Day 10: Long Rifles.

  Davy's boys have the best rifles in the place.  Plenty of good guns around and bad, even Mexican Brown Bess's picked from the dead along with bayonets and cartridge belts.  Shotguns, horse pistols, tomahawks, knives of every sort.  Swords too.  Some cudgels and a couple cavalry lances.  The Gonzales boys came in well packed but already every man in the fort had a couple of rifles, a pistol, knife.  More cannon than we can powder, mount or crew.  If we can hold them here until Houston and Fannin ride in plus the other companies we stand a chance.  A good chance.  More than even.  They don't know what's coming.

  Speaking of knives there isn't a blade in the place you couldn't shave with, even the axes.  In the evenings we cook and folks sew and mend on tackle and gear and whet knives.   

  Davy's boys brought their squirrel rifles and deer guns.  Long rifles.  They keep them in beaded and fringed deerskin stocks and you never see one around unless it's being carried. 

  Lightly built but brassed and polished.  The maker picked the wood careful.  Peter Bailey has one of the prettiest wood stocks a man has ever seen on a rifle, curlicued and polished deep, nearly black out of the sunlight, golden brown in it, but most of them are close.  They glow. 

  The men handle them like Davy handles his fiddle.  They never get laid down except on something soft.  At night the men pull them out and look them over, oiling and rubbing.  Davy was breaking pecan meat on the stock of Betsy and rubbing it into the wood.

  When they go out the rifles don't go.  They borrow a shotgun or a pistol and take a tomahawk and a knife.  Couple guys always stay behind.  I think it's just to keep those rifles company.

  They name 'em.  Davy has Betsy and a couple others.  Nelson has two he calls "the Parson" and the "Po Boy."  Thomas Archer has his "Julie B."  Some of them got their rifles in trade but most of them had made guns.

  Seems most of those rifles can shoot.  Archer shot the shovel out of a man's hand digging the river battery.  All we could see coming up over the bunker.  Had to time the shot just right.  Clanged like a bell.  Nelson killed three Mexicans dead with three different rifles when we caught them beyond the cow pens.  As quick as he could snatch.  Davy says he's shooting more than we can eat. 

   The other day soldatos were chasing chickens out in La Villita way past rifle range.  Probably six or seven men trying to catch a flock thats been pecking under our guns for a week.  One man was standing in the open holding caught chickens by the feet as the others chased.  He had three or four in each hand.  Davy shucked the sock off Betsy and primed her, gave the ball a tap with the ramrod.  He rubbed a little oil off his nose with his finger and used it to slick up the front sight then sat with his back to a cannon carriage and Betsy resting across the sock on the wall.  The wind was gusting to raise dust.  250-275 yards.  I didn't think he was going to shoot until he pulled the hammer past half-cock.  Betsy barked and about two seconds later the dust jumped off that fellows jacket.  My, how the chickens flew!   That man turned to the side, fell to his knees and rolled over.  Except for the dead man there wasn't a Mexican in sight, just chickens shaking their feathers and calling each other.  Everybody was crowding up to the wall and passing around a spyglass to have a look.

  Davy patched out the lock on Betsy and winked. "I ain't sharing chickens."

  That night one of the Kentucky boys went out with the picket carrying a rag and a tomahawk.  He was back before the moon came up with a cloth full of eggs.  Ten eggs.  Homed in on the night clucking like a bear on a honeybee hive.  We were pushing the ends of the cookfire in to get the heat up but Davy said we better send these to the women and chilluns in the chapel or there would be no end to it.  We kept two and everyone awake had a bite.  One of the senora's came out to the fire and spoke.  Juan Abamillo was at the skillet and we looked at him.  "She says go get more," he said.

  Davy cracked a stick and put it under the coals.  "There ain't pleasing some women."

  It's Thursday, March 3, 1836.

Update:  Bonham back from Fannin and Goliad.  Fannin isn't coming.

Update II:  Shootout with Mexican forces north toward the river bottom and cover.  Soldatos think it's Texians foraging out.  Could be more reinforcements coming in.

Update III:  Bowie managed to get out and make a visit to all the men on the walls.

Update IV:  The Texicans are mostly shooting a Dupont gunpowder that is of high quality.  It's probably imported through New Orleans.  The Mexicans are using Spanish or indigenous powder that the defenders consider little better than coal dust. 

  

Day Nine: Independence!

