The Battle of the Alamo took place during Texas' war for independence from Mexico. It lasted thirteen days, from February 23 to March 6, 1836. In December of 1835, a group of Texan volunteer soldiers had occupied the Alamo, a former Franciscan mission located near the present-day city of San Antonio. On February 23, a Mexican force numbering in the thousands and led by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna began a siege of the fort. Though vastly outnumbered, the Alamo's 200 defenders, commanded by James Bowie and William Travis and including the famed frontiersman Davy Crockett, held out for 13 days before the Mexican forces finally overpowered them.

For Texans, the Battle of the Alamo became an enduring symbol of their heroic resistance to oppression and their struggle for independence, which they won later that year. The battle cry of "Remember the Alamo" later became popular during the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848 and is still used 'now and then' to this very day.

In 1835 Crockett wrote to friends about raising a company of volunteers to take to Texas to help with the revolution he believed was coming. He finally left his home in West Tennessee with thirty well armed men on November 1, 1835 to 'explore the Texas situation'. He arrived in Nacogdoches, Texas in early January 1836 and he and 65 other men signed an oath to the 'Provisional Government of Texas' for six months duty. Each man was promised about 4,600 acres of land as payment. Crockett arrived at the Alamo Mission on February 8.

"That be it, Davy?" Moses Bean asked, leaning away and spitting a stream of tobacco juice into the dry, Texas grass.

The former frontiersman, soldier, Indian fighter, land speculator and ex US congressman for Tennessee smiled at his old hunting partner. "That's it, Moses. The 'promised land'!"

Bean snorted and sent another squirt of tobacco earthward. "Sure as hell don't look like much!"

Davy smiled. "It's an old Spanish mission that Jim Bowie 'n' his lads took off the Mexicans."

"Ol' Jim kicked them tamolly eatin' Mexers out, did he?! Bean asked, grinning from ear to ear and showing all seven of his teeth.

"He did," Davy replied. "Though I believe they'll want it back sometime soon."

"That what we're here for, Davy?" Bean asked. "To help Ol'Jim keep those Mexers out?"

Davy nodded. "Out of the mission and out of the whole damned territory."

Nigel Wedgewood, an English adventurer that had joined them a few days earlier, took off his fancy top hat and mopped his sweating brow. "We are here, Mr. Bean, to assist Colonel Bowie and those brave men yonder to gain their liberty! To aid them in casting free their political shackles and lifting the despot's heavy boot from their necks!"

Moses turned to Davy, a puzzled expression clouding his usual rough, easy going features. "You mind tellin' me, Davy, what in tarnation this Britisher just said? I ain't book-learned like you—but he sure does speak perty, whatever it were!"

Davy smiled at his old friend. They'd been through a lot together. Indian wars, drought, floods and politicians. Moses wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he was brave, honest and loyal, and Davy figured that's all a man really needed to be.

"What Mr. Wedgewood said, Moses, is that we came to help Texas break free from Mexican control n' become part of the United States, just like Tennessee n' ol' Kain-Tuck!"

Suddenly the clouds vanished and Moses once again was beaming toothlessly. "Well why the hell didn't he just say so?!"

Davy flashed a smile of his own. "Because, Moses, he's a 'proper' Englishman—and those fellas need to talk fancy when they go fox hunting with the queen."

"Fox hunting with the queen?!" Moses repeated. "Of England?!"

"Of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, old boy!" Wedgewood put in, deliberately strengthening his already considerable accent. "Then there's the afternoon tea."

Moses frowned. "Afternoon tea?"

"Quite right, Mr. Bean. With crumpets, of course."

Wedgewood then winked at Davy, put his fancy gold rimed monocle into his right eye and leaned in towards Moses. "Come to think of it, old chap, you bear a striking resemblance to the queen's cousin, the Duke of York!"

"I do?" Moses asked, the clouds once again beginning to gather around his frowning brow.

"Absolutely, old boy!" the Englishman replied seriously. "Except you're a lot taller—and have more teeth."

"So you're Davy Crocket!" a wiry, average sized man with an engaging smile said as he held out his hand. He was dressed in expensive but well worn hat, clothes and boots—and had a heavy knife on his belt that could pass for a short sword. There was a twinkle in his eye when he said: "I thought you'd be taller."

"I was at one time," Davy said, taking the man's hand and shaking it firmly. "But those damned politicians back in Washington whittled me down some!"

"They can do that to a man!" Bowie agreed loudly. "Damned lawyers too! Those bastards have been whittling me down daily over these Spanish land grants!"

"Politicians, lawyers and carpetbaggers!" Davy grinned, instinctively liking Bowie right away. "They should all be tarred n' feathered!"

Bowie barked out a laugh. "Either that—or elected to congress!"

"I'll drink to that!" Davy retorted. Both men seemed to think that was the funniest thing they'd ever heard.

