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The growing Anglo dissatisfaction with their status as Mexican citizens and the steady stream of immigrants from America meant that rebellion was inevitable, it was a question of sooner or later. Given the formation of militia units and the forcible ejection of Mexican garrisons from Texas, the only reason why rebellion had not broken out was that it takes two to have a fight and the Mexican government had been too preoccupied with internal matters to do its fair share. However, any chance of a peaceful resolution to the situation disappeared when the Anglo settlers got their hands on a private message from General Martin Perfecto de Cos to the captain of the garrison at Anahuac, saying that troops were coming to occupy Texas and grind the rebels into dust.

William Travis seized the opportunity to gain glory and led two dozen well-lubricated would-be rebels on the sloop Ohio to attack Anahuac but the sloop ran aground and they had to be rescued by some friendly locals. After waiting a few hours, the garrison commander realized that since he only had a token force in Anglo territory, shooting any of Travis’ men might start a bloodbath, so instead of arresting the Anglos he surrendered in what became known as the Second Anahuac Disturbance. However, when Travis brought his prisoners back to the main Anglo settlements, he was shocked that the local Anglos shunned him as a troublemaker. If Cos had dismissed the incident as a joke it might have been a fatal blow to the War Party but Cos chose to take the situation seriously and ordered the arrest of Travis and several of his co-conspirators. While the majority of Anglos had little respect for Travis, they refused to allow a white man to be shot by Mexicans, so the War Party came back to life almost overnight as recruits and weapons began to flow in.

The settlers who had lived there for 10 to 15 years naturally did not want a revolution so the revolt was fuelled by squatters and speculators, the white trash drifters from the US who had nothing to lose and outnumbered the established settlers. Even so, the situation might have calmed down like previous flare-ups if Cos had not had horrible timing, choosing to land his 400 troops in September when the crops had already been harvested and the weather would be comfortably warm for another three months. Worse, Austin had finally been released from prison and his ordeal had destroyed his desire to cooperate with the Mexican government. Instead he preached rebellion and immigration from the Southern states to turn Texas into a slave country, and militia units began to form.

Learning that Mexican troops planned to seize an old, rusty cannon at Gonzales, over a hundred men under Colonel John Henry Moore gathered there. The Mexican cavalry showed up on October 2, but they had little appetite for a real fight and fled after the first rebel charge. The easy victory attracted recruits and the army swelled to over three hundred men in a couple of days. One week later, another rebel force seized the lightly defended fort at Goliad, acquiring two hundred muskets and a sense of invincibility. Since Cos was headquartered there, San Antonio de Bexar was naturally the next objective. By October 21, the Army of Texas numbered 453 men against Cos’ six hundred men but Austin knew that if he called off the attack in order to build a proper army, too many men would simply return to their homes, so it was crucial to maintain momentum.

Although taking up arms against government forces would be considered rebellion by most people, the Texians claimed that they were loyal to the 1824 constitution, even though it outlawed slavery and refused to allow non-Catholics to settle. Its main attraction was that it had been revoked by Santa Anna, so the colonists could pretend that they were still loyal citizens of Mexico.

The revolt in Texas had perfect timing because if you were a young American male dreaming of adventure and craving the chance to shoot someone darker than you, then the Texas revolt was the only game in town. Most Indian tribes in the South had been pacified and the Federal Army was becoming, well, a real army that had little respect for the militias, so the large number of Southern militias had no chance to do anything other than march around. There were so many militias because they were one of the main ways for extended rural communities to get together. Recruits were offered 1,280 acres for service to the end, 640 acres for six months service, and 320 acres for three months service. This was an irresistible lure since almost all of the public land in America had already been claimed, which had produced an unacceptable situation for Go Ahead men, so militiamen flocked to Texas, seeking glory and free land. The younger mercenaries were driven by a desire for excitement but the older men like Davy Crockett knew that Texas was their last chance to escape poverty. The Go Ahead men had gone from frontier state to frontier state, and if you were still poor by 1836 then Texas was your last hope.

While America’s Neutrality Act of 1800 theoretically made the recruiting of volunteers for Texas illegal, it was a toothless law that had not stopped any of the previous filibuster attempts. American troops made no effort to prevent groups of volunteers from marching into Texas, especially since President Andrew Jackson’s support of the rebels was far from secret. As a result, the majority of the Texan army was actually made up of volunteers from the US who had signed up for three months, the minimum time needed to qualify for a land grant. They proved almost impossible to discipline and they looted whenever they could, even Anglos, although Mexicans were the preferred target. This won the rebels no love among the Mexicans and they gave little support to the rebellion. This was the Texan government’s own fault, they could have insisted on enlistments for the duration or at least a year but they urgently needed cannon-fodder. At the same time, the mercenaries resented the fact that as more recruits from outside of Texas signed up, more settlers returned to their farms.

The rebels’ first real battle with Mexican troops took place on October 28 at Concepcion when ninety men under Jim Bowie encountered four hundred Mexican cavalry. Despite the Mexicans’ numerical superiority, they rashly attacked the rebels when they were sheltered behind a six-foot deep riverbank instead of trying to flank them. As a result, the rebels only lost one man against sixty Mexican casualties, which greatly boosted morale.

