The Blood of Heroes: The 13-Day Struggle for the Alamo--and the Sacrifice That Forged a Nation by James Donovan Page A
Authors: James Donovan
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next few years, and became much better acquainted with Texas and Ursula. By early 1831, he moved there for good. He became a Mexican citizen, fluent in Spanish, and the tentative owner of almost a million acres of land, largely through the engineered—but legal—purchase of more than a dozen eleven-league grant leases, available only to Mexican citizens.
That was also the year Bowie engineered another advantageous acquisition. In April, he married Ursula Veramendi in Béxar’s Church of San Fernando. The groom was thirty-five, his bride nineteen, but it appeared to be a love match for both. Bowie was now related to one of the most powerful families in the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas.
After living in a few different rented houses, in early 1832 the couple moved into the modest Veramendi mansion in town. Over the next few years Bowie spent more time on the road than he did at home, working in various mercantile activities and nursing his land grants along toward confirmation, always after a bigger score. He had heard stories of the fabled silver mines in the San Saba hills to the northwest, and in November 1831, accompanied by his brother Rezin and nine other men, traveled one hundred miles to the area of the mines. He took with him a thirteen-year-old boy named Carlos Espalier, a mulatto orphan that he and Ursula had informally adopted into their home.
Six weeks after leaving, the party was attacked by a band of 124 Indians. Over the course of ten hours, besieged in a grove of trees behind a makeshift breastwork of saddles, packs, and rocks, the men withstood a furious series of assaults. When the Indians finally left the area, one of Bowie’s men lay dead and three others were wounded. They estimated thirty Indians killed and forty injured, and even if these numbers were exaggerated, the losses Bowie’s men inflicted were impressive. A small band of Texians in a crude fort had withstood odds better than ten to one.
As word spread of the battle, James Bowie’s reputation as a fighter and a leader of men increased. He was a man to be reckoned with, one who could impose his will on a situation, no matter how dire. If the Sandbar Fight had made him famous, this clash made him a Texian to whom others looked for direction and leadership.
O VER THE NEXT FEW YEARS , Bowie seemed always to be on the move. His peregrinations encompassed business dealings in Saltillo, the state capital; far-ranging expeditions into the wilderness in search of hostile Indians—and gold and silver; and on to San Felipe, Brazoria, and other points farther east, such as New Orleans. And of course, he made trips back to his kin in Louisiana, where he found most of his holdings gone. In addition, an 1833 U.S. Supreme Court ruling would negate the Bowie claims in Arkansas, further depleting his assets.
As events in his new country edged it closer toward outright rebellion, Bowie followed suit. After the Travis-instigated takeover at Anahuac in the spring of 1832, similar disturbances erupted at Nacogdoches and the port city of Matamoros. In July, when Stephen Austin needed a man he could count on, he asked Bowie to ride with all due haste to Nacogdoches to defuse a volatile situation involving, again, a confrontation between a fed-up citizenry and a Mexican garrison: the military commander there had demanded that the locals surrender their arms. Their refusal to do so was predictable and justified, since they would have been left with no defense against Indians. Bowie arrived in town one day too late to prevent a skirmish between the two hundred soldiers and three hundred Texians, but when the Mexicans evacuated that night, Bowie took control. He chose twenty men to accompany him in pursuit of the garrison troops. After some clever tactical maneuvering, he returned the next day with two hundred prisoners, who were escorted to Béxar and eventually returned to Mexico.
Bowie spent little time with his young bride, but she bore him two
That was also the year Bowie engineered another advantageous acquisition. In April, he married Ursula Veramendi in Béxar’s Church of San Fernando. The groom was thirty-five, his bride nineteen, but it appeared to be a love match for both. Bowie was now related to one of the most powerful families in the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas.
After living in a few different rented houses, in early 1832 the couple moved into the modest Veramendi mansion in town. Over the next few years Bowie spent more time on the road than he did at home, working in various mercantile activities and nursing his land grants along toward confirmation, always after a bigger score. He had heard stories of the fabled silver mines in the San Saba hills to the northwest, and in November 1831, accompanied by his brother Rezin and nine other men, traveled one hundred miles to the area of the mines. He took with him a thirteen-year-old boy named Carlos Espalier, a mulatto orphan that he and Ursula had informally adopted into their home.
Six weeks after leaving, the party was attacked by a band of 124 Indians. Over the course of ten hours, besieged in a grove of trees behind a makeshift breastwork of saddles, packs, and rocks, the men withstood a furious series of assaults. When the Indians finally left the area, one of Bowie’s men lay dead and three others were wounded. They estimated thirty Indians killed and forty injured, and even if these numbers were exaggerated, the losses Bowie’s men inflicted were impressive. A small band of Texians in a crude fort had withstood odds better than ten to one.
As word spread of the battle, James Bowie’s reputation as a fighter and a leader of men increased. He was a man to be reckoned with, one who could impose his will on a situation, no matter how dire. If the Sandbar Fight had made him famous, this clash made him a Texian to whom others looked for direction and leadership.
O VER THE NEXT FEW YEARS , Bowie seemed always to be on the move. His peregrinations encompassed business dealings in Saltillo, the state capital; far-ranging expeditions into the wilderness in search of hostile Indians—and gold and silver; and on to San Felipe, Brazoria, and other points farther east, such as New Orleans. And of course, he made trips back to his kin in Louisiana, where he found most of his holdings gone. In addition, an 1833 U.S. Supreme Court ruling would negate the Bowie claims in Arkansas, further depleting his assets.
As events in his new country edged it closer toward outright rebellion, Bowie followed suit. After the Travis-instigated takeover at Anahuac in the spring of 1832, similar disturbances erupted at Nacogdoches and the port city of Matamoros. In July, when Stephen Austin needed a man he could count on, he asked Bowie to ride with all due haste to Nacogdoches to defuse a volatile situation involving, again, a confrontation between a fed-up citizenry and a Mexican garrison: the military commander there had demanded that the locals surrender their arms. Their refusal to do so was predictable and justified, since they would have been left with no defense against Indians. Bowie arrived in town one day too late to prevent a skirmish between the two hundred soldiers and three hundred Texians, but when the Mexicans evacuated that night, Bowie took control. He chose twenty men to accompany him in pursuit of the garrison troops. After some clever tactical maneuvering, he returned the next day with two hundred prisoners, who were escorted to Béxar and eventually returned to Mexico.
Bowie spent little time with his young bride, but she bore him two
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