Lieutenant Colonel William Travis, standing uneasily beside the two older, laughing men, drew himself up ramrod straight and saluted. "Colonel Crockett, it is a great pleasure to meet you, sir. I'm Lieutenant—"

Still laughing, Davy waved him to silence. "First off, lieutenant, I'm no longer a colonel. That was some years ago in the Indian Wars, and I was only 'colonel' to ol' Moses Bean here n' about a few dozen farm boys still wet behind their ears! I'm no longer a colonel or a congressman, just plain ol' Davy Crockett from Tennessee. Now, where can a fella get a drink around here?"

Over the next week Davy and his men settled in, helped fortify the mission and made plans to repel any attempt to drive them out. Davy and Bowie hit it off immediately, however things with young Lieutenant Colonel Travis were somewhat strained. Travis was a stickler for rules and regulations while both the older men's 'military experience' had been with rough and ready, independent militia—men who were not used to taking orders or following rules that they considered foolish and unnecessary.

Travis and Bowie had already clashed over 'discipline and the lack of respect' and Davy's easy going and somewhat rowdy ways made the straight laced Travis even more uncomfortable.

"Your men, Mister Crockett," Travis fumed after Davy's Tennesseans and had started a drunken brawl with some Kentuckians: "are little more than an intoxicated bunch of undisciplined ruffians!"

Before answering the outraged young lieutenant-colonel, Davy slowly placed his cards on the table, finished his drink and then lit up a cheroot. Through the curling smoke the ex- Indian fighter squinted up at Travis.

"That maybe so, lieutenant, for in truth they are a mangy looking lot and their manners are somewhat lacking—but they are here, son, and they came here to fight and maybe even die for your cause! And by the looks of it there ain't no-one else comin', so my mangy, mannerless ruffians are all you've got!"

Travis turned even redder than he already was and stomped out of the 'tavern of the green' that Moses and several other old frontiersmen had set up.

Colonel Jim Bowie, sitting across from Davy, chuckled as he refilled Crockett's glass and then his own. "It's about time someone besides me put that puffed-up, stiff necked easterner in his place!"

Davy toyed with his glass. "I might have been a bit rough on the lad. He's one of those spit n' polish soldiers, but his heart's in the right place."

"Well, that might be, Davy," Bowie said as he dealt another round of cards. "But both me n' the men would like him a whole lot better if he'd pull that stick out of his ass!"

"Oh I'm afraid there's little hope of that happening, colonel," the Englishman Nigel Wedgewood grinned mischievously from the far end of the table. "My father was born with the same affliction. 'Woodus-Ap-Arsus' I believe is the medical term. Hereditary for most Englishmen and quite incurable this side of the grave. My elder brother suffers from it as well."

Bowie laughed and tossed his anti onto the table. "Yet this terrible disease has seemingly passed you by, Mr. Wedgewood."

"Doesn't it just!" the Englishman said in agreement. "My somewhat 'casual temperament' often drove my poor father to distraction. My brother Mycroft as well. He's actually worse than the old man. Fortunately both my sister Prudence and I seemed to be immune."

"Your sister Prudence you say?" Davy said as he matched Bowie's anti and doubled it. "I had a great aunt by Prudence. Quaker lady. Didn't hold with drinking, smoking or playing cards.

"How did she feel about fornicating?" Wedgewood asked casually as he matched Day's raise and then doubled it.

Bowie was taking a sip of whiskey at the time and nearly choked. "Jesus Christ, Nigel! You can't ask a man that about his old aunt!"

"Oh? And why not?" Wedgewood then turned to Davey. "Mr. Crockett, was your great aunt ever married?"

"Twice as I recall. Her first husband was scalped by a Cherokee raiding party. She was married to her second one for over fifty years—and call me Davy."

"Why, thank you sir. And you would honour me by calling me familiar as well. Now—Davy—did your dear old Aunt Prudence have any children?"

Crockett thought a moment before answering. "I can't give you an exact number, Nigel, but she had a passel as I recall. Mostly girls I believe."

Wedgewood turned back to Bowie. "Married twice. A 'passel' of children. Over fifty years married and outlived not one but two husbands! I'd say, Jim, that Davy's sweet old aunt knew 'quite a bit' about fornication!"

A Mexican army of over four thousand well trained troops arrived at San Antonio on February 23 and immediately put the small run-down mission under siege. It was led by General Antonio López de Santa Anna—a pompous, nasty, vindictive little man with powerful friends and family and illusions of grandeur. His detractors—of which there were many—called him the 'Mexican Napoleon'—but never to his face.