  Very heartened when the Gonzalez boys rode in last night. Wish there were more but surely Fannin is only a day or so out. Good to hear news from the outside of family and friends. Most of the men were known by someone so there was plenty of talk. We sorted and moved around a bit so everyone had a post along the wall. George Kimball has a glass and from the top of the Long Barracks we can watch into town and see the Mexicans coming and going. Seems like another bunch comes up the road every day. You can pick out the privates and the sergeants. The officers stay a little apart and have blue jackets and black boots. Cavalry are all rough cobs, lean and dark in the face. There will be plenty for the battle when the rest of the army gets here. Crockett came up for a look, whistled and said he saw Col. Bowies favorite barmaid with a soldato on the square.

  Hard cold last night and still. You could see the horse and beef breath in the cattle pen. Mex artillery fires all day and night but folks are starting to sleep through it. We are so short of men that we are living along the walls.

  Two boys came up the riverbank at dusk and gave us a start. Just boys off on a lark to see the fort. Friends of a couple of the local families. They didn't have any real news but said it was crowded in town and the soldiers were eating all the food and taking all the big houses.

  Bowie came out of the chapel and walked the plaza with Travis and Crockett this afternoon. He was wrapped in a blanket with the witch Candaleria trailing along. He's pale as a ghost. She watches him like a cat but he never looks at her. His boy Joe carried a chair for him to sit every now and then. Davy uses his hands a lot when he talks and I noticed he was listening, mostly. Bonham came out a bit later with his boy and carried some powder to the west corner battery. He stopped to look at a couple of Mexican cannonballs that had come in from the La Villita. Plenty of them outside the North Wall from that bunch up there.

  Taking a beating. Just an old adobe. Hardly fit to pen goats.

  One of the Kellogg boys from Gonzalez, Johnnie, is now in our little hole. Nineteen and just married.  Says his wife will come get him if he is gone a week. He's got a good enough rifle and a Bible his missus gave him. We have a little collection of Mexican muskets we keep loaded under the wall so he saw them and we are showing him were we sit and where to watch. He had a nice little knife but Teague gave him a big long-pointed bowie he had extra. Johnnie could shave with it but he doesn't have much to shave. Teague has sharpened every edge in the fort. He even talked blades with Bowie for a bit.

  We are all family men so Johnnie Kellogg is in a good spot. He'll see that wife again in a couple of weeks, God willing.

  Mexican units on the road are sent word to force march into San Antonio. Every day another unit arrives in town with more men and equipment.

  Patrols search Juan Seguin's ranch again for supplies and find corn.  

  A second soldier from San Luis, a cazadore, (hunter/scout) named Trinidad Delgado drowns in the river.  

  Santa Anna takes time off his honeymoon with the princess of La Villita to investigate the approaches for attacking troops.  He finds a previously unknown trail through the brush on the East side of the mission that pickets and couriers have been using and posts Jimenez soldatos on it.  He prepares to move his battery closer to the crumbling North wall.

  Fannin made one start for the Alamo on February 28th.  Carts broke down and he retreated.  At the moment he's decided to stay put to counter a Mexican thrust into the Goliad area.

  On Washington-on-the-Brazos the Texas Declaration of Independence is signed by Houston and the other delagates.  The Alamo defenders will never hear this news.  From the top of the Long Barracks they fly the New Orleans Greys flag and a Mexican tri-color with "1824", signifying the Mexican 1824 Constitution that Santa Anna has rescinded.

  It's Wednesday, March 2, 1836.

  

  Day two of a truce is in effect.  Both sides are strengthening positions.  

Day Eight: Gonzales Rides In.

  Captain Albert Martin and John Smith arrived with 30 men from Gonzales and Goliad in the early morning hours.  They came off the East ridge and walked their horses quietly between the Mexican positions.  They had stayed off the main roads and missed the calvalry.

  Coming off the ridge a rider pulled up in front of them and in perfect English offered to take them to the fort.  Smith was wary and about to fire when the rider spurred his horse into the brush.  It's possible that the rider was Col. Adrian Woll, an English adviser to Santa Anna.  It's quite an international cast out here on the edge of civilization.

   A Texian picket fired when they got close and one of the men was hit in the foot.  A string of profanity confirmed they were Texicans.  They brought some provisions and supplies.  Fresh news and fresh faces were a relief.  The Alamo defenders saw themselves as holding Santa Anna in place until Fannin and Houston could arrive for the decisive battle.

  The horse pen was full.

  32 rifles were a big addition to the 138 folks strung along the walls.  There was plenty of room in the convent, Long Barracks and Chapel.  Surely more were coming.

  Crockett fiddled and John McGregor played the pipes.  The plaza filled with Mexican cannonballs.

  In the afternoon Travis had the crew on the 18 pounder fire it downtown into the Mexican headquarters and marshalling area.  The range is about 1000 yards.  The first ball hit the house Santa Anna was using for his command but didn't produce any casualties.  The second went beyond it into the Military Plaza.

