an excerpt from walter lord's a time to stand

8/12/2019 An excerpt from Walter Lord's A Time to Stand

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http://www.openroadmedia.com/a-time-to-stand


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Walter Lord A TIME TO STAND

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Take Care of My Little Boy

IN THE DIM MOONLIGHT that bathed the Alamo plaza,

John W. Smith saddled up once again. It was nearly midnight,

Thursday, March 3, and Smith was about to leave on another

attempt to rally help for the garrison.

Word soon spread that he was going. Private Willis A.

Moore of Raymond, Mississippi, scribbled a few private lines to

his family, folded and handed the note to Smith. Others did the

same.

In the headquarters room by the west wall, William Barret

Travis was also writing messages. First, he put the finishing

touches on his latest official reportthis time a ringing appeal to

the President of the Convention at Washington-on-the-Brazos.

He stressed the garrisons resilience, praised its spirit, spelled

out its needs: at least 500 pounds of cannon powder, 200

rounds of six, nine, twelve, and eighteen-pound balls, ten kegs ofrifle powder

And once again he urged all possible help, for this could

be the great and decisive ground. He closed with a few bitter

words about the local Mexicanshe charged nearly all had

deserted the fortbut on the whole he was game and optimistic.

Now he turned to his own personal messages. First came

a little note so secret no outsider ever saw it. Just the cryptic

request in the covering letter: Do me the favor to send the

enclosed to its proper destination instantly. It was hard for

anyone then, or more than a hundred years later, not to think of

Rebecca Cummings.


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Next, a warm, intimate letter to his friend Jesse Grimes.

In it he again stressed his good spirits, his determination to die

rather than give up the Alamo. But this timemuch more

eloquently than in his official correspondenceTravis explained

why he was making this stand. His reason went far beyond any

views on strategy beyond the bond that now welded the

garrison together even beyond his fierce desire to defend the

new homes that dotted the land. More than all these (and they

were a lot), he felt the spirit of the timesthe conviction that

liberty, freedom and independence were in themselves worth

fighting for; the belief that a man should be willing to make any

sacrifice to hold these prizes. With them, he had everything.

Without them, nothing. Explaining his views, Travis minced no

words:

Let the Convention go on and make a declaration

of independence, and we will then understand, and the world

will understand, what we are fighting for. If independence is notdeclared, I shall lay down my arms, and so will the men under

my command. But under the flag of independence, we are ready

to peril our lives a hundred times a day .

It was late in the evening nowSmith must be leaving

soon but Travis had one last message on his mind. It would be

for David Ayers, who was boarding little Charles at the Ayers

home near Washington-on-the-Brazos. No one in the world-even

Rebeccameant as much to Travis as Charles. A river of

memories must have flowed through his mind: persuading

Rosanna to leave the boy in Texas saying good-by on his way


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to the Alamo the way Charles wangled fifty cents from him to

buy a bottle of molasses. Enough. Maybe he would see him again

someday, but there was always the other possibility. He jotted a

quick, simple note on a sheet of torn yellow wrapping paper:

Take care of my little boy. If the country should be

saved, I may make him a splendid fortune; but if the country

should be lost and I should perish, he will have nothing but the

proud recollection that he is the son of a man who died for his

country.

Walking out into the plaza, Travis handed his packet of

messages to Smith, then remembered something he forgot to say

in the official dispatch: tell the reinforcements to bring ten days

rations with them. Next, another afterthought: he would fire the

18-pounder three times a daymorning, noon and nightas

long as the Alamo stood. When they heard that, they would know

he was still fighting.The northern postern once again swung open. A party of

Texans slipped outside, worked their way north toward the sugar

mill, and began firing at random. The Mexican guns erupted in

reply, and Santa Annas patrols rushed to the scene of the

trouble. The way cleared, Smith whipped through the Alamo

gate, turned east, and vanished into the dark.

It was just about midnightthe end of a long, hard day.

But legend to the contrary, it was not a day of giving up hope.

Theres a great deal of hope in any commander who orders two

hundred cannon balls. The best clue to Travis real feelings lay at


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the start of his letter to Jesse Grimes: I am still here in fine

spirits and well to do.

Dawn, March 4. The new Mexican battery north of the

Alamo crashed into action, searing the early morning quiet. The

guns were within rifle rangeperhaps 250 yards awayand

every shot smashed the forts north wall, showering the plaza

with earth and stones. Jameson frantically worked to shore up

the defensespiling up still more dirt against the wall,

hammering extra bracing into place. The sound of the shovels

and mallets drifted to the Mexican lines, and the rumor spread

that the Texans were mining the walls, planning to blow

everyone up together.

Certainly it was clear that the Alamo couldnt take this

kind of punishment much longer. Yesterday Travis had been

optimistic: The walls are generally proof against cannon balls.

Today his defenses seemed like a sieve.

The men never felt more trapped. Besides the new battery

to the north, the Mexican ring seemed tighter than ever. The twolong 9-pounders just across the river continued to pound the

west wall, while Sesmas howitzers made life especially miserable

by lobbing bombs into the innermost areas. Enemy

entrenchments were now on all sides; to use Travis own

estimates, in Bexar, four hundred yards west; in La Villita, three

hundred yards south; at the powder house, one thousand yards

east of south; on the ditch, eight hundred yards northeast, and at

the old mill, eight hundred yards north.