Santa Anna ordered his artillery to keep up a near-constant bombardment of the run down mission. Each night the guns were moved closer to the Alamo, increasing their effectiveness. On February 25, around three hundred Mexican soldiers crossed the San Antonio River and took cover in abandoned shacks approximately a hundred yards from the Alamo walls. The soldiers intended to use the huts as cover to establish another artillery position, although many Texicans assumed that they were launching an assault on the fort itself. Colonel Bowie called for volunteers to counterattack and burn the shacks. Davy stepped forward and said: 'Me n' my men will get 'er done."

"You sure you wanna do this, Davy?" Moses asked. "It'd be a whole lot healthier stayin' here behind these stone walls than going out there. Why them Mex soldiers could be hiding out in a number of those shacks!"

"Oh I doubt there's more than a dozen or so of 'em anywhere near those huts," Davy said to his old hunting companion. "Those fellas been marchin' for days now and will be plum tuckered out. Most will be too tired to put up much of a fight right now, but come morning they'll be thicker than flees on a hound—so we'd best set those huts ablaze 'n' get back here for supper!"

The mention of food always cheered Moses up, especially if there was strong drink to go with it. "Well, I just hope it ain't them hot chili beans again! My ol' guts cain't take much more of 'em. I've had the damn trots now for the last three days!"

"Goat's milk, old boy," the Englishman Nigel Wedgewood put in as he checked the priming on the brace of fancy pistols he carried.

"Coats the stomach don't you know? Allows you to eat all the tacos and spicy enchiladas you want. Also makes the passage out of the body far less unpleasant as well."

"Ya, well them damn chili beans go right through me!" Moses grumbled. "I couldn't sit a horse now if'n my life depended on it!"

"Then it's a good thing were walking down to burn them shacks!" Davy said, clapping the old Indian fighter on his broad back. "Alright boys, listen up. Jim Bowie 'n'that Travis fella would like us to go down 'n' smoke out any of Santa Anna's soldiers that might be sniffin' around those sheds."

"You want us to kill 'em, Davy, or just scare 'em off?" A raw-boned-looking backwoodsman by the name of Lemual Sparks called out. "I ain't kilt nobody but injuns afore this. Figure I might just bag me one o'them fancy dressed 'soldatoes'!"

"Just make damn sure Lem that one o' them 'soldatoes' don't bag you first!" Davy replied, and though there was a twinkle in his eye when he said it, everyone there knew that the majority of Santa Anna's men were hardened veterans and would be tougher than shoe leather.

"Ol' Lem don't need to worry, Davy," Moses put in with a toothless grin. "He ain't took a bath since leaving Tennessee three months ago. Any Mex fellas that get a whiff o' Lem will turn tail 'n' run!"

"Yer one to talk, Moses Bean!" Lemual shot back good-naturedly. "One look at that ugly puss o' yourn 'n' the whole Mexican army will up 'n' surrender on the spot!"

"If you boys are though complimentin' each other, it's time to go have us a little bonfire!" Davy grinned. "Move out in pairs. One with a lit torch to set the shacks alight 'n' t'other one to cover his ass! Set 'em all ablaze 'n' high tail it back here for a drink!"

"You buyin', Dave?!" someone called out.

The grin that legend and the penny novels said had once had mesmerized a grizzly bear flashed in the growing dusk. "Hell, yes I'm buyin'! Don't I always?!"

Never one to hang back when his friends were stepping into harm's way, Davy led the group down to the collection of adobe huts about a long bowshot from the Alamo. As instructed, the men went in teams; one with a pistol in one hand and a lit torch in the other, while his partner walked a few steps behind and off to one side, his longrifle cocked and ready.

Moses was setting fire to his second house when he and Davy heard first a shot, then a scream from one of huts to the right.

"Cat's outa the bag now, Davy!" Moses said, setting the dry thatch ablaze on one shack and tossing the torch onto the roof of another. Smoke was already thick in the air and yellow tongues off lame were now everywhere.

Then more shots were heard, followed quickly by shouting in Spanish. "Everybody back to the fort now!" Davy bellowed at the top of his lungs.

Shadowy forms came running out of the deepening twilight. Davy now held his longrifle in his left hand and a cocked pistol in his right. Any shooting now would be quick and at close range, making a pistol or knife the better weapon.

Moses was already leading most of the men back to the old mission. Davy stood watching the shadows and keeping a tally of who passed him.

"Where's the bloody Englishman?!" he asked Lemual Sparks as his partner passed him.

"That Wedgwood fella?" Lem asked. "He was up ahead o' me 'n' Jasper. "Said somethin' 'bout capturin' a prisoner."

Davy swore under his breath and told Lem and Jasper to get themselves up to the fort.

"Don't recon I can do that, Davy," Lem said, checking the prime on his longrifle. "Wouldn't set right with me runnin' off 'n' leavin' you to go look fer that English fella all by yer lonesome."

Lem then turned Jasper Clemens, another Tennessean. "What about you, Jasper? You with us to go save the Englishman?"