  Smith and Martin had the word from Gonzales.  Nobody else was coming from that area.  Fannin was still at Goliad.  No word from Houston.  (Mexican Cavalry intercepted Houston's courier.)

  It's Tuesday, March 1, 1836.

  Santa Anna missed the downtown bombardment while riding around the Alamo checking his positions.  He moved the some Jimenez men closer to block a previously unnoticed path.  The North wall has taken a beating and the Texians are doing what they can.

  The wind finally dropped and the weather improved a bit.  Travis and Bowie agreed with the Mexicans for a three day truce.  It's possible that Santa Anna offered to let newcomer Americans go with their lives but the locals would be treated as rebels.  Some of the women and children who had followed men into the Alamo seem to have left. 

Day Seven: The Hard Passage of Secundino Alvarez.

  The light fades and the pickets go over the wall to watch the night. No careless men and no fools. They take a blanket. Most go tomahawk and pistol. A few take a shotgun. Bill King goes and went last night. He wears two deerskin shirts, moccasines and carries Rutherford's double gun. He slides over the wall like a shadow and you don't hear a thing until he tosses a pebble on top to let you know he is back. Says he sits a different place so the Mexicans won't puzzle him out. Him, Milsap and Navarro trade. Last night he wasn't over the wall an hour when we heard Rutherford's shotgun. One barrel. Cu-Tonk!

  Then nothing. We ran to the wall but on top I could see Milsap motioning with his hand. Stay back. Stay down.

  A fringed deerskin rifle sock hung off the top ladder rung.

  Then it started. Wheezing. Then like a kind of a grunting. "Ump. Ump. Huh." A whispering mumble. Something. "Mio. Mio."

  The parapet filled up with low eyes watching the dark. The water was gurgling down at the river. "Mio. Dios. Aeg. Mumbling. Something....something. Dios."

  "Rutherford's double. One barrel. Best sit tight. King'll be up in a minute." Milsap was whispering.

  But he wasn't. Not that hour. Not as the stars swung around and Jupiter dipped low. I lined my rifle up on the whimpering. The corner battery bunch edged the cannon around. One of the Greys came over and checked his watchface on a blown coal off the fire now and then. Four oclock.

  "Mia. Miodios. Something something. Umph."

  A pebble bounced off the adobe with a click and King stepped out of a blue shadow passing the shotgun up. He came over the wall and flowed down the ladder. Couple people rose from around the glowing firecircle below. Milsap handed him the cup of broth he was sipping.

  "Mexican Scout." King let out a deep breath and shook himself from the chill. "Nearly stepped on me. He's done, just not quite yet. Gawd cold. I thought they might come for him, but they never. It'uz either shoot him or let him under the blanket. Knocked him off in some muddy weeds."

  Dawn began to pick out some treetrunks and King pointed out the place. You could hear him wheezing and see his leg slide up for a minute, then back down. Navarro listened with his hands behind his ears. "He's calling God and his mother."

  By the time the sun came over the East ridge half the fort had been up. Not much to see but you could make him out plain enough. He'd lie still and silent and we would decide he had travelled and then that leg would slide up and he'd start whispering again.

  The day filled with work. The Mexican batteries plonked away. Milsap and King rolled up in two blankets and slept with their faces to the wall. We would check and he would be still. Then we would check again and see that leg move. Quite a debate about putting another ball in him, but it wasn't enough to shoot at. A whole company marched around the East end of the fort past the trees. Esparza called out to the man in a voice you could hear in the downtown plaza but nobody came and never an answer.  Just two wrens in a treetop rasping back and forth.

  "I could stick him," said one of Davy's boys, but nobody moved.

  "Mio. Dios. Diodiohhh."

  We ate dinner and listened as the sun fell. Two of the Greys had bootheeled a big circle out in the plaza and were trying to get bets about how many cannonballs would be inside it by morning. Nobody was much interested.

  Milsap went up at dark out of the firelight to get his night eyes. King went with. Navarro.  King went over with his blanket under his arm. Milsap spit and said, "got dang," and went too. Navarro followed emptyhanded. Knife probably. I heard one little gravel crunch but otherwise they were smoke.

"Dio. Dios. Something. Uhh. Uhh."

  Three minutes later they came rushing back. Dang the noise. Had that man in the blanket. We reached over and hoisted him up, then Navarro. Milsap. King crouched in a shadow and when I looked a second later, the shadow was empty.

  In the room below we rolled the man out of the blanket. His right hand was mangled, gone like he put it over the muzzle and his side a bloody pulp. Smell of entrails and stale blood. Burnt mud. Lung. Maybe both. Navarro whispered to him while Enrique wiped his face. He was grinding his teeth and that leg was clenching still. Bowie's nurse Candalaria leaned into the firelight and squatted down like a man. She took a twig from the fire, popped off the flame on a rock and lifted his jacket with the glowing end.  "Muerto," she said and was gone in a swirl of skirts.

