CHAPTER  FOUR 

Remember  The  Alamo

"Remember the Alamo" became a battle cry in American history.  It was on the lips of the Sam Houston's army when they defeated the Mexican's under Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto winning independence for Texas.  A decade later it was on the lips of the American army during the Mexican War.  What was there about the battle of the Alamo that inspired it's use as a battle cry?  Considered in the scope of history it would seem but a minor action involving less than two hundred Texan and American volunteers.  The answer is in that there were no survivors.  This was not only because the garrison chose to fight to the last man with no thought of surrender.  It was also because Santa Anna, the Mexican commander at the scene decreed that it should be so.  He had issued orders of no quarter to his troops before the battle.  It is this issue that has made him infamous in history and has inspired "Remember the Alamo' as a battle cry for all those who would avenge the brave garrison of that beleaguered fort.  But things are rarely as simple as they seem and justification for such use of this historic and dramatic phrase is debatable.  Let us review some fascinating history to get to the bottom of this issue.   

Texas was a large, but scarcely populated state of the nation of Mexico.  The Mexican government was nervous about its right to all this desirable but unused land being challenged by its aggressive and expanding neighbor on the north, the United States.  In the 1820's they decided to promote the population of this territory so it would be less attractive to covetous eyes.  But the only source of a quick influx of settlers was unfortunately for Mexico, also from the United States.  To attract these settlers the Mexican government offered very generous terms.  For only thirty dollars a family could obtain over four thousand acres of prime land.  The conditions were simple and reasonable.  The settlers had to swear allegiance as Mexican citizens, they had to commit to being at least nominally Catholics, and they were exempt from taxes for ten years.  Attracted by such a great deal and by promoters such as Stephen Austin they swarmed into Texas by the thousands.  Things seemed great but this honeymoon period didn't last.   

By 1830 the Mexican government was becoming concerned.  Americans made up the bulk of the population of Texas and they were proving to be a poor lot as citizens.  They were engaged in wholesale smuggling in violation of the Mexican customs laws and depriving the government of almost the only source of income from the state during the tax free period.  They were introducing their slaves into the territory although slavery was illegal in Mexico, and they openly flaunted the religious requirements.  To add to the government's concern the American government was talking about purchasing Texas and hinting that if it wasn't for sale they just might take it anyhow.  The government stopped all American immigration and started to enforce the laws with respect to slavery and the import duties.  The settlers were enraged.   

Then in 1832 things changed again.  There was a revolution in Mexico bringing a military dictator, Santa Anna to power.  At first his hold on power was somewhat tenuous so he appeased the settlers granting them a two year moratorium on import duties and leaving them pretty much alone.  But after two years when he had consolidated his power he started to enforce the laws on the settlers.  Again the settlers were enraged.  By this time they seemed to view smuggling as a constitutionally protected activity.  But the settlers now had an additional grievance that totally changed the equation.  They had entered Mexico under the republican constitution of 1824.  Mexico was a federal republic and each state had its own state representative assembly as they were used to in the United States.  Texas, as undeveloped territory, was not a state as yet.  They were represented through the assembly in Monclova in the state of Coahuila.  They had long wanted to acquire statehood and have their own state legislature.  They had always assumed when the population grew enough that that would be granted them.  But in 1834 Santa Anna scrapped the constitution, dissolved all the state assemblies, and centralized all the power in Mexico city.  Now the Texans were doubly enraged, especially when Santa Anna threw Stephen Austin in jail for petitioning on their behalf.  Texans, Anglos and Mexican alike, began to rise in defense of their constitutional rights as Mexican citizens.  So far they were still within the terms of the oath that they had so recently sworn but soon the more radical of the settlers began to call for total independence from Mexico.   

The Texans seized most of the more prominent towns including San Antonio de Bexar where they drove out the Mexican General Cos.  This was a disgrace that Santa Anna was determined to personally avenge and he marched on San Antonio with an army.  He arrived there on February 23, 1836 with 2400 men.  The settlers had fortified an old mission across the river from the town called the Alamo.  It was garrisoned mostly by some of the hundreds of American volunteers that had come flocking to assist their brethren in Texas.  The siege of the Alamo lasted less than two weeks and the garrison of 183 died to the last man.  It is this fact that has made the Alamo the epic and the historical drama that it has become.  It is this fact that made "Remember the Alamo" such an effective battle cry.  Why were there no survivors among the combatants at the Alamo?   

