At this time, there were only about 150 rebels in the fort. From outside, the Mexicans kept firing their cannons at the weak adobe walls. In time the walls would fall. Then Santa Anna’s troops could storm into the Alamo.
Help had to be on the way. They just needed to hold out until reinforcements came. This is what the rebels at the Alamo told themselves. Travis’s letter to James Fannin at the fort in Goliad had stated the situation very clearly: “We have but little provisions, but enough to serve us till you and your men arrive.”
Unfortunately, James Fannin was not a soldier with a love of battle. At Goliad, he’d been writing his own letters to the head of the temporary Texas government. “I am a better judge of my military abilities than others,” he wrote, “and if I am qualified to command an Army, I have not found it out.”
If William Travis had too much confidence in himself, James W. Fannin had too little. At Goliad, he was put in charge of four hundred men, the largest group of rebel soldiers in all Texas. Fannin didn’t want the job. Over and over he wrote to the governor of Texas begging to be relieved of his position. “I feel, I know…that I am incompetent,” he wrote. Fannin always regretted his failure to help when the men at the Alamo were in trouble. Fannin didn’t have to live with the guilt for long. He was executed at Goliad by the Mexicans just a couple of weeks after the battle at the Alamo.
However, Fannin began to think that he’d better set out with some men to the Alamo. He left Goliad with cannons, ammunition, and oxen pulling supply wagons. However, within two hundred yards from town, some of the wagons broke down. Other wagons had a hard time crossing the San Antonio River. By nightfall, the men started to think about how little food they had, how cold it was, and how many Mexican soldiers there would be waiting at the Alamo. What would happen to them if they fell into the hands of Santa Anna’s army? What would happen to the undefended Goliad? Fannin and his men turned around and headed back to Goliad. There would be no help from Fannin.
Sam Houston didn’t respond to Travis’s request for help, either. He had heard that the rebels at the Alamo were outnumbered. But he didn’t believe that the situation was nearly as bad as it actually was. There would be no help coming from Sam Houston.
Travis also wrote a letter to the people of Gonzales to come join the fight, and yet another letter that he wanted printed in newspapers. “Fellow citizens and compatriots,” he wrote, “I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna…. I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid.” He signed the letter “Victory or death.” Travis handed the letter to a rebel Texian who burst out of the main gate on his horse and slipped through the Mexican lines.
The letter got to San Felipe, where it was printed on a handbill. Copies appeared all over Texas. The letter eventually ran in newspapers across the border in New Orleans, Louisiana, and as far away as New York City.
Finally, help came. Late one night, a group of thirty-two men entered the fort. They had come from Gonzales. They were welcomed with wild cheering. These were the first reinforcements to arrive.
Unfortunately, they were also the last.
Although the rebels were small in number, General Santa Anna soon saw that they were not so easy to defeat.
On February 25, when Santa Anna led his first attack on the fort’s south wall, his men were driven back by Texas rifle fire and grapeshot. The rebels were becoming a personal embarrassment to His Excellency, as Santa Anna liked to be called.
As the siege continued day after day, everyone inside the walls tried to keep up their spirits. But it was hard. No one slept much, because Santa Anna’s forces fired at them throughout the night. Mexican soldiers played bugle calls at all hours to make it seem as if a big attack was about to begin. This kept the rebels constantly on edge.
And Jim Bowie was growing sicker and weaker. Sometimes, when he was strong enough, the men carried him to the long barracks, where he would encourage his boys to fight their hardest.
Travis understood that a big attack had to come soon. According to one story, he stopped in to see Almeron Dickinson’s wife and little daughter. While playing with the baby, he took off a ring he wore. It was gold with a black cat’s-eye stone. He put the ring on a piece of string and placed it around the baby’s neck. He wanted her to have it in case something happened to him.
Although Angelina Dickinson was too young to remember the Alamo, she had William Travis’s ring as a souvenir. As an adult she gave the ring to a friend who later fought in the Civil War. The ring was passed down in his family through the years until a Houston attorney donated it to the Alamo museum. Today the ring sits on display in the Alamo, where its original owner was killed.
During lulls in the cannon fire, David Crockett tried to cheer everyone up. He had a fiddle and liked to play country tunes on it. Another man who was originally from Scotland had brought along his set of bagpipes. The two sometimes had contests to see who could make the best music—or the most noise. The bagpipes always won the noise contests.
On March 5, the siege had been going on for twelve days. The Mexicans stopped their cannon fire in the afternoon, so it was finally quiet. Travis called all the men together. He told them he preferred to die for his country rather than surrender. Legend has it he drew a line in the dirt with his sword. Every man who wanted to stay and die with him should step across the line.
One by one the rebels crossed over to Travis’s side of the line. Jim Bowie was carried on his cot. In the end, only one man—someone said to be named Louis Rose—remained on the far side of the line; he escaped over the north wall and reached the river—and safety.
Travis knew the situation was hopeless. So he gave Robert Evans a secret order. When the fort was overrun by the Mexicans, Evans was to blow up the gunpowder stored in the front room of the church. At least the rebels would have the satisfaction of taking down as many enemy soldiers as possible.
It remained quiet all night. For the first time in weeks, everyone in the Alamo could sleep. Even the lookouts right outside the fort dozed off at their posts.
That was a terrible mistake.
The lookouts didn’t hear the Mexican soldiers creeping up on them to slit their throats.
This was the beginning of the end.
