Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1881-03-24
A GREEN COUNTY GIRL.

|. Texans confess keen interest in facts af
fecting the history and fortunes of David
Crockett. San Antonio is indebted for much
of its fame to that of the heroic martyr to
liberty, who fell in the thickest Of the fight
within the Alamo. Have you listened to the
simplest recital of the facts given by Mrs. Han.
mig. formerly Mrs. Dickinson, nee Wilkerson,
in Green county, Georgia? She went, when
very young, to Bolivar, Hardeman Co., Tenn.
When hardly sixteen she married Dickenson,
New England tradesman, and in 1885,
went to Texas. When the revolt occurred
and Mexican invasion was threatened, Dick
enson removed his youthful wife to San An.
tonic. When Santa Anna appeared before
the little city one bright spring morning in
1886, Dickenson, who was lieutenant or a
captain in local company, mounted mus
tang, with his wife behind him, and child six
months old seated on his lap. He enter
tered the Alamo He and his wife had an
apartment given them in the basement of the
stone church. Crockett occupied an adjoin-
ing room Here, when not engaged in load.
ing and firing sort of "long Tom," primi.
tive l8.pounder, he was accustomed to saw
his fiddle and abhor confinement within stone
walls. He was impatient of imprisonment,
and always anxious to have fight with the
Mexicans in an open field, where he might use
his native weapon, Betsy" his old fashioned
soap stick rifle. Through ten days, Mrs. Han.
mig was within the Alamo, encountering
Crockett almost hourly till the last day of the
siege, when the massacre occurred. That ia.
tai morning, Dickenson, long before the sun
rose, came to his wife and bid her adieu. /
have heard her tell the story with fearful
eyes forty. three years after the sun went
down on the terrible day. She saw Dicken-
son but once afterward. He was then fight
ing sword in hand, at the doorway of her
apartment. Men rushed into her room.
When consciousness was restored, her room
was full of gunpowder smoke. A bullet had
pierced her leg just below the knee. She was
lying on the bed, her infant, six months old,
beside her, a richly dressed Mexican officer
standing near. She remembers, as l forgot to
state, that simultaneously with the hand to
hand fight between her husband and the
Mexicans at the doorway, two little boys,
sons Of German gunner, ran into her room.
They were pursued by Mexicans, shot down
and bayonetted in her presence, the smoke
from the guns filling her room and enabling
her to escape observation. Almopte received
his education in the city of New Orleans.
He interposed when the Mexicans sought to
take her life, and caused her to be taken to
Santa Anna. This man sought to induce her
to accompany him to Mexico. When she
refused, he concluded to send her to Sam
Houston, that the terrible story she would
tell might intimidate the little band of Texas
patriots. Wounded as she was, she set out
alone on mustang, with her child in her lap,
across the open prairies for Gonzales. She,
her infant, and the negro Ben, the servant Of
Travis, who was in command, were the sole
American survivors. But San Antonio should
hear Mrs. Hanuig, now growing old, tell the
story as I have heard it. She would tell, too,
of her flight, accompanied by the negro Ben;
of the Intervention of Deaf Smith, who saved
her when almost dying of thirst, fatigue and
the pain caused by her wound. Hear her tell
of her interview with Houston, and how the
hero of Texan independence used the hideous
story to exasperate his followers. She told
him that when she was leaving San Antonio
the town and country we're perfumed with
odors arising from the holocaust made Of the
bodies of those who fell within the Alamo.
She beheld the flames that consumed the
body of her husband and of Crockett and
Travis, and was instructed by Santa Anna to
describe the horrible scene to Sam Houston
and his followers. She executed the order
With painstsking care. The effect was little
dreamed of by the bloody Mexican leader.