The rebels’ siege of the Alamo began on November 3 and Cos had little choice but to stay at San Antonio de Bexar because all of the nearby forts had already been captured, so if he retreated, there were no supplies until he left Texas. The siege proved to be boring for the volunteers, so increasing numbers deserted in search of action somewhere else. This highlighted the lack of control that Austin had over the army and led him to call for a regular army, instead of a haphazard grouping of militia units whose officers focused more on jockeying for power than the actual siege. Lacking direction from their officers, the Anglo troops besieging the Alamo basically did what they wanted. Instead of following a pre-arranged strategy, each company chose a wall and did what they could to knock it down, motivated mainly by a desire to win bets against the other companies. It was not wasted effort since the cannon fire prevented the Mexican soldiers from repairing the damaged walls, although the rebels would regret their playful cannonfire when it was their turn to defend the Alamo.

Austin left to drum up support in America but when his successor, Col. Edward Burleson, decided to abandon the siege on December 4, his two senior officers, Ben Milam and Frank Johnson, essentially mutinied and persuaded three hundred of the men to stay. The next day, they led the army into the town and a two day long battle in the streets took place. By the third day it seemed as if the rebels would be unable to force their way past the Mexican cannon until some of the men started to tunnel through the walls of houses built right next to each other, instead of risking the murderous fire in the narrow streets, which enabled them to slowly but safely approach the Alamo. The rebels suffered a serious blow when Ben Milam was killed by a sharpshooter’s bullet but they soon learned from captured prisoners that Mexican morale was falling because Cos had almost 2,000 mouths to feed in the Alamo. Aware that his men were starting to desert, Cos surrendered on December 9 and he marched the surviving 1,100 of his original 1,500 troops back to Mexico four days later, leaving the rebels in complete control of Texas.

With the Alamo captured, the remaining original rebels returned to their farms, while the majority of the non-Texan adventurers stayed, and they were much more reckless than even the men who had lived in Texas for a couple of years because they had not taken any casualties. Besides, they could not leave, they had not made any money yet.

Believing that the Mexicans would not be able to retaliate until spring, the senior rebel leaders began arguing over who was in charge instead of preparing to face Santa Anna. The only thing they could agree on was the need to give the mercenaries some Mexican targets before they started to prey on the colonists. As a result, Dr. James Grant, one of the greediest land speculators before the revolt, was able to convince the majority of the men at the Alamo to march on the port of Matamoros, which happened to be where most of his holdings were located. It was not the most obvious target, since not only was it hundreds of miles away from the Alamo, it was not even in Texas. If the rebels were beaten at or on the way to Matamoros the young republic’s army would disappear, so Sam Houston’s opposition is understandable. However, this strategic debate soon became part of a wider battle over who would command the army, regular army officers like Houston and his second-in-command James Fannin or popular, elected officers like Johnson and Grant. Knowing that Johnson and Grant would not listen, Houston tried to persuade the troops to stay but they were drooling at the prospect of the wealth waiting to be looted at Matamoros. In the end, only a hundred men under Lt. Col. James Neill stayed at the Alamo, while six hundred headed off to the port, along with almost all of the supplies and ammunition in mid-January.

Learning that a large Mexican force was already at Matamoros, Fannin saw reason and retreated with many of the men to Goliad. This proved to be the right decision, since General Jose de Urrea easily killed or captured almost all of the men of the Matamoros Expedition in two battles in late February and early March, just as the Texan Convention declared independence and Santa Anna showed up sooner than expected.

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Further Reading:

Duel of Eagles: The Mexican and US Fight for the Alamo-Jeff Long, New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc, 1990.

It is simply an excellent book that covers the entire Texan War of Independence and punctures pretty much every myth about Texan independence. Brief yet insightful biographies introduce all of the major participants. The final chapter quickly covers the Republic’s short history and the Mexican War that followed the American annexation of Texas but focuses more on the tragic lives of Travis’ slave Joe and Susannah Dickinson, as well as the further misadventures of Santa Anna. Long’s writing is entertaining although occasionally a bit too melodramatic, which was probably the result of reading so many diaries filled with florid language. I imagine a great number of Texans must have been offended when his book came out.

Lone Star Rising: The Revolutionary Birth of the Texas Republic-William C. Davis, New York: Free Press, 2004.

A surprisingly long section of the book is an in-depth look at the Mexican revolution and previous attempts by American filibusters and other foreign schemers, including the Lafitte syndicate, to seize control of Mexico that took place during the chaos of the revolution. The infighting among American filibusters, the Lafitte syndicate, former followers of Napoleon, and Mexican revolutionaries makes for fascinating reading. Another lengthy chapter is devoted to the story of Austin’s land grants and the development of legitimate colonies, where the colonists learned to depend on themselves. I am pleased that Davis does not just compare the Mexican Revolution to the American Revolution but also to the revolutions in Central and South America, which is a more valid comparison. However, no mention is made of the steady drinking that accompanied the majority of decisions during the Texan revolution and he fails to make the main actors come to life. Unfortunately, the detailed examination of the background and situation in Mexico means that the battle for the Alamo is covered in a single chapter. Davis also gives some credence to the hallowed myth that Bowie and Travis decided to hold the Alamo to buy time for Houston to build an army, believing that it is an important part of Texan history.

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