  The parson came and sponged his neck with warm water. We straightened him but he kept rolling on that side and drawing up that leg.

  An hour later Navarro came to the corner room where the fire was still glowing. "He was Secundino Alvarez of San Luis." Nav shrugged a little deeper into his coat. "He had a hard passing."

It was Monday, February 29, 1836.

When the sun came up I went back to the post. The body was rolled in the blanket with blood soaked through the middle. Two cannonballs and a big ring of shrapnel sat in the circle. King was at the cookfire. "If you think I'll say I'm sorry I shot," he said to nobody in particular, "I ain't."

Day Six: Campfire Tales.

  Always a work crew going. Dig the well. Dig a trench. Shore up a platform. Carve a loophole. Stuff a hide and bulldog it into position. The pickets watch while men work.

  One of the Greys is a big man. Taller than Crockett and stout like an ox. They joke that riding out from New Orleans when his horse wore out he just carried it. He's not too smart but he's game and strong and anytime a load has to be shoved over or boosted up they call for Bull.

Of course, then its: "put a little Bull on it." A crew was trying to push a post back into place on the North wall and Esparza was chanting "listo! Bull, listo!" So now it's: "put a little listo on it." He wandered over to look at the well crew and they were saying, "Dawg it! Don't send him down here, we'll never dig him out!"

  Good bunch.

  The worst guy in the company, kind of a mean drunk from down on the coast has dried out. The one man who looks like trouble still fits in. He was sleeping down in the Long Barracks and his snoring drove out the night pickets. One of them stole his hat and when he woke up there was hell to pay. Lots of sand kicked but he when went up top to take his post looking over the cattle pen the dead Mexican leaning on the tree was waving at him. And wearing his hat. He stomped right out there cussing a blue streak. Nevermind the Mexicans shooting.

  Davy gave Bull one of the yellow cats that's always winding around the crowd at the cookfire corner and he's been carrying it around for a couple of days. The cat has taken to sleeping on him. Cottle gigs him about cooking his cat, "say Bull, let's cook that kitty!" And Crocket warns him back: "Don't let Cottle cook that cat now Bull." Bull is always watching Cottle out of the corner of his eye. "Don't cook a kitty, Wash."

  And the stories. Around the campfire day or night there are two or three going. We've heard all the famous ones: Riding a lightning bolt across the river, possum in a whiskey jug, blizzard in the bear's den, grinning the coons out of the hickory. One that really probably happened is about the dogs backing a big mama cougar into a hollow tree and one of Davy's guys saw the tail through a knothole, pulled it out and cut it off with a knife. Davy made him bow and apologize to the catamount and then they leashed up the dogs and left. The boy traded it for drinks in a bar and they said for a year all they heard was stories about a mad giant mama bobcat up the country. Or it would be a drunk in a saloon with the tail talking up some wild story about how HE cut it off. On the packet boat coming up the Arkansas a card player told them their story, except this time it was HIM that treed the cat and cut the tail off. Had the very tail for a hatband. Davy kept pulling a surprised face and saying: "That so? My nevers! You ever heard such a thing Clark?" When all along Clark was the one who had to apologize to the big cat.

  The Greys have some swamp stories: one showed a scar around his wrist where he cut off his hand in a sawmill. Said a black witch doctor put it back on in trade for an alligator hide.

  The Tejanos catch most of it, everyone crowding in while someone winds the yarn. Crockett told a long story about what language horses speak. Says the Arkansaw horse he bought does everything backwards. Go forward is back up, speed up is slow down, hasn't seen a smart horse since Memphis and says the Tejano mustangs look at him funny. One of the Tejanos bunks his horse in the room under the wall where he sleeps. He gave a low whistle and that horse popped right out of that room looking at us. He made it spin, circle right, turn left, back up, with clicks and whispering and little hand signals. He floated his hat out on the ground and the horse picked it up and put it back on his head. Crockett tossed his coon hat out and the horse wrinked up his brow and just looked at it like he was worried. Blew out the whole bunch.

  Horse came up behind Mirelez in the firelight and hung his head over the man's shoulder while he talked. Sweetest love you ever saw.

  Davy can fiddle now and those boys dance. McGregor blows the pipes up and plays with a red face. Even Bull got up and struttin when one of the rancheros who doesn't speak much started whirling a loop and jumping in and out of it. After a minute he roped the coffee cup out of Bill Clark's hand, roped the shako of one of the commandantes. Somebody yelled: "Rope Bull's cat!"

