The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1857-02-11

to the Alamo. A sheet of fame, from
the rifles that never failed, ia the answer
to the charge. The infantry recoil and
fall back upon the cavalry, their ranks
broken and disordsred by the deadly
Ere of the besieged. The shouts from
the fort are mingled with the groans of
the wounded and dying on the plain,
while the officers are endeavoring to re-
form their scattered masses. They re-
turn to the attack, but the leaden show
er which they again encounter fells them
to the earth by ~platoons.
Travis shows himself on the walls,
cheering his cool, undaunted followers.
Around him are Crockett, Evans and
Borham, roured to the last struggle, for
they know their doom is sealed. In quick
succession rife after rife in discharged,
sending hundreds to their long account.
The Mexicaus are again repulsed they
fall back dismayed and disheartened by
thedead and dying around them. The
battalion of Toluca, the flower of Santa
Anna's army, is reduced from four hun
dred to tWenty-three. Men have be-
come for a moment regardless Of their
officers, and are almost delirious from
the cries, of anguish of their fallen and
expiring comrades, yielding to the iDfu-
ence which no discipline can restrain and
no efforts repress. But the breach now
appears practicable; the disjointed for
ces, by the aid of threats and entreat-
les, are rallied, and once more return to
the assault. The fire from the Alamo
has, for some time, been growing slow
err and slower. Rifles have dropped
from many a vigorous hand, now cold in
death, while others cling to their weap-
ons ven in the agonies of dissolution.
Ammunition, too, has been failing one
by one the muzzles drop: and ere the
last rife is loaded and discharged, the
Mexicans gain the wall. Fearfully con-
spicuous in hat awful moment, Travis
receives a shot, staggers, and falls.
He dies not unavenged. A Mexican
officer rushes upon him and is about to
plunge his sabre into the bosom of the
fallen man, when, gathering his remain
ing energies for a desperate effort, he
battles the sword to which he still clings
in the blood of his enemy, and they die
together.
In the mean time the conflict has be-
come hand to hand, and has been raging
hot and thick. The Mexicans have
poured into the citadel like famished
wolves, furious for their prey. Each
man struggles with his adversary with
the energy Of despair dealing the
death-stroke with rifles, sabres, or what
ever missiles may be within reach. The
Texans are almost buried beneath the
numbers of their opponents. The car
mage mas been SO terrible that the slain
are piled up in heaps. Death stares
each survivor in the face, yet still he
struggles on, Crockett has been con-
spicuous in the melee wherever the
blows fell hottest and fastest. He has
forced his way over piles of the dead
bodies of his enemies, and has reached
the door of the chapel. Here he de.
termines to make his last stand. At
one glance of his eye he sees that the
fate of the Alamo rests upon himself
alone, and that fate nothing can avert.
Travis has fallen; Evans is no more
Bowie expires upon a bed of sickness,
pierced to the heart by a Mexican bay.
ouet; Borham falls directly before him,
and he finds himself the only living war
rior of the one hundred and sixty-three
who had been his companions. Perhaps
at that moment the life blood creeps to
his heart by a natural impulse; but il
is only for a moment. The desperation
of his position sends it back with the
force of an avalanche. His foes glare
on him with the ierceness of demons
and assault him with blows from mus.
kets, %lances, and sabres The strength
of a hundred men seems concentrated in
his single arm, as he deals out death tc
his p%itiless and unsparing assailants.-
There bodies have grown into a rampant
before him. Blackened with fire and
smoke, besmeared ith blood, and reused
into phrenzy, he stands like some tabled
god of antiquity, laughing to scorn the
malice and the power and the fury of his
enemies. New fire flashes from his eye
and new vigor nerves his arm. On his
assailants rush, but it is upon death
certain, and immediate. They fall, but
their places are still supplied, and SC
quickly the dead seem to rise up before
him like armed men from the teeth oil
Cadmus. At length a ball, from an un.
seen rife, pierces him in the forehead
he falls backward to the earth in the
streams of gore which curdle around
him. No groan escapes his lips, no err
of agony gratifes the implacable rancoi
of his enemies. He dies, and the Ala.
mo has fallen.
Tell me at what hour a man break.
fasts, and 1 will tell you what his avoca.
E;aD io