THE FALL OFTHE ALAMO ~ page 17
has some corroboration. The Mexican officers captured; It San Jacinto, including Santa Ana's secretary, as I was told by Colonel Seguin, were generally of the opinion that the loss at the Alamo in killed and wounded was about 500. Some rated it lower and others higher; and one, but only one, went as high as 700. The opinions of such enlisted men as I have conversed with were about the same as those of the officers, ranging from four to six hundred. Nothing is more apt to make an exaggerated impression on the casual view than a field of slaughter, and I think that the higher of the above estimates may be errors of that kind. General Bradburn, who was at the scene of action soon after it occurred, believed that the eventual loss to the service (killed and disabled for life) would be 300. This I consider equivalent to 500 killed and wounded; and it is my opinion that the Mexican loss at the Alamo differed little from that number.
Now if 500 men were bullet stricken by 180 in half an hour or little more, it was a rapidity of bloodshed which needs no exaggeration, but it may require strong proofs to see it from the imputation of fiction, for defenders of better forts than the Alamo seldom slay many times more than their own number, unless they possess an extraordinary means or opportunities for destruction. The slaughter was not in this case the carnage of unresisted pursuit, like the of San Jacinto, nor the sweeping havoc of cannon under favorable circumstances, like that of Sandusky. The main element of defense was the individual valor and skill of men who had few advantages of fortification, ordnance, discipline or command. All their deficiencies, which were glaring, serve only to enhance the merit of individuality, in which no veterans could have excelled them. It required no ordinary bravery, even in greatly superior numbers, to overcome a resistance so determined. The Mexican troops displayed more of it in this assault than they hare done on almost any other occasion; but it must be remembered that better troops than those of Santa Ana always fail under loss as heavy as romance often assigns to the assailants of the Alamo.
If we owe to departed heroes the duty of preserving their deeds from oblivion, we ought to feel as strongly that of defending their memory against the calumnious effect of false eulogy, which in time might cause their real achievements to be doubted. 3
Santa Ana, when he marched on Texas, counted on finding a fortified position at or near San Antonio, but supposed it would be at the Mission of Concepcion, an old church, two miles below the town. That stone building, with the aid of obedience and labor, might have been converted into a tenable fort, not too large to be manned by the garrison of the Alamo.