Everybody kind of froze. One of the Tejanos said something in Spanish and they all started laughing, then we all did.

  "You could put a rope on Bull's kitty," said Davy, " But I doubt you could hold it." Bull just glowered at Wash like it was his fault.

  It's Sunday, February 28, 1836.

  The Parson wanted to pray over the stew, since it was Sunday. About the time we all stood up with out hats off and he started rolling we heard the North battery go. You could tell it was their big howitzer putting up a shell: Puh-bloom! The Parson, he didn't QUIT praying, no sir, he speeded up. OurGodinHeavenwhosetendermerciesdecendonallsinfulmen. All of a sudden Davy says AMEN! and everyone scattered.

  We laughed till we were crying.

  Santa Anna killed a courier from Houston and intercepted his letter. 1000 armed men and eight cannons on the way. He sent troops to guard the road, but it's empty to the horizon.

Day Five: Cannonball Stew.

  South view over the fortified main gate.  Crockett and his men along the low palisade with treetops on the ground outside it.  18 pounder on the left lower corner.  Downtown to the left.  North wall at the top.  Chapel on the right.

  Dawn comes with the North wind still whistling at 39 degrees.  Everyone is a windburnt and strung out from waiting and watching for relief and news.  The men are stretched thin to cover the walls so sleep is only done at your post.  The Mexican artillery is lobbing shells in and pounding on the walls.  You have to watch yourself in the open plaza.   Men are digging handy trenches and policing up the scraps for anything useful.  Nearly everyone can identify various Mexican cannons by the shrapnel left behind.  The north gunners must be bored.  They shoot a brass ball, then an iron one, then another brass.  Martial arts.

  In town Santa Anna's quartermasters and cooks are hustling around trying to find supplies to feed the troops.  They packed light on the trip up, for speed and now everyone is hungry.  The town has been stripped of everything the citizens haven't hidden.  Patrols go to the local ranchos to find cattle, pigs, corn.  Anything.  Might have to eat those shoes.

  The Texicans are cooking beef and conserving firewood.  128 fighting men burn through a couple of cows a day, especially in this cold wind, plus corn and beans.  Folks are getting creative around the cookfires as the salt, peppers and vegetable remmnants run out.  Not very fancy cuisine.  Everyone is trying to find a new part of a steer to eat, but it's the same old parts.  The hides are going to make sandbags and barriers to fortify the Long Barracks rooms. 

  Quite a bit of speculation about how to defend if the Mexicans get inside.

  A few housecats lurking around the old mission.  They're eating scraps or hunting mice around the walled compound.  Couple of them are tame enough to pet.  Wash Cottle says he knows how to make cathead soup.  God help us.  Knowing Wash, he might.

  Plenty of jokes about wellwater, beans and going downtown to have a drink.  "The whiskey may be gone," quips Crockett, "but at least our bagpipe player is sober."

  When that damn Fannin rides in he better have a bottle.

  Quite a few stiff bodies on the ground outside.  The East picket searched some when he went out after midnight, passed the weapons back over the wall and then stood one up against a tree as a joke.  His arm is up and he looks like he's waving.  The Tennesseans joke about shooting the cooks first, next time.  Steal their dang spoons and salt.

  Next time.

  Several men coming back across the ditch last night with armfuls of firewood and scroungings when Green Jameson fell.  Mexican balls were popping on the wall and everyone was running hunched over but Esparza leaned back out and hissed, "Verde! Don't drop those onions!"  Cracked us up.

  Couple guys snagged Mexican Besses and shakos when they burning huts.  They insist on wearing them and being addressed as "commandante."  The muskets aren't much.  One of the hats has a .61 caliber hole in it.  They were shooting at each other in the dark.

  The Mexicans are moving batteries closer.  The sappers are digging all night.  The Generalissimo decides the La Villita battery wasn't moved enough and they have to move it up in the daylight.  The rifles pick a few and punch holes in a few more.  One guy shoots a chicken off a post in Plaza Valera and everyone gives him hell about it.  He retorts he's not going to share it when he gets it tonight.      

  The irrigation ditch is finally diverted.  It's all well water now.

  Someone counts the lead bullets and comes up with 19,000+ rounds, but the powder supply is worrisome.

  It's Saturday, February 27th, 1836.

  

  Night falls and the menu is seared beef and tortillas under the 18 pounder platform or two choices of stew and beans in the chapel.  You can get it to go.

Day Four: Water, Wood and Blood.

  128 folks left in the Alamo and one of them plays the bagpipes.  What are the odds?  Scottsman John McGregor and Crockett entertain the troops with fiddle and bags.  The Mexican Army has a bugle and drum corps as well as a brass band.  

