The Mammoth Book of the West by Jon E. Lewis

fired a shot of scrap iron at the Mexicans, who retreated to San Antonio.
    The Texan revolution had begun. The men of Gonzales, flushed with victory and with Stephen Austin at their head, assembled an “Army of the People” and marched on San Antonio, where they settled down for a lengthy siege of Cos’s army. To oversee the war effort, the Texan settlers appointed a 12-man ruling council, with Sam Houston made commander-in-chief of the Texas forces. Houston, born in Virginia in 1793 but brought up in Tennessee as the adopted son of an Indian chief, had a lifetime’s worth of experience under fire. His persistent gallantry during the war with England had seen him rise to the rank of lieutenant. After the war he had entered politics, becoming Governor of Tennessee. Difficulties with Indian agents he had accused of fraud had caused him to leave the United States for Texas.
    As commander-in-chief Houston found himself constrained by Texas’s cautious provisional government. Hisadvertising campaign in US newspapers (“Let each man come with a good rifle, and come soon”) brought a host of volunteers but the provisional government was loath even to let him have control over the settlers ringed around San Antonio.
    Consequently, it was on the settlers’ own initiative that they stormed the town on 5 December. After four days of close-quarters fighting, with the settlers moving from house to house, breaking through the adobe walls with crowbars and making a mad dash inside, Cos and 1,100 garrison surrendered.
    Santa Anna determined to put an end to the Texan rebellion. Raising an army of 6,000 men and placing himself at its head, Santa Anna started for San Antonio. The town was nearly abandoned, with the exception of a skeleton force of 187 men holding the ancient mission station of San Antonio de Valero: the Alamo.
    As Santa Anna neared, there was initially only confusion at the Alamo. The garrison demanded reinforcements, but Houston wanted them to abandon the station, so the Texan defence could be concentrated elsewhere. Then some of the men, objecting to the youth of the station commander, the studentish William Barrett Travis, staged a virtual mutiny. In democratic American fashion they were allowed to elect a leader. They chose the Tennessee Indian-fighter Jim Bowie, whose elder brother Rezin had invented the famed “Bowie Knife”, a one-edged blade with a guarded hilt so perfectly balanced it could be thrown to killing purpose.
    Jim Bowie was not a leader of men. He drank and cared nothing for discipline. When Bowie contracted pneumonia, Travis took over sole and unfettered command. For all their antagonism, Travis and Bowie were agreed that they would make a stand against the Mexicans when they arrived.
    As a place to make a stand the Franciscan mission of the Alamo had drawbacks. Situated on three acres a little to the east of San Antonio, it had low scaleable outer walls, with no loopholes. Worst of all, there was a large 50-yard gap in its southeastern face which was secured only by a cedar-post stockade and an earth parapet. But the walled convent yard and the stone chapel, with its walls 22 feet high and 4 feet thick, offered good cover.
    The first Mexicans arrived on 22 February 1836 along the Laredo road, the bells of the town clanging the alarm. The Mexican commander, Colonel Almonte, demanded the immediate surrender of the Texan post. As a reply, Travis shot a cannon ball at a group of waiting Mexican soldiers.
    The siege operation that followed was conducted personally by Santa Anna, the self-styled “Napoleon of the West”. He began by subjecting the post to a 24-hour artillery bombardment, which caused surprisingly few casualties inside the Alamo. During a lull afterwards, Travis drafted an appeal for help, which was sent out with a Mexican
vaquero
(cowboy) loyal to the Texan cause. The message read:
     
Commandancy of the Alamo
Bexar, Feby 24th 1836
     
    Fellow citizens and compatriots,
    I am besieged