THE FALL OFTHE ALAMO ~ page 14
The account of the assault which Yoakum and others have adopted as authentic is evidently one which popular tradition has based on conjecture. By a rather natural inference it assumes that the inclosing walls, as in the case of regular forts, were the principal works, and that in storming these the main conflict took place. The truth was, these extensive barriers formed in reality nothing more than the outworks, speedily lost, while the buildings within constituted the citadel and the scene of sternest resistance. Yoakum's assertion that Santa Ana, during the height of the conflict, was under the works, urging on the escalade in person, is exceedingly fabulous Castrillon, not Santa Ana, was the soul of the assault. The latter remained at his south battery, viewing the operations from the corner of a house which cowered him, till he supposed the place was nearly mastered, when he moved up towards the Alamo, escorted by his aids and bands of music, but turned back on being greeted by a few shots from the upper part of the chapel. He however entered the area towards the close of the scene, and directed some of the last details of the butchery. It cannot be denied that Santa Ana in the course of his career showed occasional fits of dashing courage, but he did not select this field for an exhibition of that quality. About the time the area was entered a few men, cut off from inward retreat, leaped from the barriers and attempted flight, but were all sabred or speared by the cavalry except one, who succeeded in hiding himself under a small bridge of the irrigating ditch. There he was discovered and reported a few hours after by some laundresses engaged in washing near the spot. He was executed. Half an hour or more after the action was over a few men were found concealed in one of the rooms under some mattresses. General Houston, in his letter of the 11th, says as many as seven, but I have generally heard them spoken of as only four or five. The officer to whom the discovery was first reported entreated Santa Ana to spare their lives; but he was sternly rebuked, and the men ordered to be shot, which was done. Owing to the hurried manner in which the mandate was obeyed, and the confusion prevailing at the moment, a Mexican soldier was accidentally killed with them. A negro belonging to Travis, the wife of Lieutenant Dickenson, who at the time was enceinte a few Mexican women with their children, were the only inmates of the fort whose lives were spared. The massacre involved no women and but one child. Lieutenant Dickenson commanded the gun at the east embrazure of the chapel. His family was probably in one of the small vaulted rooms of the north projection, which will account for his being able to take-his child to the rear of the building when it