San Antonio de Béxar, Texas. A crumbling Spanish mission called the Alamo. Between 182 and 260 Texian and Tejano defenders — the exact number is still debated — against roughly 1,800 Mexican soldiers under General Antonio López de Santa Anna. [1]
The siege lasted thirteen days. Colonel William Barret Travis, twenty-six years old, commanded the garrison after Jim Bowie fell gravely ill. Travis sent letters begging for reinforcements. Thirty-two men from Gonzales made it through Mexican lines on March 1. No one else came. [1]
The legend says Travis drew a line in the dirt with his sword and asked anyone willing to stay and die to cross it. Whether the line was real or not, the choice was. Nearly all of them stayed. [1]
Before dawn on March 6, 1836, Santa Anna launched the final assault in four columns. The walls were breached. The fighting moved room to room. Every defender was killed — including David Crockett, though how he died is disputed. Some accounts say he was captured and executed. Others say he fell fighting. Santa Anna ordered the bodies burned. [1]
Santa Anna believed the massacre would end the rebellion. It had the opposite effect.
Six weeks later, on April 21, Sam Houston’s army attacked Santa Anna’s force at the Battle of San Jacinto. Houston’s men charged screaming “Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!” The battle lasted eighteen minutes. Texas won its independence. [1]
Painting: Robert Jenkins Onderdonk, “Fall of the Alamo,” 1903. Public domain.
Bibliography
[1] Wikipedia. “Battle of the Alamo.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Alamo