From 23 February to 6 March 1836 a small band1 of Texian and Tejano rebels, perhaps 180 to 260 men1, held the old mission of the Alamo in San Antonio against the much larger Mexican army of General Santa Anna. On the thirteenth day the Mexicans stormed the walls and killed almost every defender, among them William Travis, James Bowie and the frontier legend Davy Crockett. Remember the Alamo became the rallying cry of the Texas Revolution.
It was a hopeless position, and the men who held it seem to have known. For thirteen days a couple of hundred rebels kept the Mexican army out of a crumbling mission in San Antonio, and when the walls were finally stormed they died almost to a man. Yet their defeat gave the Texas Revolution the three words that would win it.
Texas in revolt
In 1835 the American and Tejano settlers of Texas, then a part of Mexico, rose in revolt against the centralist government of General Antonio López de Santa Anna. Early in 1836 Santa Anna marched north to crush the rebellion, and a small rebel garrison chose to hold a fortified former mission on the edge of San Antonio, known as the Alamo.
Thirteen days
Santa Anna's army arrived on 23 February and put the mission under siege. Inside were perhaps two hundred defenders under the young commander William Travis, alongside the famous knife-fighter James Bowie, who fell sick during the siege1, and the frontiersman and former congressman Davy Crockett. Travis sent out desperate letters pleading for reinforcements that, for the most part, never came. In one he vowed never to surrender or retreat2, signing off Victory or Death.
The final assault
Before dawn on 6 March, Santa Anna threw his columns3 at the walls from every side. The defenders' cannon and rifles cut down the first waves, but the sheer weight of numbers carried the Mexicans over the walls, and the fighting fell to close quarters inside the compound. Within a couple of hours almost every defender was dead.1 A handful of women, children and slaves were spared4 to carry the news.
Remember the Alamo
The Alamo was a crushing tactical defeat, but it bought time and, above all, a legend. Six weeks later, at San Jacinto, Sam Houston's Texians fell on Santa Anna's army shouting Remember the Alamo, routed it in minutes and captured Santa Anna himself5, securing Texan independence in practice. The old mission has been remembered ever since as a symbol of last-ditch defiance.
