie and Travis agreed that a showdown with Santa Anna was inevitable--and that their situation was all but hopeless.

"The salvation of Texas depends in great measure on keeping Bexar [San Antonio] out of the hands of the enemy," wrote Bowie to Governor Smith on February 3rd. "It stands on the frontier piquet [picket] guard, and if it was in the possession of Santa Anna, there is no stronghold from which to repel him in his march to the Sabine. Colonel Neill and myself have come to the solemn resolution that we will rather die in these ditches than give them up to the enemy."

The message Bowie received on February 22nd warned that the time was fast approaching that he would have to make good on his resolution. On the following morning, writes Tinkle, "the air around the Plaza [was] troubled by a strange sound. A low rumble at first, hardly more than a whisper, it [grew] in intensity to a roar, until it rattled in the ears and jolted the dreams of all who heard. Those creaking wheels, cries to the oxen, that jangling of pots and pans could mean only one thing. The Mexicans of San Antonio de Bexar were leaving town."

Sometime in mid-morning or early afternoon, the dull cacophony created by the panic-driven evacuation was pierced by another sound--the rhythmic, insistent pealing of the bell at the San Fernando Church. From his post in the bell tower, Daniel Cloud had spied Santa Anna's army as it materialized to the west of San Antonio. Leaving Davy Crockett in the Town Square to await the return of scouting parties, Travis gathered his men and led them to the Alamo, a half-mile east of town.

"It was the Texans' first and only retreat, and they executed it in an orderly manner," comments Tinkle. As the Texas volunteers--approximately 160 in number--marched along Protero Street, women could be seen openly weeping. More than one cried out, "You will all be killed!"

"G.T.T."

Following Mexican independence from Spain in 1821, Texas--established as an independent state within Mexico--became a beckoning target for adventurers from across the U.S. and much of Europe. Many colonists were brought to Texas by "empresarios"--visionary entrepreneurs who received land grants from Mexico. Prominent among them was Stephen F. Austin, an elegant but humorless man from Connecticut who settled 300 families in Texas at his own expense. The "Old Three Hundred" arrived in 1824 and began to set down roots--only to find the political ground shifting beneath them.

"Coinciding with the arrival of the Old Three Hundred, Texas lost its independent statehood ... being merged into the gigantic new state of Coahuila-Texas, whose capital, Saltillo, lay an inconvenient two hundred miles south of the Rio Grande," observes Indiana State University history professor John Hoyt Williams. Americans streaming into Texas discovered that the new Mexican constitution was devoid of such cherished protections of individual rights as trial by jury.

Mexico's government, eager to attract new settlers as a way of bolstering its claim to the territory, was content--at first--to rule with a slack hand. Mexico offered sizeable tracts of land for free, and conveniently neglected to collect trade taxes. Texas proved irresistible to thousands of settlers, many of whom had lost everything in the depression of 1819. "G.T.T."--"Gone To Texas"--was inscribed on cabin doors across America as thousands fled west for new opportunities.

As is the case in any mass migration, the human waves that flooded Texas included more than a few criminals, as well as debtors and undesirables. But it also beckoned to those desiring a fresh start. This was true of the three most notable figures assembled at the Alamo to await Santa Anna--Travis, Bowie, and Crockett.

Travis was comfortably established as an attorney and newspaper publisher in Alabama when he suddenly abandoned his wife and son in 1831. According to one account, the hot-headed young man was forced to leave after killing a man who had tried to seduce his wife (pregnant with their second child at the time of his departure). Travis' estranged wife eventually sought him out to finalize a divorce. Earning immediate notoriety as a lawyer and gambler, Travis also became prominent in the conflict that erupted between Texian colonists and Mexico in 1835. Many commentators point to the June 1835 Travis-led attack on the Mexican garrison at Anahuac as the opening salvo of the Texas Revolution.

Travis assumed command of the Alamo on February 13, 1836--and immediately found himself contending with Kentuckian Jim Bowie for troop loyalty. Bowie, 40 years old at the time of the siege, was a larger-than-life figure whose legendary stature was tainted with tragedy. Bowie was tall and imposing, and he plausibly boasted that he had never started, or lost, any of the scores of fights in which he had been embroiled. On one occasion, while Bowie was acting as "second" in a duel, the legendary knife bearing his name saved his life from two separate assaults: After suffering a gunshot wound, Bowie was rushed, in quick succession, by two assailants bearing sword-canes.

