Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire After the Fall of the Alamo

San Jacinto reenactment, April 17th, on the battlefield.

It does have horses and cannon, and a good turnout.

But by the second half of April it runs too warm, humid and buggy around there to be our favorite occasion.

After the Fall of the Alamo, the Texian Army, such as it was, consisted of about 350 men under James Fannin at Goliad. Sadly, James Fannin, tho no one who saw him under fire questioned his courage, was the wrong guy in the wrong place. His fatal flaw was his inability to take a personal initiative.

By comparison William Barret Travis had been originally authorized in the fall of '35 by then acting Govenor Smith to raise a company of 200 cavalry and take it to Bexar. Travis is able to raise only 30 men, but takes his modest company to Bexar anyway.

Once in Bexar he takes the initiative, vies for command, and actively prepares for the Mexican onslaught. Meanwhile the very man and the organization that had given him his command, James Smith and the Consultation of 1835, had dissolved in disarray.

So when Travis is writing his famous letters, he cannot be sure to whom he should even address them. But he acts anyway, on his own hook.

Down in Goliad, Fannin has ten times the men Travis had brought with him but one gets the impression he was always looking for others to tell him what to do, could not function in the rowdy near-anarchy environment of Texas at that time.

His one attempt to relieve the Alamo in late February had been farcical, tragicomic; first he decides by committee if they should even go. By then it should have been obvious that hitching up mismatched, untrained oxen to the few decrepit carts they had on hand was not going to work. Then the next morning he decides, again by committee, to abandon the attempt and return to the mission.

In the days leading up to his catastrophe, while Urrea drew steadily closer, Fannin sent out impassioned pleas for instructions, yet when those urgent instructions came he chose to follow them at his own leisure.

Given the semi-autonomous nature of his men, perhaps it is a bit much to blame all of this on Fannin. He wasn't the only one present at Goliad who harbored a scathing contempt for the abilities of Mexican army, which contempt, despite the bloody fall at the Alamo, would last up until they were surrounded by Urrea's army near Coleto Creek.

Birdwatcher

Where is Texas? I jokes.

You don't suppose the several day siege at Alamo and subsiquent losses had anything to do with the delay? Tho poon IS a powerful incentive to egomaniacs, and heck, everyone.

Mike, don't put words in my mouth,....I SUGGESTED that you PROOF READ your chit,...prior to hitting submit.

That's ALL I said,...and if I were you I'd be saying thanks.

New arrivals that haven't read "all your posts" won't read it the way old compadres do.

GTC

Thanks Greg.

Anyways, Lorenzo De Zavala might have been selected as interim Vice President because he WAS different.

Somewhat overlooked in the main flow of events is the remarkable career of the guy they chose as Interim President; David G. Burnet.

Originally from a well-to-do family in New Jersey, by the time he was 24 years of age Burnet had fought in revolutions against Spain in Chile and Venezuela alongside Simon Bolivar.

(Simon Bolivar is another guy we forget about now, he was quite famous in his day. One of the most unexpected things I found on my 2014 bicycle expedition, in Salamanca on the Seneca Indian Reservation in Western New York State, was a nineteeth century monument to Simon Bolivar. Gotta be a story behind that.)

He returns in 1812 and moves to join his brothers in the then-recently settled city of Cincinatti OH. Of the three brothers, David is the prodigal. His one brother stays put and becomes a Senator, the other mayor, David moves to Natchitoches LA and sets up a mercantile business. There he develops tuberculosis and heads for Texas seeking a better climate.

In what seems like one of the great misguided acts of generosity of all time, a band of Comanches finds the ailing Burnet on the Colorado and take him in. He lived with them for two years, no word on how many subsequently died of tuberculosis although that disease would take an enormous toll among all the western tribes in the coming decades. While he was with them, by hos own account he prevailed upon them to peaceably return several Mexican captives to their families

His health restored, Burnet returns to Cincinatti to practice law but is back in Texas and settles in Austin's colony in 1826, age 38, travels to Mexico with De Zavala the following year and receives a grant but cannot recruit enough settlers back in Ohio to follow through.

