The Somerset herald and farmers' and mechanics' register. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 183?-1852, 1846-10-20
THE DEFENCE OFTHE ALAMO
IN HS2R


LETTER FRoK AN OFFICER OF THE Army
To HIS FRIEND IN NORTH CAROLINA.
CoMMUNcATED TO THE NATIONAL IN
TELIGENCER.
San Antonio de Bexar, CFexas)
August "a, 1916.
On the 18th instant wrote YOU very
driel letter announcing my arrival at this
place. We are so far removed from the
United States that intercourse is almost
prohibited. Mails are so irregular that
no reliance is to be placed on them, and
private expresses to La Baca, and thence
to New Orleans, by any vessel that offers
form the most common means of trans
mission. This place is very different
from any in the Republic as it was, and
the houses and streets are not more extra
ordinary than the habits and appearance
of the people. The most interesting OBJ
jeet, however, in the vicinity, is the Alamo.
1t is now shapeless mass of ruins. The
chapel is delaced and broken down, and
the walls of the forl are fast crumbling to
decay. Time and the elements have al
most completed what the Mexican artil-
lerv commenced. and the Coliseum of
Texas will soon form but shattered and
mournful monument of its own exist
ence.
On the 23d day of February, 1896,
Santa Anna entered San Antonio de BeX-
ar, and took possession of the town with
out firing a gun. The small garrison Of
one hundred and thirty men, under COM
mand OF William Barret Travis, retired,
as he advanced, to the Alamo, on the op-
1osite side of the river. determined there
to offer whatever resistance to the pro-
gress Of the tvrant that God and their own
energies should permit. Flushed with
the conquest, so easily effected of the
town, the Mexican General prepared for
an immediate attack upon the Alamo. He
ordered breastworks to be thrown up on
every commanding point, and artillery TO
be planted wherever 1t could be made
most effective. One battery was compile
ted on the right bank of the river by the
18th. and on this day the siege commen-
ccd.
1t is dark and gloomy morning, devo-
ted to n dark and unholy purpose. Ex-
ulting in the work of death upon which
he is entering. Santa Anna crosses the
river. the better to behold the success of
his designs, and establishes his head quar-
tiers in small stone building vet stand
ing. The signal is given, and, ere the
sun has risen npOn the scene. the roar of
artillery from the Mexican battery AVA
kens the echoes far and wide, and rouses
from their slumbers the vet sleeping IN
habitants. But the defenders of the Al
amo have not sight for a single moment
of their willy and remorseless enemy:
they watch the studied gun; they see the
match lighted; they listen, breathless, as
/ if even at that distance they could hear
/ the command to fire: and when it does
come, and the walls of the citadel tremble
under the shock of the iron hail, and the
I fragments OF stone are whirled aloft by
the sudden impulse, they send back a
shout of defiance, mingled with a dis
charge from their own guns, almost as
deafenng as the thunder Of their assail-
ants. Before the smoke rolls away, and
the reverberations are lost in the distance,
while the shouts of the bcsieged still lin
ger on the ears Of the besiegers, the can
nonade is renewed, and for seven hours
fiercely continued upon the walls of the
! Alamo. But these walls yield no more
than the spirits of their defenders. The
fire is steadily returned; and, though stones
are shivered around them, there are stout
hearts and willing hands ready to repair
every breach, and to restore from the in
terror whatever NAV have been destroyed
from without Earth is thrown up; every
crack or fissure closed as fast as created
bv the eager efforts Of those who will per.
nit no evidence of success to cheer the
hopes of their enemy. The sun has al
most sunk behind the western plains when
there is pause in the work of demolition
The firing ceases ior the dav by order o
the Mexican commander, with his thirs
for blood unsatisied. for not a single droT
has fallen within the Alamo. Many o
his own men have bit the dust before tht
artilIerists and riffemen of the fort; bu
thus far they are unavenged. Darkness
falls upon besieger and besiged, the for
mer raise new-entrenchments to prose
cute the assault:the latter establish awatcE
for the night, anil endeavor to seek tha
rypose which shall give them fresh vigo
for the contest " hich they know will CONS
tomorrow.