After amassing a considerable fortune (swollen, alas, in some measure from slave smuggling and dubious land deals), Bowie settled in San Antonio. In 1830 he married Ursula Veramendi, the daughter of the Mexican vice-governor of Texas. After becoming a Mexican citizen, Bowie eventually came to possess 750,000 acres of land. But in 1833, while Bowie was in Mississippi on business, a cholera epidemic claimed the lives of his wife, two children, and in-laws. Two years later, Bowie joined the Texas volunteers in their struggle against Santa Anna's dictatorship, playing a significant role in Texian victories in the Battle of Concepcion, the "Grass Fight," and the December "Battle of Bexar," which resulted in General Cos' undistinguished eviction from the Alamo.

Of all the names associated with the Alamo, Davy Crockett's is the best known, and the most honorable. The Tennessee frontiersman and son of a Revolutionary War veteran had fought under Andrew Jackson during the Creek War of 1813-1814, and entered local politics in 1821. As a three-term congressman from Tennessee, Crockett found himself at odds with President Jackson, his erstwhile comrade in arms. After losing his bid for a fourth term in 1834--largely because of the efforts of Jackson and his allies--the ever-colorful Crockett reportedly told his constituents: "You may, all go to hell and I will go to Texas."

The War Erupts

Crockett arrived in Texas in 1835, just in time for the revolution to erupt. Between 1825 and 1831, the Texians--untaxed and largely unmolested by the central government--had turned Texas into Mexico's most prosperous province. Mexico benefited as well, since the population influx strengthened their nation's claim to the territory, and provided a buffer against hostile Indians. Under the admittedly flawed Mexican constitution of 1824, Texas colonists were promised admission into Mexico as a separate state, a status that would allow them to protect many of their advantages. However, beginning in 1830, Mexico's central government began a series of "intolerable acts"--cancellation of land contracts, imposition of taxes and duties, restrictions on coastal shipping, and the stationing of Mexican Army troops to bring the unruly Texians under Mexico City's control. This provoked the emergence of a "War Party" among the colonists.

The Texians' prospects seemed to improve in 1832, when a revolution led by General Santa Anna evicted despotic Mexican President Anastasio Bustamante. Seizing power in the name of decentralized government, Santa Anna initially ingratiated himself with the Texas colonists by suspending customs duties for two years. However, notes Mary Petite, once Santa Anna had consolidated his position, he "turned into another anti-American dictator.... He slapped customs duties on the colonists and sent Captain Antonio Tenorio to Anahuac to see that the law was enforced. [He] dissolved the local legislature and the representatives were placed under arrest."

These actions, predictably, re-ignited the fervor of the Texian War Party, further emboldened by Stephen Austin's return in early September 1835. In 1833, Austin had gone to Mexico City to petition for Texas statehood and constitutional reforms. Santa Anna's regime replied by imprisoning Austin for more than 18 months. On his return to Texas, Austin--who had preached conciliation and compromise for a dozen years--regretfully admitted: "War is our only recourse." In late September, Austin began assembling companies of military volunteers.

Shortly thereafter, General Cos occupied San Antonio, dispatching his troops to conduct house-to-house searches for firearms. He soon learned that a group of colonists at Gonzalez were "shining up a cannon"--a six-pounder given to them to deter Indian attacks. On September 29th, Cos dispatched 100 troops under Lt. Francisco Castaneda to recover the artillery piece.

The colonists, perhaps inspired by the example of the Spartans at Thermoplyae, hung two signs on the cannon inviting the Mexican troops to "come and take it."

On September 30th, after a brief standoff between Texians and Mexican troops, the voice of the Gonzalez cannon was heard, with a supporting chorus of Kentucky rifles. Two days later, Mexican troops were forced to withdraw--signaling the first of six successive Texas victories over the Mexican Army. Eventually becoming the War for Texas Independence, the struggle "lasted less than seven months, consisted of a handful of battles, and was fought by forces numbering less than 10,000 men; probably less than 2,500 ever engaged in a single action," notes Petite. Yet that relatively small war "was by all accounts an epic struggle of heroic proportions, one which changed the course of Texas and impacted both nations forever."

