PROLOGUE

Just past nine o’clock, sometime after darkness had fallen and before the near-full moon rose, a fleet mare slipped out the south gate of the battered old mission. Riding bareback, using only a bridle—every ounce counted now if he was to outrun General Ramírez y Sesma’s lancers—the rider leaped over the moat, spurred his horse to a full gallop, leaned low to hug her neck, and held on for dear life as man and mount thundered through the Plaza de Valero amid scattered musket fire, hoofbeats echoing against the fortress walls. He headed southeast, along the San Antonio River, toward Goliad—or Fort Defiance, as Colonel James Fannin had dubbed the presidio there.

Fannin and his four hundred men were at least two full days’ ride away. If the colonel could be persuaded to lead his force to Béxar, it might be four or five days before they arrived. That might be too late. But perhaps they were on the march already.

The Mexican army besieging the fort for the past twelve days outnumbered the small garrison ten to one. Their artillery had bombarded the Alamo almost constantly, though not one Texian or Tejano defender had been killed. But around five that afternoon, the earsplitting barrage had stopped.

James Allen’s swift horse and his own slight frame had been two important reasons the post commander, Lieutenant Colonel William Barret Travis, had chosen the twenty-one-year-old college student from Missouri to deliver another desperate plea for assistance from the run-down fort.

That Saturday, March 5, 1836, had dawned cool and clear—clear enough to reveal that the Mexican lines surrounding the fortress had moved closer again the previous night, the eleventh since the Texian forces had retreated into the compound at the approach of Santa Anna’s army; an artillery battery now stood just two hundred yards from the north wall. The red flag hoisted above Béxar that first day had made clear the fate of any rebel, Anglo or Mexican, taken alive while fighting for Texas independence: death.

Over the previous twelve days, almost a dozen couriers had made it through the Mexican lines and reached the two closest Texian communities east of Béxar—Gonzales, seventy-five miles away, and Goliad, ninety-five miles downriver, where Fannin and his volunteers held the presidio there. Travis’s requests for food, clothing, ammunition, ordnance, and, most important, reinforcements, had gone unanswered, at least as far as the garrison knew, save for thirty-two brave souls sent from the town of Gonzales five days earlier. Other than that, nothing—no word from the provisional governor and council in San Felipe, eighty miles beyond Gonzales, or from Fannin… only a message two days earlier from Travis’s warm friend Major Robert “Three-Legged Willie” Williamson, stationed in Gonzales, who entreated them to hold out and who promised to send aid soon.

Travis’s two-hundred-odd men were exhausted and bedraggled from twelve days of almost constant bombardment and little sleep. They had done all they could to fortify the old mission, but the stone and adobe walls had been erected as protection against Indian attacks, not artillery. Though the enemy’s largest fieldpiece was only an eight-pounder, the incessant shelling had taken its toll on the walls, particularly the weak northeastern section, which had begun to crumble. Worse, the compound was far too large to be ably manned by so few defenders. With Fannin’s four hundred, they might have a chance, but an all-out attack seemed imminent—probably even before the rest of Santa Anna’s army, comprising thousands more men, reached Béxar. As it was, the Mexican entrenchments were moving closer every night.

As the rider disappeared into the darkness, the Mexican troops lay back down to sleep, or tried to. Tomorrow, and its bloodshed, would come soon enough.