1 I had for several years in Texas as a servant, one of the Mexican soldiers captured at San Jacinto, Sergeant Becero, of the Battalion of Matamoros. He was in the assault, and witnessed Dickenson's leap He also saw the body of Bowie on his bed, where he had been killed, and witnessed the execution of the few men who were found in concealment after the action was over. He did not know the names of Bowie or Dickenson, and related the circumstances, not in reply to inquiries, but in a natural way as recollections in narrating his experience. Many absurd stories about the admissions made by Mexicans touching the force of the assailants and the amount of their loss at the Alamo are based on sycophantic statements, drawn by leading questions from prisoners of the lower class.

2 In 1841 the husband of one of the Mexican women who were with the garrison during the siege and assaults pointed out to me the vaulted room referred to, and observed: "During the fight and massacre five or six women stood in that room all in a huddle." He was an intelligent man, but so given to embellishing whatever he related that I did not then rely much on his information; but I have since called it to mind in connection with what is above said. This man did not refer to Evans' attempt, nor did he say that the cell referred to was used for storing, powder, but, according to my recollection, it was the most fitting place for a magazine which I saw about the Alamo.

3 A brief account of the fall of the Alamo, related in legendary style by Francisco Ruiz, who lived at San Antonio when the event occurred, was published in the Texas Almanac of 1860. The narrator shows total ignorance of the details of the assault, which he blends with a cannonade between batteries that went before it, and, if the printer has not blundered for him, imagines that the storming of the fort began at 3 P.M. on the 6th. This is so contrary to the recollection of old residents, that it began at dawn, and was soon over, that I think "P.M." must have been printed in place of A.M. He asserts that after a long attack and repeated repulses, it ended with the scaling of the outer wall, which formed the final success. He has no knowledge of the speedy loss of the outward barriers, or of the main conflict inside. He rates the besieging forces at 4,000, which would be correct if the eight corps, including two of cavalry, numbered 500 each. He sets down Santa Ana's loss at 1,600, and in way to imply that this was the number of killed. Now, estimating the force at 4,000, and leaving out 1,000 cavalry for outside service, the storming masses would consist of 3,000 infantry. If 1,600 were killed, the wounded would cover the remainder, and the total of assailants as well as of defenders must have come down. If he means that the loss was 1,600 killed and wounded, it was heavy enough to render success impossible, and to cripple the army too much for the prompt and active campaigning on which it immediately entered. The battalion of Toloca he says numbered 800, of whom only 130 men were left alive. If 670 were killed, the small remainder must have been disabled. The whole corps went to the graveyard and hospital, yet eight weeks after a part of it was killed and taken at San Jacinto, and a small remnant retreated to Matamoros. So absurd a narrative would not be worth referring to had it not, been quoted in San Antonio newspaper of 1860 as testimony of an eye-witness conflicting with my former publication.

4 General Bradburn was a Virginian, who had been in the service of Mexico since the time of Mina's expedition, in which he held the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and took distinguished part. In 1836, when he was on the retired list of the Mexican army, he was ordered, much against his wishes, to join Santa Ana in his campaign against Texas. He reported to Santa Ana soon after the fall of the Alamo, and at his own request was assigned to an unimportant post (Copano landing) where he would not be likely to come into contact with the forces of Texas. Bradburn had a few years before commanded in Texas, and had come unpleasantly into contact with a revolutionary element which did not then culminate in revolution.

5 Colonel Seguin served gallantly as a Captain under General Houston at San Jacinto, and subsequently commanded a regiment. His zealous adherence to the cause of Texas throughout the campaign of 1836, and for some years after, is undoubted; and his subsequent defection from that cause may be palliated by the popular harshness, endangering life, to which he became subject, and which in a manner drove him to a step of which he evidently repented. I have no reason to doubt the candor and correctness of anything which he related in matters whereon I have cited his authority. He had no motive to misrepresent anything which was not personal to himself, nor did he seem to color unduly what was. A man may be a correct narrator in spite of political errors.