  The Texicans were up until early morning hours burning huts, then trying to warm up and get some rest around campfires.  Now that the blue norther has blown in, it's 39 degrees and they realize the need for firewood.  And water.  The Mexicans are trying to divert the irrigation canal the fort has been using.  There is a well inside but the water isn't as good or reliable.  Men are digging it deeper. 

   When they sally to the northwest out of the cattle pens the soldatos maneuver against them.  Snipers with British Baker Rifles try to get position.  The Bakers are good to 270 yards or so.  Serious business.  The rebels are driven in but more Mexicans are killed and wounded than in the La Villita attack yesterday.

  After yesterday and last nights shoot and burnout the Matamoros Battalion set up an entrenched camp in La Villita and is picketing the open land East of the Alamo.  A small battery dug in overnight north across the river and is beating on a crumbly North wall. 

  The batteries have to be moved after dark to avoid Texican gunfire which is deadly out to 200 yards.  They dig all night and then keep to cover during daylight hours.  The .36 caliber long rifles from Tennessee and Kentucky are picking away at the unwary.  The South wall under the watchful eyes of Crockett's men is getting a reputation.

  Two companies of soldiers under General Castrillon are sent closer to check the ground and  Texicans catch them in the open and kill 30.  Picking.

  As darkness falls the defenders come out again, this time to the Southwest toward the river and the Potero bridge to burn houses and collect wood and water.  Col. Juan Bringas attacks, loses a man shot dead, falls off the bridge into the water and is rescued by pure happenstance.

  The rebels range out to the Nueva Street intersection beyond the Matamoros positions in La Villita burning houses.  The same distance would have taken them to their favorite saloons downtown.

  Overnight the North battery moves again, closer.

  The garrison is waiting on relief.  Fannin and the best Texican force are at Goliad, 90 miles East.  Houston is trying to stay sober long enough to hammer out a Declaration of independence at Washington-on-the-Brazos with parts of an army.  Gonzales should be riding to the rescue.  Santa Anna was early but now everyone has the word.  All they have to do is wait.  Help has got to be just a day or two away.

  The Mexicans are getting units, supplies, people up the road every day and sorting themselves out.

  It's Friday, February 26, 1836. 

Update: Bowie had his men, Travis has a company, Crockett brought a hunting party, there are locals.  Two companies calling themselves the New Orleans Greys are in the house.  They have been here since the expulsion of Cos, Santa Anna's brother in law from the town a couple months ago.  Good folks.  Brought their own cannons.  They fly their flag over the Long Barracks.

Day Three: Love and War in La Villita.

  Santa Anna wasn't wasting his ride yesterday.  By 9:30 he had 200-300 Matamoros Battalion troopers deployed and moving toward the Alamo in skirmish lines from La Villita, South of the compound.  The Mexican Artillery supported from the Potero Street battery and a new position with the troops.

  One good push and the rebels might throw down their arms and surrender.

  La Villita and Pueblo Volera were poor villager quarters.  Families and camp followers of the Mexican Army quartered at San Antonio, (before the Texican conquest of the city), lived there to be near the soldatos at the fort.  The skirmish lines broke and reformed as they moved through huts, chicken coops, gardens, outhouses and goat pens.  Surprisingly, there were many people still IN their houses.  The Texicans deployed into trenches outside the Alamo walls and along the parapets.  Crockett was everywhere encouraging men and pointing out targets as the action heated up.

  Matamoros closed to within pistol range before the line wavered and then dissolved.  Two men were shot dead.  The Mexicans broke for cover.  Six more fell wounded.  More Texicans appeared in the trenches, some darting from cover to toss torches on the huts shielding the attackers.  The officers reformed the lines for another assault but it was no use.  Tennessee lead was cracking through the roofs and walls of the houses, cutting twigs, kicking dust.

    As the Mexicans fell back they took cover behind a house with a mother and a daughter who was beautiful enough to give pause to the newcomers.  The mother scorned the soldiers.  She was the widow of a Mexican officer.  Her daughter was not to be gawked at by peasants from Matamoros.  The Mexicans fell back beyond rifle range and began to dig in.  

   Santa Anna heard about the young woman and was intrigued.  Evidently the march North had not only been long, but hard.  He was a Mason, (a step away from a Shriner) and knew the road trip rules: what happens at the Alamo STAYS at the Alamo.  Over the next few days he arranged to have introductions made and, (forgetting about Mrs. Anna and all the Anna-litos back at the Presidential Palace in Mexico), proposed marriage.  One of his Colonels had a joking prankster in his unit, (never seen a brigade without one), who agreed to impersonate a priest and perform the rites.  Before the end of the week he had the young lady safely tucked away in his quarters in town.  When he left to campaign East he would send the girl back to Mexico where she gave birth to a son nine months later.  

