A line of blood and flame seemed indeed to be closing upon Texas. General Urrea, after destroying Grant and his volunteers, was advancing toward Goliad with one thousand men. Santa Anna, with an army of seven thousand, had invested San Antonio.  
The defeat of General Cos had filled the haughty dictator of Mexico with fury. It was past belief that a handful of the despised colonists, armed with hunting-rifles, should have put to rout his own well-equipped regulars. He determined to punish this insolence as it deserved. And not only to punish, but to set an iron heel upon the rebellious province.
 
 
THE ALAMO, SAN ANTONIO
 
All prisoners were to be shot; all who had taken part in the revolution were to be driven out of the country; the best lands were to be divided among the Mexican soldiers. The expenses of the rebellion were to be paid by the Texans. All foreigners giving aid to the rebels were to be treated as pirates.
 
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By the 1st of February Santa Anna had sent General Urrea to Matamoras, a town near the mouth of the Rio Grande River, with orders to proceed from that place against Refugio and Goliad. He himself took command of the main army, with General Filisola (Fee-lee-so′la) as second in command. General Cos and his men, who had taken oath not to bear arms again during the war, joined the army at the crossing of the Rio Grande River. On the 23d of February the first division of this united force appeared on the heights of the Alazan, west of San Antonio.
 
The soldiers of the garrison were scattered about the town. No warning of a near approach of the enemy had come, and things looked tranquil enough that morning, with the soft winter sunshine flooding the yellow adobe walls and glinting the limpid river.
 
A cry from the sentinel posted on the roof of San Fernando Church startled the stillness; its echoes leaped from street to street; the alarum bells burst into a clanging peal. The Mexicans were already pouring down the slopes west of the San Pedro River.
 
The garrison hastily crossed the San Antonio River and entered the fortress of the Alamo. One of the officers, Lieutenant Dickinson, galloped in on horseback, with his baby on his arm and his wife behind him. Some beef-cattle grazing around the fort were driven in and the gates were closed.
 
Colonel William B. Travis had succeeded Neill in the command of the fort, which was garrisoned by one hundred and forty-five men. Travis was but twenty-eight years of age; confident, bold, determined, and full of patriotic ardor. Colonel James Bowie was second in command.
 
84
Among other defenders of the Alamo were Colonel James B. Bonham of South Carolina and David Crockett of Tennessee—“Davy” Crockett, the backwoodsman, bear-hunter, wit, and politician. Crockett had reached San Antonio just before the siege, with a small company of Tennesseeans, and offered his services to Travis. He was a picturesque figure in his fringed and belted buck-skin blouse and coon-skin cap. His long rifle, Betsy, had “spoken” in the war of 1812, and echoed since on many an Indian trail. Its last word was to be spoken at the defense of the Alamo.
 
 
David Crockett.
 
The Mission of the Alamo, established in 1703 and several times removed, was finally built, in 1744, on the spot where it now stands. Like the other missions, it was both a church and a fortress. It is on the east side of the San Antonio River, facing the town to westward. The cross-shaped church, slit with narrow windows and partly roofless, stood on the southeast corner of a walled plaza several acres in extent. The other buildings—convent, hospital, barracks, and prison—were within the enclosure. There was also a small convent-yard adjoining the chapel. All of the buildings were of stone; the enclosing walls were built of adobe bricks. The sacristy of the church was used as a powder magazine. The place was defended by fourteen pieces of artillery.
 
Santa Anna arrived in person on the 23d. He took possession of San Antonio town and sent a summons to the rebels in the Alamo for unconditional surrender. Travis received and dismissed the messengers with courtesy; then answered by the mouth of a cannon, “No.” At the defiant boom which stirred the peaceful air of the valley, a blood-red flag was placed upon the tower of San Fernando, proclaiming “no quarter”; and a thunder of guns opened the attack.
 
85
The besiegers at first made little headway. If they ventured across the river they were within reach of those unerring rifles they had such cause to dread. It was the third day before they succeeded in planting a battery between the fort and the bridge.
 
The besieged within the fortress were calm and confident, thou............