He gets married to a New Jersey girl at age 43, and returns to Texas in 1830, this time with a steam engine to operate a sawmill, sets up shop on the San Jacinto River in the area of present-day Houston. He loses the land the mill sits on because of his refusal to convert to Catholicism, but is able to become a Judge at San Felipe.

Judge Burnet was not an elected delegate, but stopped in at the Convention of 1836 after it was underway on his way to join the Alamo defenders. The contentious delegates are trying to pick an interim President for the new republic. Sam Houston is off in East Texas ostensibly meeting with the Cherokees, Stephen F. Austin I believe was in New Orleans, Judge Burnet, who arrives on the scene and is not part of any opposing faction, gets elected.

Among his first actions was to prevail upon the Convention to remain at Washington on the Brazos to finish the process of creating the Republic instead of fleeing northeast to Nacodoches as many had wanted to do when word of the Fall of the Alamo came. Instead the Texas government would move to Harrisburg adjacent to the coast opposite Galveston Island eleven days later.

It was this move that drew Santa Anna down there the following month far ahead of his main force, as it turned out setting the stage for San Jacinto. As it was, Burnet's subsequent escape from Harrisburg was so close that it was he and his wife among others that were in that famous rowboat within rifle shot when the lancers under then Col. Juan Nepomucino Almonte arrived on the shore to apprehend them.

To protect the others as best he could, Burnet stood up separately in the boat to draw their fire. For his own part Almonte, who is credited by some with saving Susanna Dickinson at the Alamo, refused to open fire as there were women in the boat. Almonte survived San Jacinto, ironically in part because he commanded the men least inclined to flee in disorder when the unexpected Texian attack came, and so was still alive when order was being restored later in the battle. He surrendered to Texas Secretary of War Thomas J. Rusk, pretty much Second in Command after Houston.

Worth noting that David Burnet despised and distrusted Sam Houston from the outset and the two men would remain bitter political and personal enemies their entire lives.

Birdwatcher

A quick addendum, Almonte is worthy of further mention re: the intricacies of Mexican society at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Almonte#Early_life

He was the son of a well-to-do Mexican Catholic priest and a Mexican Indian woman. Educated in New Orleans he was fluently bilingual and understood and, one gathers, admired Americans.

He returned to Mexico after his politically active father was executed for treason against Spain. After Mexican Independence came in 1821, Almonte had traveled to London as part of a diplomatic delegation.

Despite his Republican roots, Almonte was a life-long Centralist, believing an authoritarian state was the only way Mexico would transcend its eternally divided nature. This to the point that he was one of the principal actors twenty five years later in supporting the actual French invasion and take-over of Mexico in the 1860's by Napoleon the Third of France and the short-lived ('64-'67) coronation and reign of Austrian Archduke Maxilian Ferdinand in Mexico.

This coronation would prove ultimately fatal to Archduke/Emperor Maximilian, who was shot for his trouble. Almonte himself died in 1869, in exile in France, aged 66.

Birdwatcher

What time does that start on Saturday, Mike?

You participating this year?

Ya prob'ly.

The posted schedule is a little vague, I'm recalling the first battle reenactment is around 10amand another after lunch.

http://www.texasarmy.org/events''

Birdwatcher

That, and waiting for the supply trains to catch up, they were coming in from several hundred miles away. But the indications are too that Santa Anna was vastly overconfident. None of his generals seemed to have shared that attitude, but then as far as I know none of them had been in Texas for the way one-sided wins of 1813 with Arredondo like Santa Anna had been. Witnessing the defeat and slaugter of many hundreds of Americans with but light losses on his own side likely skewed his outlook on things. The bloody cost of taking the Alamo doesn't seem to have phased him any.

At this point I was gonna go into the various US militia units that ended up at Goliad under Fannin but that's gonna take a bit of prep. Turns out Copano Bay (adjacent to present-day Rockport) was a major port of entry at that time and most of these militia units arrived from New Orleans by ships. Goliad, sixty miles inland, was the nearest major fortified post, so its natural that many American volunteers ended up there in the path of Urrea's expedition.