Santa Anna had put down resistance to his rule in some of the other Mexican states.  But these were foreigners and their defiance galled him.  To him Mexican sovereignty was at stake.  He had determined to take a hard line.  When his army entered the town they immediately ran a blood red flag from the tower of the San Fernando church in the town.  The message was clear, there would be no quarter.  The Alamo answered with a cannon shot. There was however some parleying.  Both Bowie and Travis, the dual commanders in the fort, sent their own envoys to negotiate with the Mexicans.  Bowie's arrived first.  He was told that if they surrendered their lives would be spared.  Travis's spoke to a different Mexican General and obtained a slightly better offer; their lives and their property would be spared if they surrendered.  But the fort had no intention of surrendering and the die was cast.  There was no surrender and there were no survivors. 

The key to understanding all this is to understand Santa Anna himself as well as the legal implications of the military situation.  Under the laws of war as they applied in Mexico Santa Anna had some justification for his position.  The laws of warfare stated that if a castle or fort was in a hopeless position it had to surrender.  If it refused to do so the garrison would be put to the sword.  In practice what this meant is that if the place was taken by storm then the garrison could be executed to the last man.  This sounds barbaric to us but there was a very practical reason for it and that reason was to save lives.  Without such a rule every fort, no matter how hopeless its situation, would force a storm.  They would sell the place dearly and when they had exacted a heavy price in blood from the attackers would surrender as soon as the walls were breached.  The attacking force would lose hundreds or maybe even thousands of soldiers and the besieged almost none as they had conveniently surrendered as soon as they became vulnerable.  But under this law the besieged had to carefully weigh the odds and if they were against them they would be well advised to surrender.  Surrender would bring the same result but avoid a lot of mutual bloodshed.  This law was not changed until late in the Napoleonic Wars during the peninsular campaign in Spain.  The British commander at the time, The Duke of Wellington, bitterly protested the change.  He stated that it would cause the unnecessary death of at least ten thousand of his men.  But Mexico was not a signatory to this convention revising the rules of war.  And we have to understand Santa Anna himself.  He was thoroughly Napoleonic.  He styled himself the Napoleon of the West.  His army was outfitted in uniforms that mimicked Napoleon's legions.  His soldiers were armed with ancient smooth-bore muskets of Waterloo vintage purchased as French Army surplus.  (The riflemen in the Alamo by contrast were armed with Kentucky rifles that were accurate and deadly at two hundred yards to the amazement of the Mexicans.)  Everything about Santa Anna and his army was old fashioned and Napoleonic including its laws of warfare.  Santa Anna's flag was a warning to the garrison of the Alamo that further resistance would mean their annihilation.   

There are a lot of what ifs with respect to the Alamo.  What if later in the siege they had surrendered?  Strictly speaking if they had, anytime before the place was stormed, they should have been granted their lives.  But they never surrendered and we will never know  for sure what Santa Anna would have done.  The die was cast and the defenders, hopeless as their situation was, exacted a terrible price from Santa Anna for his victory.  Of his army of 2400 he considered only 1800 fit for service.  With these on March 6, 1836 the Alamo was stormed.  The storming of the Alamo lasted only one and a half hours but it was a terrible and desperate struggle.  Of these 1800 men he lost 600 men killed (200) and wounded (400).  And of course there were no survivors on the other side.  But neither is there any record that any of the garrison tried to surrender.  So actually the whole issue of the garrison being put to the sword became academic.  They all chose to fight to the death.  If no quarter was given neither was any quarter asked.  The men of the Alamo fought with incredible bravery.  They believed in their cause, Texas independence, and died for it.  The Mexicans also fought with great bravery and determination.  Any army that takes a thirty-three percent casualty rate in a little over an hour and is still on the field desperately fighting is not made of cowards.   

What can we say in conclusion except that a lot of brave men died.  Did they die in vain?  The men in the Alamo were buying time for their compatriots to organize an effective army to liberate Texas.  They bought thirteen days and at the Battle of San Jacinto it proved to be enough.  Even more so in the way they died they gave their compatriots a rallying cry, a battle cry, that carried them to victory.  Had they surrendered on the twelfth day and saved their lives would Texas still have won its independence?  We will never know.  On the Mexican side the soldiers of Santa Anna's army were fighting for their national honor.  To have bands of foreigners (Remember the garrison of the Alamo was chiefly American volunteers and not Texan settlers) take over parts of their country was intolerable.  This is what sustained them as they came under the murderous fire of those Kentucky rifles.  They seemed to have died in vain.  This is not because of their later disastrous defeat by Sam Houston at San Jacinto. But rather this was because of the perception that later swept through the United States that Santa Anna was a barbaric dictator: That he was a murderous man who had denied the garrison any quarter and had consigned them all to death.  And thus "Remember the Alamo" became a national cry as Mexican honor and esteem sunk to a new low.  But as we have seen it is not that simple.  The demonizing myths about Santa Anna don't always fit.  It is true that there is little to admire in the man.  But at the Alamo everybody understood the rules and everybody accepted it that way.