The Alamo 1836: Santa Anna's Snow March, Friendly Fire and Bowie's Sickbed

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In 1835 Mexico repealed its federalist Constitution of 1824 for a centralized republic and moved to enforce laws long ignored in Texas, where immigrants from the United States had doubled in number by 1834 despite an 1830 ban. Though slavery was illegal in Mexico, about 5,000 enslaved people lived in Texas by 1836. Some Tejanos joined the revolt seeking a return to the 1824 constitution. The Tornel Decree of late 1835 declared foreign fighters pirates who would receive no quarter. The Alamo, a former Spanish mission sprawling over about three acres with roughly 1,320 feet of perimeter, never held more than about 200 to 250 defenders under the uneasy shared command of William B. Travis and James Bowie.

General Antonio López de Santa Anna marched more than 6,000 men inland through record snow and arrived on February 23, 1836, raising a red no-quarter flag. Bowie fell ill on the second day, and Colonel James Fannin's relief column from Goliad turned back after less than a mile. Refusing to wait for heavy guns due March 7, Santa Anna attacked before dawn on March 6 with about 1,800 men in four columns. Weeks later, Sam Houston's army routed him at San Jacinto in 18 minutes.

• Most of the garrison was in town at a fiesta for George Washington's birthday when the Mexican army arrived.
• Conscripts at the back of the dense columns fired blindly in the dark, causing heavy friendly fire casualties.
• Lacking canister, the Texians loaded their cannon with chopped horseshoes, nails, and door hinges.
• General Juan Amador climbed the patched north wall and opened a door, letting the Mexican army into the compound.
• No 1836 source records Travis drawing a line in the sand, and Santa Anna had five to seven surrendered Texians executed while sparing Susanna Dickinson, her daughter, and Joe, an enslaved man.