The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-02-05
The Gallant Travis Long
 Lived in This State.
com,nander of the Brave Men Who for nays Held Thousands of Mexicans af Bay and Left the. Nation
 . New standard of CoI-
 Ieetive Courage.
By VIII r. sheehsn.

The faine or ITdyib anu HIS Shdte Ui the glory of the Alamo. belong to Ala bama. He came out of ihe pine woods of Alabama and went to Texas to win a limitless fame. And yet so few Ala bamians knew that Travis was Alabama reared and Alabama bred.
 He led in the fight of The Alamo which was perhaps the greatest exhi- bition of collective courage that his- tory has written since men began 10 hunt each other down with weapons m their hands. In the future some gifted one who reads the stars and who sinss the songs of the nation. is going to give that splendid combat voice. The world is- going to know it then, as it was, in truth, finer thing than Ther- fnopylae; a braver thing than the fight Of three Romans at the bridge; great or A more glorious tragedy than the Charge of the Light Brigade. It Is not so known now. It Is known, but not so greatly as it should be, as a mem orable conflict, a narrowed Held where men did deeds to be applauded in the years to come by generations to be born,
 But the memory of the men who made the narrow bloody field of The Alamo glorious for all years has notNyet come into its own. The school child reads more of the minor slirmishes between the Massachusett Puritans and Massa- soft and King Phillip; more of Bunker HilI; more of the slaughter of the troops of the blind and obstinate Brad dock; more of Monmouth; of the Tippe- canoe fight; of Gettysburg: of a half hundred battlefields of the war between the States, than heireads of the splendid. desperate struggle that overshadowed Thermopylae and set new standard for collective bravery.
 The Tribute of Texas,
 In the Texas Capitol at Austin, the Texans have paid due and just honor to the memory of those who fought ioyfuily though hopelessly wlth a dead wall behind them. certain death in front of them. and the blood-soakeo sand at their feet. They have erected a monument to Travis and his men. Thf monument has this inscription, Thsr' mopyiae had her messenger of deIeat the Alamo had none"
 It is an eloquent sentence. It is as fine an epitaph as ever marked the light and the death of any choice bane of spirits. No noble verse, no greai song, to catch the ear of the world has been written upon the spleniie death of Travis and his men. but this much at least is theirs, their epitapf is the most eloquent that ever preserved the achieved glory of any set of men.
 Some Texas Tennyson may tell ths story some day, tell it, as Tennyson toic the story of the ride of the Light Bri' gade half a league Into the jaws oi hell. Tell. 1t as Macaulay told how tho Three kept the Bridge in the Brave days of old. It is finer. greater theme, than either the ride of Raglan men at Balakiava or of the fight o: Horatius and his fellows against Lars Porsena and his host. The odds were quite as great. And for the men of tht Alamo there was no future, no chance but death. They fought the fight joy fully, fought it in that curious ecstasy which so thrills brave man with sword in his hand, a foe In front oi him, the sun overhead and the earth beneath his feet.
 The fight at the Alamo was the erowning glory of the War of Inde- perdenee the fight of the American settlers against the dominion of tho Spanish power of Mexico. And yet Il was a defeat and worse than a defeal for Travis and every man that shared in the glory of tAe fight was slain ir the walls of the Alamo and the bodies of all were piled in a heap and burned so furious were the Mexieans at the desperate bravery of the Americans and so furious were they over the sight oi the dead bodies of their associates | which marked every step of the way to their hollow victory in the foui walls of the Alamo.
 The Call to Battle.
 But the story of the fight was to al other Texans like the battle call of { silver trumpet Those who had hesi tated, hesitated no longer. The thu ranks of the Texan army were sweilet | Wnd when Santa Anna and his men wh' | had done the deed at the Alamo nie | the Texans under Houston at San Ja ] cinto the Mexicans were scattered lik | fall leaves before winter wind, Santi Anna himself was brought prisone
 to the tent of the picturesque Houston
 And the future glory of the Lone Sta
 State was assured.
 The fight began February 22, 1886 when the army of Santa Anna, sup
 DC csed to have been 1000 strong. ap
 peared on the heights of Alcalzan an invested the city of San Antonio. Col onei Travis, who was in command the slender force Of Americans, move
 back into the old AlainJ fort He had 1t is said, 141 men. This force Wa later reinforced by a small company o
 Americans under Captain smith . Gonzales. Texas. Capt. T, T. Travis
 brother of the leader in the great figh I and now a prominent citizen of Ever
 green, says that the total number c
 men in the command was only l5S
 Tn this old Mexican fort they gave bat
 tie to santa Anna's army of 1000 mer
 The fort, for 1t is still the greates relic that the State of Texas cher
 ishes, was an oblong structure built i
 the Mexican style. With its walls an
 buildings 1t spread over two and enc