Meanwhile, there's a legendary figure in Texas history; Francita Alavez, the Angel of Goliad, a young and attractive Mexican woman, nineteen or twenty at the time, and the mistress of a Mexican officer serving with Urrea. The best known story is of her intervening to save the lives of several men from the slaughter at Goliad.

Turns out she first appears in that light three weeks earlier after Agua Dulce, where Reuben Brown credited her with saving him from Execution.

http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/goliadframe.htm

"Urrea * said that I would have to be executed according to Santa Anna's orders... was... taken out to be shot, but was spared through the intervention of a priest, and a Mexican lady named Alvarez.... I was then marched with other prisoners to Matamoros."

On that horrible day at Goliad, after she had already intervened to save the lives of many....

"During the time of the massacre she stood in the street, her hair floating, speaking wildly, and abusing the Mexican officers, especially Portilla. She appeared almost frantic.".... Among those at Goliad who were saved by her intervention was Benjamin Franklin Hughes, Captain Horton's young orderly, then a lad of fifteen years. [He was born in Jefferson County, Kentucky, September 8, 1820] Hughes, in his old age, wrote an account of his experiences which is preserved among the Philip C. Tucker Papers in the Library of the University of Texas.

Urrea by that time had moved further east to Victoria, pursuing his campaign. After the slaughter Francita's consort, one Captain Telesforo Alavéz, followed him there bringing Francita with him....

"She afterward showed much attention and kindness to the surviving prisoners [at Goliad], frequently sending messages and supplies of provisions to them from Victoria."

One of those who successfully fled the Goliad Massacre was Issac Hamilton. Wounded grievously in both legs, he was reluctantly abandoned to his fate by three fellow escapees, but somehow recovered enough to make it to Victoria, only to be recaptured by Mexican troops and sentenced to be shot. Enter the Angel of Goliad again....

"From this place I was hauled on a cart some fifteen miles, when I was put upon a poor horse . . . until we arrived at Victoria. At this place I was courtmartialed and order to be shot, which fate I escaped by the intercession of two Mexican Ladies."

And of Miller's captive Tennesseans at Copano Bay (more about them later.....)

When she arrived at Copano with her husband, who was one of Urrea's officers, Miller and his men had just been taken prisoners; they were tightly bound with cord so as to completely check the circulation of blood in their arms, and in this state (way) had been left several hours when she saw them.

Her heart was touched at the sight, and she immediately caused the cords to be removed, and refreshments to be given them. She treated them with great kindness, and when on the morning of the massacre, she learned that the prisoners were to be shot, she so effectually pleaded with Col. Garey (sic) (whose humane feelings revolted at the barbarous order) that, with great personal responsibility to himself and at great hazard at (in) thus going counter to the orders of the then all-powerful Santa Anna, he resolved to save all that he could; and a few of us in consequence, were left to tell of that bloody day.

Most of those who escaped execution were eventually imprisoned in Matamoras, Sna. Alavez again....

After her return to Matamoros, she was unwearied in her attention to the unfortunate Americans confined there. She went on to the City of Mexico with her husband (who there abandoned her.) She returned to Matamoros without any funds for her support; but she found many warm friends among those who had heard of and witnessed her extraordinary exertion in relieving the Texas (Texan) prisoners.

Who she really was and where she came from are mysteries, somewhere in the interior of Mexico apparently. But in contrast to the hot seventeen year-old Santa Anna was at that time bedding in San Antonio, whoever she was Francita Alavez also spoke English.

What happened after that is not known for sure, she disappears from mainstream history.

I prefer the King Ranch version although said ranch would not appear until 1853, seventeen years later. In this version Francita and her children became Kinenos; part of the that community of vaqueros living and working on the King Ranch where their descendants still live today. And I prefer to think that Richard King knew who she was, and treated her accordingly.

"she died on the King Ranch and is buried there in an unmarked grave .... Old Captain King and Mrs. King knew and respected her identity."