Ironically, the few than 200 combatants who held off Santa Anna's siege at the Alamo for nearly two weeks were not fighting for independence, but for republican government. As Santa Anna occupied San Antonio and trained his field glasses on the Alamo, he saw a red, white, and green Mexican flag on which was written the legend, "1824"--a reminder of the Mexican constitution of 1824, under which Texians had been promised statehood. Flying that flag "was the Texans' way of saying that Santa Anna--rather than Texas--was unconstitutional," writes Lon Tinkle. "Their own position was clear: they were remaining loyal to the original agreement. They had not yet declared war. But they meant to defend their rights, by arms."

This gesture painfully wounded Santa Anna's vanity. "Traitors!" exclaimed the dictator. "Barbarians and infidels!" The general immediately issued three orders. First, he had the red flag--signaling "no quarter"--raised over the San Fernando tower. Second, he ordered a savage burst of cannon fire. Third, he had a subordinate display a white flag, inviting the Alamo's defenders to send a representative to discuss terms of surrender.

Twenty-three years earlier, as a young officer in the Royal Spanish Army, Santa Anna had come to San Antonio to put down a rebellion seeking to create an independent republic; the rebels had been put to flight in a matter of hours. As the siege of the Alamo began on February 23rd, Santa Anna was confident that the Texians would be dealt with even more swiftly. He was wrong.

The Siege

Santa Anna's troops poured lead and iron into the Alamo; the Texians' 18-pound cannon belched out a lethal reply. Even as this thunderous exchange took place, Major Jameson emerged from the compound bearing a white flag and a message from Jim Bowie to Santa Anna: Understanding the mindset of Mexico's ruling class, Bowie wanted to know if the white flag displayed by the Mexican dictator was a sincere offer to parley. But Santa Anna directed his subordinates to act as if the Texians had initiated the parley and were offering to surrender on terms. Having disgraced the Texians with this dishonorable ruse, Santa Anna sent Jameson back with the message that the only acceptable terms would be unconditional surrender. Travis replied to Santa Anna's ultimatum by assembling his officers and delivering "an inspired harangue the power of which--if not the wording--was unforgettable," Tinkle recounts. With Mexican cannon resounding in the background, Travis administered to his men an oath that they would never surrender.

The Alamo was well provisioned, with abundant food, water, and ammunition--but the defenders were desperately shorthanded and surrounded by a sizeable army that had time on its side. On February 24th, amid skirmishes between Texas sharpshooters within the Alamo and Mexican soldiers without, Travis composed a desperate message to Governor Smith. Under cover of dusk, Captain Albert Martin, a hero of the battle at Gonzalez, dashed out of the Alamo on a swift horse to take the message to San Felipe.

Travis's message, addressed "To the people of Texas and All Americans in the World," informed Governor Smith that the Alamo was "besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna" (in fact, the total strength of the Mexican army has been estimated at 6,000 men). "The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise the garrison are to be put to the sword if the fort is taken," Travis wrote. "I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls--I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid with all dispatch.... If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country--VICTORY OR DEATH."

An optimistic post-script noted, "The Lord is on our side--When the enemy appeared in sight we had not three bushels of corn--We have since found in deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels & got into the walls 20 or 30 head of beeves." Travis was hopeful that another providential intervention would lead to relief and reinforcement. But the arrival of 32 volunteers from Gonzales on March 1st was the only relief given to the besieged garrison during the entire 13-day siege. And the defenders suffered a serious blow when Jim Bowie, already suffering from a deadly combination of tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and pneumonia, was gravely injured while trying to set up a cannon emplacement.

On March 2nd, the Texas constitutional convention at Washington-on-Brazos, l40 miles east of San Antonio, declared independence from Mexico; on the same day, Mexican forces won their first battle over Texas forces at Agua Dulce. The defenders of the Alamo never learned that they were now fighting for an independent republic, rather than a restoration of their status under the Mexican constitution. They did know that they had to hold the line in San Antonio to give their compatriots the time to organize their resistance to Santa Anna. On March 4th, Sam Houston was appointed commander-in-chief of the Army of the Republic of Texas - a new nation whose banner defiantly displayed the lone star. By this time, however, it was clear to everybody that the Alamo's situation was hopeless.