Even Crockett now felt the strain. Echoing the sentiments

of Henry Warnell in an earlier moment of discouragement, the


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Colonel announced, I think we had better march out and die in

the open air. I dont like to be hemmed up.

Jim Bowie, failing badly, was brought out more than once

to rally the men. He weakly begged them to carry on, to stand by

Travis whatever happened. Loyal Bowie men like Captain

William Baker of the Volunteers took heart, but it was hard to be

hopeful when they could clearly see new Mexican reinforcements

streaming into town; when there in plain sight were Mexican

work details fitting together scaling ladders.

The local Mexicans remaining in the Alamo were

especially discouraged. All had good friends in the occupied

town, some even relatives in Santa Annas militia. Others merely

wanted to be on the winning side, and it began to look as if they

might have guessed wrong.

Still others had even deeper misgivings. They found

themselves more and more uncomfortable in what had clearly

turned into a collision between Mexicans and Anglo-Americans.

After all, they were Mexicans. It was all very well when thestruggle had been more of a family fightwhich Mexican

leaders; which Mexican constitutionbut it was no longer that,

and these Mexicans had a growing fear that they wouldnt do

very well under any government dominated by Anglos. Names

like Flores, Rodriguez, Ramirez, Silvero, and Garza faded from

sight.

On the evening of the 4th, still another Mexican

disappearedthis time one of the women in the Alamo. Slipping

through La Villita, then across the river, she made her way to His

Excellencys headquarters. It turned out that she brought

extremely interesting news: the defenses were crumbling the


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men were weak the ammunition low the place could easily

be taken.

A rumor swept the Mexican lines that the visitor had been

sent by Travis himself, specifically to sound out the possibility of

surrender. Conceivablethe Colonel had his moments of moody

despairbut most unlikely. He was now committed, and he took

a fierce pride in seeing things through. Take that day when he

couldnt get through to Rebecca and angrily wrote, the first time

I ever turned back. Chances are no second occasion arose at the

Alamo.

But the Mexican womans report remained just as valid.

The Texan defenses were weak, on the verge of collapse.

The clear, warm dawn of March 5 brought more bad news

for the garrison. During the night the Mexican battery on the

north had been pushed still closerit was now only 200 yards

from the fort. Brisk fire again pounded the crumbling walls, and

the defenders again huddled behind whatever protection they

found. By now they were pretty good at dodging enemy cannonballsmiraculously, not a man had yet been killed.

The Mexican fire tapered off sharply in the late afternoon,

and at 5 P.M. the Texans puzzled over the sight of several

columns of troops filing out of town. As the heavy firing stopped,

the defenders emerged from shelter, began cooking supper on

open fires in front of the church. Mrs. Dickinson persuaded a

grimy Jim Bonham to have a cup of tea.

The lull meant more than tea to Colonel Travis. Shaking

off what must have been an overwhelming desire to relax, he

suddenly summoned the whole garrison to assemble in the open


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plaza. The men wearily ambled over, and Mrs. Dickinson

hovered in the rear as the Colonel addressed his men.

He was brief and to the point. He declared that there was

no longer any real hope of help. Their choice was to surrender, to

try and escape, or to stay and fight to the end. Because it might

delay the Mexican advance, he was determined to fight it out. He

urged the garrison to join him, but he left every man to his own

choice. If anyone desired to escape, now was the time to let it be

known and step out of ranks.

It was later said that Travis gave his speech on March 3,

but Mrs. Dickinson declared it was the 5th in the only account

she ever gave without an enthusiastic assist from the press. It

was also said that the Colonel drew a line with his sword to be

crossed by all who chose to stand by him. Certainly in character,

but in her unvarnished account Mrs. Dickinson never mentioned

it. She did, however, remember well that one man stepped out of

the ranksthe only member of the garrison who preferred to

escape. His name to the best of my recollection was Ross.There was no man in the Alamo named Ross, but Louis

Rose of Nacogdoches was very much thereand far from moved

by Travis eloquence. War was an old story to this Napoleonic

veteran: when things went wrong, you lived and fought again

another day. He wasnt about to die now.

His friend Bowie, lying pale on his cot, urged him to stick

with the rest. Crockett pointed out that escape was impossible.

Rose merely measured the defenses and thought to himself, I

have often done worse than to climb that wall.

He was gone by dark, edging his way downstream along

the river till he came to the ford that led to town. He waded


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across, passed along a street, turned downstream again, and

tramped out into the open country. No one saw himperhaps

because the town was surprisingly empty.

General Santa Anna could have explained. No troops

lolled about the streets tonight, because he had methodically

withdrawn them. They were off preparing for the grand

undertaking that would finally redeem Mexican honor that

would teach these perfidious foreigners a lasting lesson. This

ambitious project, now racing to its climax, had been brewing for

nearly twenty-four hours.

It was early evening on the 4th when Colonel Almonte

first knew that something was up. Ordered to report immediately

to Santa Annas headquarters, Almonte was joined by practically

every general and colonel in the army. Strange, for His

Excellency hated conferences and practically never asked

anyones opinion.

But this time was different, and Santa Anna stated his

problem right away. Had the time come to take the Alamo bystorm?


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an excerpt from walter lord's a time to stand

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