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454 GENERAL TAYLOR'S VICTORY AT BUENA VISTA.

GENERAL TAYLOR'S VICTORY AT BUENA VISTA.

The Most Gallant Exploit of the Mexican War, that Made Old
Rough and Ready President.

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ENERAL WINFIELD SCOTT arrived off Vera Cruz in January, 1846, and assumed command of the American forces in Mexico. He had come to carry out the suggestion of General Zachary

Taylor that Vera Cruz should be captured and made the point from which a strong force should penetrate into Mexico. To do this effectively, Scott took most of Taylor's best officers and troops, leaving him with less than 5,000 men, of whom not more than one-tenth were regulars. This reduction of his effective strength was a severe blow to Taylor, who was preparing to make a vigorous campaign, but he submitted without protest.

Santa Anna had gathered an army of twenty thousand men, full of enthusiasm, and eager to be led against the "northern barbarians.". When Taylor learned that his enemy was approaching, he was exultant, and with his small army he set out to meet him. Santa Anna's Big He left Monterey on the 31st of January, arriving at Crush Taylor. Saltillo on the 2d of February. Pressing on to Aqua

Army sent to

Nueva, twenty miles south of Saltillo, on the San Luis road, he remained nearly three weeks, when he fell back to Augustina, a gorge in the mountains opposite Buena Vista. Here with his army of barely five thousand men, Taylor strengthened his position and calmly awaited the coming of his antagonist.

On the morning of February 22, the armies were almost within sight of each other. A flag of truce entered the American camp, with the following message from the Mexican commander to General Taylor:

You are surrounded by twenty thousand men, and cannot, in any human probability, avoid suffering a rout and being cut to pieces with your troops; but, as you deserve consideration and particular esteem, I wish to save you from such a catastrophe, and for that purpose give you notice, in order that you may surrender at discretion, under the assurance that you will be treated with the consideration belonging to the Mexican character; to which end you will be granted an hour's time to make up your mind, to commence from the moment my flag of truce arrives at your camp. With this view, I assure you of my particular consideration. God and liberty I

ANTONIO LOPEZ DE SANTA ANNA.

GENERAL TAYLOR'S VICTORY AT BUENA VISTA.

455

The messenger did not have to wait an hour to take back the following from "Rough and Ready:"

SIR:-In reply to your note of this date, summoning me to surA Laconic Answer render my forces at discretion, I beg leave to say that I decline acceding to your request. With high respect, I am, sir, your obedient servant, Z. TAYLOR.

Taylor waited for Santa Anna to begin the battle. Well aware of the desperate resistance he was certain to meet, the Mexican leader was cautious. There was some skirmishing through the afternoon and night. Although it was winter, the weather was soft and balmy, and the music of the Mexican bands, mellowed by the intervening distance, floated to the Americans who were sleeping upon their arms and formed a strange prelude to the terrible scenes that were to be enacted on the morrow.

"A Little More Grape."

It was hardly light when the battle began and raged furiously throughout the day. An attempt was made to turn the flank of the American right, but it was defeated by the Illinois troops. An assault against the centre was then repulsed by Captain Washington's artillery, after which the left flank was assailed furiously. An Indiana regiment, through a mistaken order, gave way, and for a time the American army was in peril, but the Mississippians and Kentuckians threw themselves into the breach, the Indiana and Illinois troops rallied, and the Mexicans were driven back. General Taylor, standing near Captain Bragg's battery, saw just then signs of wavering in the enemy's line. "Give them a little more grape, Captain," he commanded, and Bragg did as he was ordered. At sunset, the Mexicans broke and fled in confusion. The Americans slept on their arms, expecting the battle to be renewed in the morning, but when daylight came it was discovered that the army had disappeared, leaving five hundred dead and dying on the ground. Many were suffering from hunger, thirst and exhaustion, and General Taylor gave them all the care possible. The Mexicans lost about two thousand men, the American casualties being seven hundred and forty-six. Among the killed was Colonel Henry Clay, a son of the Kentucky statesman. Colonel Jefferson Davis, in command of a Mississippi regiment, displayed great gallantry. The fame won by General Taylor at Buena Vista made him President of the United States within the following two years. It was the last battle in which he ever took part. He had nobly finished the task assigned to him, and soon after returned to the United States.

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456

FOR TEXAS INDEPENDENCE.

FOR TEXAS INDEPENDENCE.

Story of the Most Terrible Battle ever Fought on American Soil.

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BY SENORA CANDELARIA, A WITNESS.

"Thermopylæ had its messenger of defeat, but the Alamo had none."

ENORA CANDELARIA, who died in San Antonio, Tex., on February 10, 1899, at the great age of 114 years, was the sole survivor of the Alamo. She alone could tell how Travis, Crockett, Bowie and 114

other heroes defended the old mission house for fifteen days against 5,000 Mexican regulars, led by the ferocious Santa Anna; how they held the Mexicans in check so that the Texans might rally to the defense of their homes; how they fought until they were overwhelmed and annihilated, and won this immortal legend for their monument:

“Thermopylæ had its messenger of defeat, but the Alamo had none." Three days before her death Senora Candelaria told the tragic story of the fiercest fight ever waged on American soil. Notwithstanding the great age of this extraordinary woman her mental faculties were singularly clear, her memory was unimpaired and her powers of description were remarkable, as the story taken from her lips and recorded here shows, constituting one of the most valuable contributions to history that was ever made.

"Yes, it is true that I was in the Alamo during its siege and terrible fall, and I am the only survivor of that awful struggle.