All told, Francita may have saved the lives of as many as eighty men, and to be able to pull off what she did, she was likely pretty hot herself.

There's a modest monument to her memory, a statue put up in more recent times, outside the mission at Goliad.

http://porterbriggs.com/the-angel-of-goliad/

Bidrwatcher

Very interesting reading, Mike. Thanks.

Ya, and that last remarkable in that there are no less than six separate eye-witness accounts of Sna. Alavez saving lives in five separate times and locations. The total at Goliad alone may be as high as eighty men or more. She must have been an absolute pistol in her day.

Another remarkable person on the scene, one John Sowers Brooks of Staunton, Va.

http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/goliadframe.htm

Twenty-two years old at the time, came to Texas after a stint in the United States Marine Corps. Turns out the mindset ain't changed much over the last 180 years

From a letter to his sister, sent from Goliad, March 4th, 1836.

I am a soldier of fortune; and all the premonitions of my child hood early told me that I should be one. My profession, perhaps for life, be it short or long, will be that of arms. It is the only pursuit in which I could feel a throb of interest; and the cause in which I now exercise it, renders it still dearer, and more ennobling to me. It is the course of Liberty, of the oppressed against the Tyrant, of the free man against the bigoted slave, and, what recommends it more strongly to me, of the weak against the strong. If I fall, let me fall---It is one of the chances of the game I play-a casualty to which every soldier is liable.


Sadly, Mr. Sowers, grievously wounded in battle, would be shot along with the rest on Palm Sunday, March 27th, 1836. A good man lost among many.

Birdwatcher

Birdwatcher

What do think about the Henry Warnell Alamo survivor story?

I think individuals slipping out of the Alamo before or during the battle is entirely possible,and somewhere else I mentioned a newspaper account out of Missouri two weeks later speaking of a wounded Alamo survivor travelling back east with his brother.

During the fight itself, possibly as many as 100 Alamo defenders could have been killed OUTSIDE the walls, 50 who took cover in a ditch to the west as mentioned in a Mexican officer's account, and those we know bailed from the long barracks and livestock pens on the east side making a break to escape.

Bailing from the mission compound as 1,000+ soldados poured in through the opened gate on the north wall would be the logical thing to do, those that jumped west would just run into the Mexican camps and even more soldados than they were fleeing, those that fled east were heading for open country and escape, IF they could get past a couple of hundred lancers.

Birdwatcher

Just a few more years and the alamo wouldn't have fallen.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/two-sams-and-their-six-shooter/

Here's another thing....

...did Santa Anna WANT the defenders to slip out of the Alamo?

...we don't know how many defenders died at the Alamo because people were still getting IN after the siege began, notwithstanding a couple of thousand Mexican troops in town by then. Could have been about 160 active defenders, could have been a bit shy of 250, depending on who's after-action report you read.

IOW the Mexican dragnet, if there was one, was remarkably porous.

Jose Antonio Navarro was a lifelong Bexar resident, one of three Tejanos who actually signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, and one of those few Tejanos who successfully weathered the advent of large-scale American immigration into Texas in the following decades.

Navarro was in Washington-on-the-Brazos during the siege, but presumably on his return on would hear the local Tejanos' take on the events at the Alamo to a degree most Anglo observers might not.

Ten years later, in 1846, Navarro was quoted by Josiah Gregg of "Commerce of the Prairies" fame....

http://www.kancoll.org/books/gregg/

Not long after my arrival in San Antonio de Bexar I visited Don Jose Antonio Navarro..... He instanced, in particular, the affair at the Alamo, where 180 odd men undertook to defend it against several thousand. He asserted that Santa Anna at all times left the eastern side of the fortification free, in hopes the Texans would escape - preferring to let them go in peace to a victory over them which he knew would be costly

With all due respect to Don Navarro (IF he was quoted correctly), it would make sense for Santa Anna to have them try to escape so as to make killing or executing them far easier than it turned out to be.

Santa Anna was still waiting at Bexar for his the rest of his force to complete that arduous 600-mile trek to San Antonio anyway, no loss to him really in pausing to besiege.

