Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies by David Fisher Read Free Book Online Page A

Above, a map of the Alamo based on Santa Anna’s battlefield map; opposite, top left, Newell Convers Wyeth’s Last Stand at the Alamo; top right, an imagined Crockett fighting his last battle; bottom, William H. Brooker’s engraving Siege of the Alamo, March 6, 1836

    Santa Anna’s army, which had been reinforced and numbered four thousand troops, attacked before dawn on March 6, advancing, according to Henry Howe in The Great West , “amid the discharge of musketry and cannon, and were twice repulsed in their attempt to scale the walls.” Susanna Dickinson later testified that when the attack began, Crockett had paused briefly to pray, then started fighting. After a fierce battle, Mexican troops breached the north outer walls. Although most of the defenders withdrew to the barracks and chapel, Crockett and his men stood in the open and fought. They fired their weapons until they were out of ammunition, then used their rifles as clubs and knives until they were overwhelmed.
    It isn’t known how Davy Crockett died. There are several conflicting reports. A slave named Ben, who also survived the battle, claimed he had seen Crockett’s body surrounded by “no less than 16 Mexican corpses,” including one with Crockett’s knife still buried in it. Henry Howe reported, just fifteen years after the battle, that “David Crockett was found dead surrounded by a pile of the enemy, who had fallen beneath his powerful arm.” Most historians believe he was killed by a bayonet as he clubbed attackers with his rifle. He was forty-nine years old.
    As happens often when heroes die without witnesses, alternative stories have persisted. One claims that Crockett and several other men either surrendered or were captured and brought before Santa Anna, who ordered their immediate execution. The purported eyewitness to that, a Mexican lieutenant named José Enrique de la Peña, supposedly wrote in a diary, found and published almost one hundred fifty years later, that Crockett had been executed, and “these unfortunates died without complaining and without humiliating themselves before their torturers.”
    There were only three survivors: Susanna Dickinson and her young child and the black slave, Ben. “The enemy,” wrote Howe, “exasperated to the highest degree by this desperate resistance, treated the bodies with brutal indignation.” Although there were some reports of mutilation, it is generally agreed that the bodies were thrown onto a pile and burned. The number of Mexicans who died in the attack is estimated at between six hundred and sixteen hundred men. Texans were shocked by the massacre. Almost immediately, “Remember the Alamo” became the rallying cry of the Texas army of independence. Less than two months later, on April 21, General Sam Houston’s army captured Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto, and the Republic of Texas was born.
    The legend of Davy Crockett grew even larger after his death. A book entitled Col. Crockett’s Exploits and Adventures in Texas … Written by Himself was published the summerafter his death and, while clearly a work of fiction, served to reinforce his heroic sacrifice. Another story circulated claiming that Crockett was last seen standing at his post swinging his rifle as Mexican troops poured through a break in the walls. The memoir of Santa Anna’s personal secretary, Ramón Martínez Caro, published in 1837 in Mexico, reported, “Among the 183 killed there were five who were discovered by General Castrillón hiding after the assault. He took them immediately to the presence of His Excellency who had come up by this time. When he presented the prisoners, he was severely reprimanded for not having killed them on the spot, after which he turned his back upon Castrillón while the soldiers stepped out of their ranks and set upon the prisoners until they were all killed.” Although this was purportedly an eyewitness account, there is no direct evidence that Crockett was one of