Post by TRK on May 31, 2007 15:46:42 GMT -5
James De Shields, in his book Tall Men with Long Rifles (Naylor, 1935, pp. 175-76), contains a story about the purported desertion of Anglo members of the Alamo garrison several nights after the beginning of the siege. Supposedly, Juan Ortega, formerly a sergeant in the Dolores Regiment who died in Brownsville, Texas, in June 1862, told De Shields’ informant, Creed Taylor, that on night of February 25-26, 1836, while Mexicans were working on entrenchments for artillery “along the alameda of the Alamo,” “nine men came over from the fortress and asked to be conducted into the presence of Santa Anna.” According to Ortega, one of the men “spoke Spanish sufficiently fluent to make their wants known.” Although Ortega wasn’t present when Santa Anna interviewed them, he averred that it was “well attested that they told [Santa Anna] where fifty American rifles had been left in town by Travis’ men, besides other belongings, all of which were seized by the Mexicans.” Taylor added that the desertion of the nine men was common knowledge in San Antonio at the time.
Creed Taylor was unable to learn exactly what happened to the “traitors,” but he related a story that Capt. Henry Teal, a commissioner sent by Houston to Filisola after the Battle of San Jacinto, entered the Mexican army’s camp west of Goliad, where he purportedly saw American camp followers. These men tried to avoid Teal. Teal had “heard of the desertions at the Alamo,” and he believed the four men were Alamo deserters.
Creed Taylor also related a story, supposedly told to him by John McPeters, of Mabry "Mustang" Gray’s Texas Ranger company, concerning a possible Alamo deserter among “the 38 captives taken out and shot at Ceralvo in 1846.” While DeShields got the place and date and possibly the numbers wrong, Gray’s company was implicated in the massacre of some two dozen Mexicans at Rancho Guadalupe, near Cerralvo, on March 28, 1847. This was in reprisal for a massacre of members of a U.S. wagon train near that ranch a month earlier, carried out by a mix of guerrillas and cavalry under Antonio Canales and our old friend, Gen. José Urrea. McPheters supposedly noticed that one of the prisoners looked like an American, and tried to elicit information from him as he was led out to his execution. The man claimed to be “puro Mexicano.” The following day, according to Taylor, McPheters was told that the man was an American refugee who, “with others,” had accompanied the Mexican Army from Bexar during its retreat from Texas, and “dared not return to his country.”
One item that does add a tantalizing angle to Juan Ortega’s story is that, on February 27, 1836, Santa Anna wrote to Gen. Vicente Filisola from Bexar that “Fifty rifles, of the rebel traitors of the North, have fallen in our possession, and several other things, which I shall have delivered to the general commissary of the army as soon as it arrives, so that these forces may be equipped . . . .” Ortega’s story, of course, included the detail that the deserters gave Santa Anna information where fifty Texan rifles were hidden. (Hansen, Alamo Reader, 333)
Beyond that, I haven’t found further substantiation that there were nine deserters from the Alamo on the night of February 25-26, and would be interested to know if anybody knows of any further references to this incident.
Creed Taylor was unable to learn exactly what happened to the “traitors,” but he related a story that Capt. Henry Teal, a commissioner sent by Houston to Filisola after the Battle of San Jacinto, entered the Mexican army’s camp west of Goliad, where he purportedly saw American camp followers. These men tried to avoid Teal. Teal had “heard of the desertions at the Alamo,” and he believed the four men were Alamo deserters.
Creed Taylor also related a story, supposedly told to him by John McPeters, of Mabry "Mustang" Gray’s Texas Ranger company, concerning a possible Alamo deserter among “the 38 captives taken out and shot at Ceralvo in 1846.” While DeShields got the place and date and possibly the numbers wrong, Gray’s company was implicated in the massacre of some two dozen Mexicans at Rancho Guadalupe, near Cerralvo, on March 28, 1847. This was in reprisal for a massacre of members of a U.S. wagon train near that ranch a month earlier, carried out by a mix of guerrillas and cavalry under Antonio Canales and our old friend, Gen. José Urrea. McPheters supposedly noticed that one of the prisoners looked like an American, and tried to elicit information from him as he was led out to his execution. The man claimed to be “puro Mexicano.” The following day, according to Taylor, McPheters was told that the man was an American refugee who, “with others,” had accompanied the Mexican Army from Bexar during its retreat from Texas, and “dared not return to his country.”
One item that does add a tantalizing angle to Juan Ortega’s story is that, on February 27, 1836, Santa Anna wrote to Gen. Vicente Filisola from Bexar that “Fifty rifles, of the rebel traitors of the North, have fallen in our possession, and several other things, which I shall have delivered to the general commissary of the army as soon as it arrives, so that these forces may be equipped . . . .” Ortega’s story, of course, included the detail that the deserters gave Santa Anna information where fifty Texan rifles were hidden. (Hansen, Alamo Reader, 333)
Beyond that, I haven’t found further substantiation that there were nine deserters from the Alamo on the night of February 25-26, and would be interested to know if anybody knows of any further references to this incident.