IF the Alamo defenders had tried to make a break for it, they could potentially have been caught and surrounded in open country, exactly as happened two weeks later to twice as many Americans trapped by half as many Mexicans on the open prairie outside of Goliad.

Yet, on March 4th, tho the Alamo defenders are low on food and ammunition, and even tho the north wall has already been breached by just the light Mexican field-pieces on hand and with heavier cannon due to arrive the very next week, Santa Anna shocks his generals by suddenly calling for a meeting to plan an assault for March 6th.

Why? Maybe because 120 miles to the south at San Patricio and Agua Dulce, his potential rival and political enemy Urrea has just won two near-brilliant strikes on the American invaders and their Tejano allies.

Sounds plausible, only thing is AFAIK we don't have written corroboration from those Mexican officers on the scene the way we do for other Alamo occurrences.

Birdwatcher

Perhaps, but perhaps not.

While 180-250 guys with Colt's revolvers coulda made a big difference defending the Alamo that morning, the problem with handguns "winning the West" is that, after a couple of initial minor skirmishes with naive Comanches, the six-shooter had almost NO effect on casualty rates.

The problem was getting close enough to an Indian to hit one with a rifle, let alone a handgun. And Ranger Captain RIP Ford hisself, who would know better than almost anyone, put the revolver on a merely equal footing with the bow and arrow when it came to mounted combat. He did most of his own fighting with rifles.

The way you won fights out on the plains is you got within rifle range of your enemy, got off your horse, took careful aim and shot the other guy off of HIS horse. First ones to do this in a big way were the Delawares and other tribes from back east, who whupped everybody when they arrived on the plains ahead of the advancing Frontier.

Anyways, in practical terms it weren't until the advent of the '51 Colt Navy in the mid fifties that revolvers became cheap, durable and portable enough that most folks could afford one.

Birdwatcher

While they weren't fighting comanche at the alamo, but lined up mesicans, I think the walker would have done a bang up job.

The Colt Walker holds a powder charge of 60 grains in each chamber, more than twice what a typical black powder revolver holds.

Medical officer John "Rip" Ford took a special interest in the Walkers when they arrived at Veracruz. He obtained two examples for himself and is the primary source for information about their performance during the war and afterward. His observation that the revolver would carry as far and strike with the same or greater force than the .54 caliber Mississippi Rifle seems to have been based on a single observation of a Mexican soldier hit at a distance of well over one hundred yards. The Walker, unlike most succeeding martial pistols and revolvers, was a practical weapon out to about 100 yards.

and that isn't taking into consideration their resale value


http://www.gunsinternational.com/gu...-walker-1847-c9865-.cfm?gun_id=100577235

Yep, I've read Ford's memoirs a number of times, remarkable reading And later on in that very same collected writings he goes on in depth about the revolver versus the bow and arrow.

People made all sorts of claims back then before they had chronographs and could calculate ft pounds.

I dunno that a five-pound hand-held revolver has ever been a "practical weapon out to 100 yards" as we understand the term today.

Samuel Walker had every reason to want a hand cannon on account of he had been run through with a Comanche lance and just about died from it three years earlier.

Colt did refine 'em with his subsequent Colt Dragoons, but Jeff Davis in the '50's, gave the ground-breaking 2nd US Cavalry ("AKA Jeff Davis's Own") the then brand-new .36 Colt Navies and Minie-rifled .58 cal. carbines when he coulda just as easily given 'em .44 Dragoons.

Once metallurgy improvements allowed Colt Navy-sized .44's by 1860, Walker-sized revolvers were pretty much out the window.

Birdwatcher

Since you started this thread, I dug out my copy of "Texas Illiad" again. In it, Hardin mentions several times that the Mexican black powder was horrible. Very undependable, and slow burning, resulting in very low velocity. After the battle of Concepcion, the Texans salvaged the lead but dumped the powder out of the cartridges.
Where was Santa Anna getting his powder? Was it supplied by England as well as most of the weapons?
7mm