  The fog of war.

  Back in La Villita the Texicans were looting huts and burning everything in rifle range of the walls.  Matamoros stayed in cover.  As darkness fell that evening the Texicans came out by horse and foot and burned houses as far as 600 yards.  The Mexicans resisted but fighting broke off at 1:00am as a cold rain began to fall.  The temperature dropped 30 degrees.  A blue norther had arrived.  

 In the rain, smoke and confusion Tejano Juan Seguin left to take the word to Houston at Washington-on-the-Brazos.   He rode Bowie's horse and bluffed his way past a roadblock speaking Spanish.

  Nine men deserted into Mexican trenchworks, bargaining for their lives with the location of a 50 rifle armory hidden in town.  One of those things.

  A Mexican reconnaisance-in-force was detected behind the East side cattlepens and fired on by cannon from the Long Barracks and Chapel.

  The stakes were being raised.  It's Thursday, February 25th, 1836.

Update:  On the yesterday's tour Santa Anna came closest along this South wall.  The main gate had been covered by an external blockhouse but the low barricade at Crockett's position must have looked likely.   Plus: La Villita gave good cover until you got close.

Update II:  Is there a Mexican version of "How I Met Your Mother"?

Update III:  TWO dead?  Six wounded?  Crockett killed 108 bears in one season.  I would have thought the Tennessee boys would have stacked them up like cordwood or men who got bored watching cactus grow over the North wall gotten lucky a time or two.   Must have been awfully good cover.  Missed a real chance to take a bite.

Update IV:  Nine guys decide this is a little too intense.  Self-sorting.  Good time to peel off, while everyone is beyond the walls.  Takes the number down to 137, minus about six people that Travis has out delivering messages to Goliad, Gonzales, and Houston.

  What a company to be in! 

Day Two: Cannon, Corn, Shoes and a Recon.

 San Antonio held 7000 citizens in 1836.  As Mexican troops poured in the town bulged.  Houses were seized for officers and men.  Food, horses, cattle, mules, hay, corn and beans were confiscated for military use.  On the 24th the Mexican Army opened the homes and stores of missing Anglos and sympathizers and inventoried the take.  Santa Anna was out and about by 9:00 overseeing the issue of shoes to some of his lead regiments.  These may have been from stores owned by Texican settlers.

  Mexican artillerymen placed a battery 350 yards from the West, (town) side of the mission just off Potero Street and began a bombardment with two light cannons and a howitzer.  The cannons go to work on the adobe walls, the howitzer lobs grenades over it.

  In the Alamo Bowie had fallen seriously ill.  He was moved to an isolated room off the chapel, probably along the South wall and cared for by a curandero.  He passed joint command of the garrison to Travis.  The Texicans ranged outside the walls searching for supplies in nearby houses and huts.  They found 80 or more bushels of corn and beans.  They already have 30 head of cattle penned up against the east side of the compound.

  At 11:00 Santa Anna took a horseback circuit of the Alamo.  On the South side he passed within musket range of Crockett's position when he rode through La Villita, a little suburb that usually held families of Mexican soldiers assigned to the Alamo.  He sends cavalry to cut the roads leading to Gonzalez and Goliad.  Mexican units are still strung out on the road all the way to the border.

  The rebels had plenty of artillery, but not many cannonballs or powder.  Their 20 pieces were never all mounted at the same time.  They ranged from the 18 pounder down to a ship's gunade (small, short range anti-personnel piece), that had found it's way to the fort.  A Mexican shell hits the 18 pounder and wrecks the carriage.  The Texicans repair it.

  It's Wednesday, February 24, 1836.

  

Update:  The 18 pounder is a monster.  JC Neill and Green Jameson positioned it pointing into town off the southwest corner of the fort.  It's bigger than anything the Mexicans have.  

  It was shipped from New Orleans to Velasco, Texas in Oct, 1835.  A blacksmith mounted it there with two wagon wheels on a carriage.  It is about nine feet long and weighs two tons.

Update II: Bowie has Typhoid fever or something similar.  His wife, children and in-laws had died of a similar illness a few years before.  He's taken to the bottle more and more.  Travis and Bowie have feuded since artilleryman Col. JC Neill (sent to destroy the Alamo but who instead rebuilt it), left to check on his family on Feb 14.  Bowie realizes he is in trouble and turns his volunteers over to Travis.

Update III:  The captured Soldato is deciphering Mexican bugle signals for the Texicans.

Update IV:  Travis assigns Crockett and his Tennesee men a low wall area facing La Villita and adjoining the Chapel on the south side.  It looks like the weak point but they will hold it.  Travis has 146 men at this point, not half enough to man the cannons and the walls.

