The Blood of Heroes: The 13-Day Struggle for the Alamo--and the Sacrifice That Forged a Nation by James Donovan Page B
Authors: James Donovan
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children, who died soon after birth. When an outbreak of cholera spread across the Mississippi Valley and then farther west into Texas, he was bedridden in Natchez with a bout of malaria. He was still recuperating early in November when he received news of Ursula’s death in Monclova, where her family had fled from the cholera. Ursula, her mother, her father, and her adopted brother all died from the disease within days of reaching the city. The Bowies had been married for only two and a half years.
The news almost destroyed the weakened Bowie, and although he made a complete recovery, at least physically, more than one man would detect tears in his eyes when his late wife’s name was mentioned. When he was able, he left Natchez and returned to Béxar in early 1834. After a months-long expedition into far north Texas, in June he traveled to Monclova, the new capital of Coahuila y Tejas, where he eventually amassed—legally, though aided by a few corrupt politicians—more than half a million acres of Texas land. If the Mexican immigration laws loosened up, Bowie could make a fortune in sales to immigrants, even without the eleven-league leases. He spent almost a year in Monclova, wheeling and dealing with several other speculators.
When Santa Anna, now virtually a dictator, got wind of the massive land grabs effected by Bowie and other speculators, he had their claims annulled, and Bowie and several others were arrested in late May 1835 and taken to Matamoros. A couple of weeks later Bowie and his friend Blas Despallier escaped when their captors relaxed their guard. They made their way overland to Texas, eventually reaching Nacogdoches in October.
Bowie’s treatment at the hands of the Mexican authorities—and, undoubtedly, the loss of his potential fortune—pushed him further toward those clamoring for war and independence. Santa Anna’s decision to reopen the customs houses in Texas and enforce the collection of import duties had been unpopular with a populace increasingly at odds with their Mexican hosts. After Travis seized the Anahuac garrison, Texian settlements large and small began to organize local militias in preparation for a major confrontation that appeared increasingly inevitable. Within days of Bowie’s arrival in Nacogdoches, a hundred men gathered in the town square and elected Bowie “colonel” of their hastily formed militia, an honorary rank often bestowed upon a leader of a group of armed men in the South—and a recognition of a man’s leadership, charisma, and popularity, qualities Bowie possessed in spades.
He and his men marched to a warehouse the Mexicans used as an armory and broke in, arming themselves with muskets. Nothing came of it; the majority of the locals seemed less than excited about the idea of armed revolt. But a week or so later, Bowie learned of the whereabouts of dispatches directed to the Mexican consul in New Orleans. He engineered the packet’s seizure, then read the letters aloud before a town meeting in the Nacogdoches public square. Besides arrest orders for Travis and his cohorts, the dispatch discussed the possibility of a military occupation of Texas—news that pushed the enraged townsmen closer to action.
By late summer Bowie was on the road again, this time eastward, to his old stomping grounds in Louisiana. After several weeks spent visiting friends and talking up investment schemes, he returned to east Texas by early October with some associates. He had been there barely a week or two, tying up loose business ends, when the news arrived of an outbreak of hostilities in Gonzales, and a Texian army mobilizing for action. That was all Jim Bowie needed. He and his companions saddled up and rode west.
FOUR
“The Burly Is Begun”
Nothing but the certainty of hard fighting, and that shortly, could have kept us together so long.
B URR D UVAL
T he settlers of empresario Green DeWitt’s colony, immediately west of Austin’s colony, and DeWitt’s
The news almost destroyed the weakened Bowie, and although he made a complete recovery, at least physically, more than one man would detect tears in his eyes when his late wife’s name was mentioned. When he was able, he left Natchez and returned to Béxar in early 1834. After a months-long expedition into far north Texas, in June he traveled to Monclova, the new capital of Coahuila y Tejas, where he eventually amassed—legally, though aided by a few corrupt politicians—more than half a million acres of Texas land. If the Mexican immigration laws loosened up, Bowie could make a fortune in sales to immigrants, even without the eleven-league leases. He spent almost a year in Monclova, wheeling and dealing with several other speculators.
When Santa Anna, now virtually a dictator, got wind of the massive land grabs effected by Bowie and other speculators, he had their claims annulled, and Bowie and several others were arrested in late May 1835 and taken to Matamoros. A couple of weeks later Bowie and his friend Blas Despallier escaped when their captors relaxed their guard. They made their way overland to Texas, eventually reaching Nacogdoches in October.
Bowie’s treatment at the hands of the Mexican authorities—and, undoubtedly, the loss of his potential fortune—pushed him further toward those clamoring for war and independence. Santa Anna’s decision to reopen the customs houses in Texas and enforce the collection of import duties had been unpopular with a populace increasingly at odds with their Mexican hosts. After Travis seized the Anahuac garrison, Texian settlements large and small began to organize local militias in preparation for a major confrontation that appeared increasingly inevitable. Within days of Bowie’s arrival in Nacogdoches, a hundred men gathered in the town square and elected Bowie “colonel” of their hastily formed militia, an honorary rank often bestowed upon a leader of a group of armed men in the South—and a recognition of a man’s leadership, charisma, and popularity, qualities Bowie possessed in spades.
He and his men marched to a warehouse the Mexicans used as an armory and broke in, arming themselves with muskets. Nothing came of it; the majority of the locals seemed less than excited about the idea of armed revolt. But a week or so later, Bowie learned of the whereabouts of dispatches directed to the Mexican consul in New Orleans. He engineered the packet’s seizure, then read the letters aloud before a town meeting in the Nacogdoches public square. Besides arrest orders for Travis and his cohorts, the dispatch discussed the possibility of a military occupation of Texas—news that pushed the enraged townsmen closer to action.
By late summer Bowie was on the road again, this time eastward, to his old stomping grounds in Louisiana. After several weeks spent visiting friends and talking up investment schemes, he returned to east Texas by early October with some associates. He had been there barely a week or two, tying up loose business ends, when the news arrived of an outbreak of hostilities in Gonzales, and a Texian army mobilizing for action. That was all Jim Bowie needed. He and his companions saddled up and rode west.
FOUR
“The Burly Is Begun”
Nothing but the certainty of hard fighting, and that shortly, could have kept us together so long.
B URR D UVAL
T he settlers of empresario Green DeWitt’s colony, immediately west of Austin’s colony, and DeWitt’s
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