"Colonel Bowie died in my arms, shot dead by a Mexican bullet that grazed my own chin. Good old Davy Crockett died fighting like a wild beast within a few feet of me, and brave Colonel Travis within a few feet the other way, while all around in heaps lay the dead bodies of every man who had defended the Alamo, tumbled together with three dead Mexicans to every one of them.

"I was in the fort as a nurse for Colonel Bowie. I was living in San Antonio, near by. Five days after the cannonading began in the fort-I can never forget that frightful, incessant rumble of guns!-five days after it began I received a letter from General Sam Houston, which I took as an order and obeyed immediately. It read:

""Candelarita,' as General Houston always called me, 'go and take care of Bowie, my brother, in the Alamo.' It was signed 'Houston.' Bowie had typhoid fever,"

FOR TEXAS INDEPENDENCE.

457

Mme. Candelaria briefly recalled the events that led up to the tragedy and sketched the heroic men that figured in it. The commander of the

The Alamo

garrison, Lieutenant-Colonel W. Barrett Travis, was a native of North Carolina, twenty-eight years old, six feet

Besieged; the

Beginning of War. tall, a lawyer. He was on the proscribed list of Santa

Anna. The second in command was Colonel James Bowie, famous as the inventor of the knife which bears his name. He was a native of Georgia. David Crockett was a native of Tennessee and a typical frontiersman, famous as a mighty hunter. He was elected for two terms in the House of Representatives, where he figured as a sort of eccentric. Failing a third term, he went to Texas. With twelve Tennesseeans he arrived in San Antonio three weeks before the siege of the Alamo.

Determined to subjugate Texas, Santa Anna had pushed on through Mexico to San Antonio, appearing before the Texas city on February 22, 1836. After consolidating with Cos and Sesma, Santa Anna's army numbered between six and seven thousand men. This force had been depleted to about five thousand during the hard winter march.

The small Texan garrison at San Antonio was taken by surprise and it hastily retreated across the river to the Alamo, Lieutenant A. M. Dickenson catching up his wife and child on his horse on the way.

Santa Anna's demand for immediate surrender was answered by Colonel Travis with an emphatic "No" from a cannon. The blood-red flag of "no quarter" was hoisted on the tower of the church of San Fernando and the siege was begun.

The mission of the Alamo was established by the Franciscan friars where it then stood, and still stands, in 1722. The buildings consisted of a church with walls of hewn stone 5 feet thick and 2212 feet high. The church faced the river and the town. The central portion was roofless at the time of the siege, but arched rooms on each side of the entrance and the sacristy, which was used as a powder magazine, were strongly covered with a roof of masonry. The windows were high, close and narrow, to protect the congregation from Indian arrows.

Adjoining the church was the convent yard, a hundred feet square, with walls 16 feet high and 32 feet thick, on the inside embanked by earth to half their height. At the further corner of the convent yard was a sallyport, defended by a small redoubt. The convent and hospital building, of adobe bricks, two stories in height, extended along the west side of the yard 191 feet. The main plaza in front of the church and convent covered nearly three acres. It was enclosed by a wall 8 feet high and 33 inches thick.

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FOR TEXAS INDEPENDENCE.

To defend this place Travis had fourteen pieces of artillery, but none of the Texans had been drilled in their use.

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It was impossible to perfectly

The Heroic Defence; the

guard so wide a space, so the defence was concentrated about the church and convent. Travis had been careless about provisions. Only three bushels of corn were found Devoted Garrison. at first in the Alamo, but some eighty or ninety bushels

were afterward discovered in one of the houses. When it took refuge in the Alamo the garrison numbered 145 men, which was increased during the siege to 177 men. Few as they were in number, the men were without military organization and were held together only by a common heroic purpose.

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Santa Anna erected batteries and prepared to make a long siege, rather than trust the results of an assault upon the stronghold. The defenders were equally cautious, and, husbanding their ammunition, made little use of their cannon, placing their reliance in the rifle, which they knew so well how to handle. General Castrillon attempted to build a bridge across the river, but the constructing party was within reach of the rifles of the Texans, and in a few minutes thirty were killed and the survivors withdrew.

Little by little the Mexicans advanced, fighting during the day and pushing forward during the night, until the investment was nearly complete. On March 3 Travis sent his last message to the government. In it he said:

I am still here, in fine spirits and well-to-do. With 145 men I have held the place against a force variously estimated from between fifteen hundred to six thousand, and I shall continue to hold it until I get relief from my countrymen, or I will perish in its defence. We have had a shower of bombs and cannon balls continually falling among us the whole time, yet none of us have been injured. A blood-red flag waves from the church of Bexar and in the camp above us, in token that the war is one of vengeance against rebels. These threats huve had no influence upon my men but to make them fight with desperation and that highsouled courage which characterizes the patriot who is willing to die in defence of his country, iberty and his honor, God and Texas, victory or death.

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The Mexicans had effected little by their cannonade, their guns being only field pieces of light calibre. The Texans, however, were worn by constant vigilance and frequent alarms in expectation of an assault.

After the last of Santa Anna's troops had arrived, on March 2, they took three days to rest. On the fifth the Mexican general held a council of war and determined on an assault the next day. In the meantime, Madame Candelaria had entered the Alamo to nurse Colonel Bowie.

"After fighting like a demon for ten days," continued the centenarian, every muscle in her wrinkled face twitching as she warmed up to the most tragic part of her story, "brave Colonel Travis got word that no more men

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