Alamo Falls: Texas Gains Its Battle Cry

Mexican forces under General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna overwhelmed the 187 Texan defenders of the Alamo after a thirteen-day siege, killing every combatant inside the mission walls. The battle on March 6, 1836, lasted roughly ninety minutes, from the predawn assault to the final room-by-room fighting in the chapel and barracks. Santa Anna had chosen annihilation over negotiation, and the decision cost him the war. The Alamo, a former Franciscan mission in San Antonio de Bexar, had been converted into a makeshift fort by Texan rebels who had captured it from Mexican forces in December 1835. William Barret Travis commanded the regular soldiers; James Bowie led the volunteers. Neither had more than 200 men, and their artillery consisted of roughly twenty cannons of various calibers mounted on the walls. Santa Anna arrived with an army that grew to several thousand during the siege. Travis's pleas for reinforcement went largely unanswered. The provisional government of the Republic of Texas was still organizing at Washington-on-the-Brazos, and Sam Houston's army was not in position to relieve the garrison. Thirty-two volunteers from Gonzales rode through Mexican lines on March 1, the last reinforcements to arrive. They knew they were joining a death trap. Santa Anna ordered the final assault at 5:30 AM on March 6. Four columns of Mexican infantry advanced from different directions. The defenders repulsed the first two waves with devastating cannon and rifle fire, but the sheer weight of numbers carried the third assault over the north wall. Once the perimeter was breached, the fighting moved indoors. Bowie, too ill to stand, was killed in his bed. Crockett's death is disputed — some accounts say he was captured and executed, others that he died fighting. Mexican casualties were severe. Estimates range from 300 to more than 600 killed and wounded, though exact figures are debated. Santa Anna ordered the Texan dead burned rather than buried. The fall of the Alamo achieved the opposite of Santa Anna's intent. Rather than terrifying the Texan rebellion into submission, it unified resistance around a single, furious rallying cry that Sam Houston's army carried into battle at San Jacinto six weeks later.