Update V: People are still moving between the Alamo and town.  The Mexican staff reports they have a spy inside the walls.  Bowie's curandero nurse, Madame Candaleria is suspected.  Travis has sent out several messengers to Houston, Fannin and others.

  

Day One: The Mexicans March in.

Generallisimo Santa Ana.

  Rumors had flown for weeks about when Santa Anna and the Mexican Army might arrive.  Travis and Bowie figured no earlier than mid-March.  When the Texicans struggled out of their hangovers mid-morning Tuesday they found the city streets full of activity- people were packing and leaving.

  The Mexicans were reported to be at Leon Creek, eight miles from town.  Travis still thought it unlikely but he posted a lookout in the bell tower of San Fernando Church on the main plaza.  Just after noon the bell rang but when Travis and others climbed the tower there was nothing in sight.  Travis sent John Smith and Dr. Sutherland out to investigate and they ride into mounted cavalry a mile and a half from town.  

 The Texicans, families and followers retreated to the Alamo, driving some cattle down Potero (now Commerce), street and grabbing all the provisions they could carry.  A few linger to raise a two-starred flag, (Texas and Coahilua), in the military plaza.  Beginning at about 3:00 the Mexican cavalry begins to arrive unit by unit.  They raise a blood red flag with skull and crossbones on the church bell tower and salute the arrival of Santa Anna and his guard with a cannon shot from the military plaza.  Seeing the flag and hearing the shot Travis fires the biggest cannon in the garrison, an 18 pounder.  Bowie sends Green Jameson with a letter to meet with the Mexicans.  Crockett and others come through the gates.

  The Mexican envoys demand unconditional surrender.  Travis replies with a second cannon shot from the big gun.  The Mexicans unlimber a few light artillery pieces and reply.

  Mexican Army units continue to march in and defenders filter into the fort through the night.

  It's Tuesday, February 23rd, 1836.

  Update:  Santa Anna and his army crossed the Rio Grande at Laredo in 15 inches of snow in the middle of a harsh journey.  Several troopers-recruits from tropical Yucatan, died of exposure.  Commanches raided the army all the way up scalping a number of soldiers and stealing supplies cached ahead.  The wagons were driven by contract drivers who operated independently causing many delays.  A large contingent of the soldiers families trailed the army along with various camp followers. 

  Update II:  Dr. Sutherland's horse slipped and fell on him in the mud coming back from spotting the Mexican Cavalry.  The fall injured his knee and broke his rifle in half at the breech.  Travis sends him and John Smith on to Gonzales, (90 miles East) to spread the word.

Update III:  The Esparza family decides to go into the Alamo and arrives at dark.  All the gates are barred.  The father, Enrique has brought chairs and they climb up one by one, (over a cannon) and enter through a high window in the back of the chapel.  

Update IV:  Around midnight Texicans, who know every back alley and outhouse in town, steal six mules and capture a soldato.

Fandango!

  Today and this evening in San Antonio, 177 years ago, the Texican rebels holding San Antonio threw a big fandango, (drunk and dance) celebrating the birthday of George Washington.  Most of the rebels were staying in San Antonio and few in the Alamo Mission itself.  By all accounts it was a hell of a party.  Crockett, Travis, Bowie and lots of folks from distant places who had come to Texas on the rumors of war.

  San Antonio was the biggest and one of the oldest towns in Texas, very exotic and unusual.  To the North and West were the indian tribes and buffalo.  To the south the gulf and plains rolling toward Mexico.  For folks from the East it must have seemed strange and erotic.

  Santa Anna had dispatched a cavalry unit to attack the town in the early hours of the 23rd, but rain, muddy roads and a swollen Medina River held them up.  They would have caught the Texicans sleeping off a night of drinking, eating and dancing.

  The next day there was a rumor that Santa Anna himself attended the fandango to spy on the rebels.

 It was a Monday, in 1836.

Ansel Adams, Cedrick Wright, Virginia Best and others climb Diving Board in Yosemite.

Pretty interesting piece of film.  The Diving Board is right next to the face of Half Dome.  Seldom visited.  They went up the Grizzly Peak gully to start and then to the left along the skyline.  April.  Pretty wild scrambling in the snow.

  I've seen a longer version of this once at the Ansel Adams Gallery in Yosemite.  Chris Johnson and I have been there twice and tried to get up their route.  All three times were overnighters and once we didn't make it, nearly freezing to death without overnight plans or a match to make a fire.  Water is a problem that high, if you don't know where to look for it.  Ansel was only there twice, this trip and once before.  It's a spectacular spot.

Just before dawn.

Sunset with the shadow of North Dome.

Polaroid negative of Ansel Adams in Yosemite, 1974.