William B. Travis - Alamo Command

Alamo Command

Smith ordered Travis to raise a company of professional soldiers to reinforce the Texans at the Alamo Mission in San Antonio. Travis considered disobeying his orders, writing to Smith: "I am willing, nay anxious, to go to the defense of Bexar, but sir, I am unwilling to risk my reputation ... by going off into the enemy's country with such little means, so few men, and with them so badly equipped."

On February 3 Travis arrived in San Antonio with eighteen regulars as reinforcements. On February 12, as the next highest-ranking officer, Travis became the official commander of the Alamo garrison. He took command of the regular soldiers from Col. James C. Neill, of the Texan army. Neill had to leave to care for his ill family, but he promised to be back in twenty days. Meanwhile, the surrounding militia units were asked to volunteer to serve under the regulars. In turn, James Bowie (1795–1836), a noted frontiersmen, soldier, duelist, and notable of the community would command the volunteers as Travis commanded the regulars.

Meanwhile, the Mexican army, under dictator/General Antonio López de Santa Anna, had begun its rapid movement northward and caught the Texans unaware in early February. By the second week of February, Mexican regulars were scouting the Alamo and by February 22 began laying siege to the fort.

The Mexicans began their attack on the mission on February 23, 1836. In a brief letter to the alcalde of Gonzales, Andrew Ponton, Travis wrote: "The enemy in large force is in sight... We want men and provisions ... Send them to us. We have 150 men & are determined to defend the Alamo to the last." In a letter to the Texas Convention, dated March 3, Travis wrote: "...yet I am determined to perish in the defense of this place, and my bones shall reproach my country for her neglect." In Travis' last letter out of the Alamo, which reached the convention the same day on March 3 to David Ayres, he wrote, "Take care of my little boy. If the country should be saved, I may make him a splendid fortune; but if the country should be lost, and I should perish, he will have nothing but the proud recollection that he is the son of a man who died for his country."

On March 6, 1836, following a thirteen-day siege, Santa Anna ordered the assault on the Alamo at the predawn hours. The Mexicans used ladders to climb over the wall’s tops and broke down the fort's outer defenses. After a half-hour of heavy fighting throughout the fort, Travis, Bowie, and most of the defenders were dead. Travis had been killed early in the battle by a single shot to the head. Between 188 and 250 defenders and about 200 Mexican soldiers were killed in the battle.

Travis' personal slave, Joe, who was present during the final assault, stated afterward that he saw Travis stand on the wall and fire into the attackers. He saw Travis shoot and kill a Mexican soldier climbing over the wall from a ladder, with Travis falling immediately afterward.

When Santa Anna came into the fort he asked the alcalde of San Antonio, Francisco A. Ruiz, to identify the bodies of the rebel leaders to him. Ruiz later said that the body of Travis was found on a gun carriage on the north wall. Within a few hours of the final gunshots being fired, Santa Anna ordered a company of soldiers to gather wood and burn all the Texans' bodies. By five o'clock that evening, the bodies of Travis, Crockett, Bowie and Bonham, were burned along with the other rebels.