As dusk descended on the evening of March 3rd, the Mexican bombardment--relentless for five days and nights--suddenly stopped. Amid the eerie silence, Travis assembled his men in the Alamo plaza to share with them unwelcome news that had come that morning. Two days earlier, Travis had dispatched James Bonham, a childhood friend from South Carolina, to Goliad in search of help. Early that morning, Bonham--in an unfathomably brave act--had raced across the Mexican picket lines to gain access to the Alamo, risking his life to inform Travis that his pleas for help had been fruitless, and for the privilege of dying alongside his friends.

"I have deceived you with the promise of help," Travis informed the Alamo's defenders shortly after sunset. "Our fate is sealed. Within a very few days--perhaps a very few hours--we must all be in eternity. This is our destiny and we cannot avoid it. This is our certain doom." He urged his men not to blame the Texas government, or James Fannin, commander of the Goliad garrison, who had failed to come to the Alamo's aid. "All that remains is to die in the fort and fight to the last moment.... We must sell our lives as dearly as possible."

Resolving that he would fight Santa Anna "as long as there is breath in my body," Travis offered his men a choice. Unsheathing his sword, he drew a long line in the ground in front of his men. "I now want every man who is determined to stay here and die with me to come across this line," declared Commander Travis. "Who will be the first? March!"

To a man named Tapley Holland belongs the eternal honor of being the first to cross -- actually, to leap -- over Travis's line in the frozen ground. Davy Crockett, Daniel Cloud, and others eagerly followed. "It was as though they had left life itself on the other side," writes Tinkle. "At the end, only two were left where a moment before 183 had stood." The bedridden Jim Bowie, who had been brought into the plaza to hear Travis' speech, implored his comrades to help him cross the line: "Boys, I am not able to go to you, but I wish some of you would be so kind as to remove my cot over there."

Four men volunteered to hoist Bowie's bed and carry him over the line, to the cheers of Travis's men. The only holdout was a relatively elderly man named Louis Moses Rose, who had taken part in the retreat from Moscow as a soldier in Napoleon's army. He scaled a nearby wall and escaped, carrying with him the story of Travis' dramatic speech and the gallant reply of his men.

Shortly after 4:00 a.m. on March 6th, a bugle summoned the Mexican infantry to arms. Thousands of footfalls on the still-frozen ground beat out an ominous cadence as Santa Anna's regimental band struck up deguello, a title derived from degollar, "to slit the throat." Derived from a battle anthem originally played by the Moorish troops in Spain, the march was the musical equivalent of the red flag, signifying that no mercy would be extended to surrendering troops.

As four columns of infantry swarmed the Alamo, the morning claimed its first Mexican victim, Juan Basquez, a hapless conscript who had been sentenced to 10 years' military service without pay as punishment for desertion. He was one of many Mexican troops in the first wave driven forward by troops wielding bayonets and swords. On the Texian side, Travis was among the first to fall in the initial assault; his body was found with a clean bullet hole near the center of his forehead.

To the south, firing from behind the improvised parapet between the low barracks and the chapel, Davy Crockett and his Tennessee volunteers maintained a withering fire, cutting down countless Mexican troops as they swarmed the main entrance gate. From atop the chapel, James Bonham commanded three 12-pound cannons, which deterred reinforcements but did nothing to abate the assault by troops hard against the Alamo walls. To prevent desertion, the Mexican commanders massed cavalry behind the soldiers attempting to scale the fortress walls. The Texians were forced to stand atop the walls to shoot the enemy, a position which, not surprisingly, led to severe losses. Nonetheless, the first Mexican attack was repulsed.

During the second assault, forces under General Juan Amador opened a breach in the northern wall of the Alamo compound. Elements of the four Mexican columns converged on the breach and poured into the Alamo, initiating the third and bloodiest assault. The defenders left on the walls now directed their fire inside the compound. On the ground, the siege devolved into single combat by rifle, bayonet, and knife.

Davy Crockett, whose right arm had been broken by a Mexican bullet, hoisted "Old Betsy" by his left arm and kept firing until it was broken off at the stock. Unsheathing his dirk, the 50-year-old frontiersman kept his face to the enemy. One of the civilian survivors of the Alamo siege reported that when Crockett died he was surrounded by at least 16 -- and as many as 24 -- dead Mexican soldiers, one of whom was reportedly found with Crockett's knife buried to the hilt in his chest.

The flood of Mexican soldiers poured relentlessly through the Alamo, eventually reaching the chapel baptistry sheltering the incapacitated Bowie. Pale and emaciated, Bowie presented a shocking sight to the Mexican troops storming his redoubt. But even in his depleted condition, Bowie was resolved to take as many of the enemy as he could, dispatching several of them with the brace of pistols given to him by Crockett's men, and probably cutting down a few more with his notorious knife.

Bowie, who had often cheated death, kept the Reaper in abeyance long enough for one more desperate gambit by the Texians. Hoisting a torch, Major Robert Evans sprinted for the north end of the chapel, which served as the garrison's powder magazine. Touching off the magazine would deprive Santa Anna of valuable ammunition, and kill a great number of his troops. But Major Evans was cut down before he could reach his destination. His was probably the final act of Texian resistance at the Alamo.

The Alamo now in his possession, Santa Anna--who had spent most of the siege sexually exploiting a local Mexican girl he had procured under the guise of a sham "marriage"--ordered that the bodies of the Texian rebels be gathered and burned. Only one of them, Gregorio Esparza, whose brother Francisco was among Santa Anna's troops, was allowed a Christian burial. The self-styled "Napoleon of the West" was serenely confident that the Texas rebellion was essentially ended.

As its defenders had vowed, the Alamo was dearly bought: More than 1,500 Mexican soldiers died in the service of Santa Anna's vainglorious campaign. Surveying the grim aftermath on the morning of March 6th, one of the dictator's subordinate officers, alluding to King Pyrrhus' famous lament, was heard to mutter that another victory would mean Santa Anna's undoing. There was a hint of prophecy in that observation, since the valiant stand at the Alamo had bought precious time for Sam Houston to rally resistance to the Mexican dictator.

What Was Won

Mexican forces were victorious in the Battles of Refugio, Goliad, Coleto, and Copano. On Palm Sunday--March 27th--342 Texian prisoners, deceived into believing that they would be spared, were brutally massacred at Goliad. Among the dead was James Fannin, the commander at Goliad who failed to come to the aid of the Alamo; his face was ripped to shreds by gunfire and his body was left unburied. Santa Anna's objective was to terrorize the Texians into abject surrender.

While Santa Anna's army was spreading terror, Sam Houston's army, rallying to the cry, "Remember the Alamo!" was gathering strength. On April 18th, a Texas patrol captured a Mexican courier who carried dispatches indicating that Santa Anna, accompanied by fewer than 900 men, was headed for Lynch's Ferry on the San Jacinto River. Declaring that this intelligence offered "the only chance of saving Texas," Houston took 760 men to cut off Santa Anna's force before it could link up with two other columns.

Before Houston's force could strike, however, General Cos arrived at San Jacinto (now the eastern outskirts of Houston) with a force of 783 men. The Texians were now outnumbered two-to-one. Resolved to leave the outcome of the engagement "in the hands of a wise God," Houston was ready to seize the advantage when Santa Anna made an unfathomably stupid mistake.

In mid-afternoon on April 21st, as the Mexican troops indulged in their siesta, and Santa Anna was making merry with a prostitute, Houston attacked. The leaderless Mexican soldiers, under a ferocious assault of grapeshot and musketry, "dropped their weapons in panic and fled to the rear, disorganizing units still being formed," recalls historian John Hoyt Williams. Among those who took flight was Santa Anna. Within 20 minutes the battle was over. Six hundred and thirty Mexican troops were killed in the initial Texian assault, with an additional 208 mortally wounded. The tally of prisoners would eventually reach 730, including the "Napoleon of the West" himself--who had cravenly tried to disguise himself as a lowly private. Hauled before Houston, Santa Anna agreed to withdraw his army and recognize an independent Texas bordered by the Rio Grande.

The defenders of the Alamo, whatever their personal shortcomings, displayed the most refined type of human nobility by standing in the breach in defense of liberty. Without their sacrifice, freedom may have had no future in Texas. "Ever since Texas unfurled the banner of freedom and commenced a warfare of 'Liberty or Death,' our hearts have been enlisted in her behalf," wrote Daniel Cloud to his mother the day after Christmas, 1835. "If we succeed, the country is ours: It is immense in extent and fertile in soil and will amply reward all our toils. If we fail, death in the cause of liberty and humanity is not cause for shuddering."