Jasper seemed to need a moment or two to ponder the question. The Clemens clan were always deep thinkers. Not fast, but deep. Finally he spit out a stream of tobacco juice and cradled his ancient looking musket.

"Wall I ain't sure 'bout savin' no Englishm'n. My granddaddy fought those red-coated bastards back in the Reverlootion. He carried ol' Maud here for nigh on four bloody years. Later on my daddy carried her against the Brits in the War o' 1812. Now here she is with me fightin'bean-eaters in Texas!"

"Fer Christ sake, Jasper!" Moses growled. "We ain't got time for no history lesson! Are ya commin' with Davy 'n' me or not?!"

Jasper replied after two of three thoughtful breaths— surprisingly fast for a Clemens. "Never said I ain't! Just ruminatin' on things! The i-runny of it all."

"The what?!" Moses asked.

"I-runny! You know, how goddamned strange some things can be!" Jasper replied.

Moses scratched his head. "What's strange about savin' some Englisman?" Moses demanded. "He's bloody well here fightin' with us ain't he?!"

"I think," Davy put in. "that's what seems so 'strange' to Jasper is that both his grandfather 'n' his father fought against the British, 'n' now you're asking him to risk his life to save one—with the same damn gun they used in their wars."

While Moses was pondering the fickle ways of Fate, Davy and Jasper were moving quickly into the heated, smoky air between the burning shacks.

"There he is!" Davy whispered urgently. "Up ahead by those two soldiers!"

Jasper squinted into the flame-lit shadows of the fast approaching night. Behind them over a half dozen burning huts elongated Moses' shadow as he hurried towards them.

"Looks like the tables got turned on the lad," Jasper said as he fixed a pitted but still sharp bayonet to the end of his old musket. "He came lookin' fer a prisoner 'n' ended up one hisself."

"Not for long he ain't!" Moses said, cocking his rifle. "I'll take the one on the right. Jasper, you think you can hit the fat one on the left?"

Jasper's answer was a wicked grin in a flame-lit face.

"You two just cover 'em," Davy said. "'N' don't shoot unless you have to! I'll handle this." Then Davy stepped forward, his rifle in the crook of his left arm, his right hand held up empty at his side.

The two soldiers that had been dragging the semi-conscious Englishman didn't notice Davy till he spoke to them, and by then he was only spitting distance away. "Ba-wenis notchus, ameegoes. Me friend. No trouble. You savvy?"

Both soldiers looked wide eyed at the tall American.

The thin one went to draw some sort of brass short sword but Davy suddenly rolled his left shoulder forward, causing the long, heavy octagonal barrel of his longrifle to connect with the right side of the man's head—dropping him like a sack of potatoes.

"Easy does it, ameego!" Davy said to the fat soldier, shoving the end of his rifle into the man's considerable stomach. The soldier's eyes nearly bulged out of his head. He dropped the semi-conscious Englishman, dropped his own musket, and then dropped himself to his knees. "Pourfavour, Americano. No shoot I!"

By then Moses and Jasper were beside Davy. Jasper stood over the kneeling soldier like the Grim Reaper himself—only with a bayonet, not a scythe.

"You alright, Nigel?" Davy asked.

The battered and bleeding Englishman looked up at Davy. One eye was already swollen half closed. "Never better, old boy. Just another story to tell the fellows back at the club." He then hawked up some blood and spit out a tooth. "By the way—what took you so long?"

Though Bowie and Travis rarely saw eye to eye on anything, where they did agree was that their position was fast becoming hopeless.

"So just what the hell do you want to do about it then?" Bowie half shouted at the younger man. "Give up?! Turn tail and run?! What?!"

Travis, dressed immaculately as usual, looked at the older man and shook his head. "If anyone else but you had asked me that, sir, I would call them out to answer for such slanderous words!"

Bowie stopped and smiled, though it was not mirth that shone forth from his eyes. Neither the look nor the hand dropping to the bone hilt of his famous knife was lost on Travis. Knowing Bowie's reputation as a brawler, the younger man reined in his own anger.

"But now is not the time for such personal indulgences." Travis said, then he did something that he rarely if ever did—he smiled. "Perhaps, sir, when this is all over, you and I might carry on our quarrel, but for now I believe it best that we put it aside."

Bowie looked at the young man and slowly shook his head. "It's now abundantly clear to me, Mr. Travis, that you and I come from very different backgrounds. I had to haul myself out of age-old, grinding poverty while you seemed to have been born with a silver spoon up your ass—but before you go and get all riled up again, let me finish. You are a good man. A brave and an honourable one as well. The men all know that and respect you for it—and so do I."

Travis flushed red, embarrassed this time instead of angered. "Thank you for that, colonel. I'm delighted that I have the men's respect, sir—I just wish that I had— something more as well."

Bowie frowned, then poured both himself and Travis a drink. "That 'something more' you'd like to have—if it's there 'admiration' you want, that I'm afraid is reserved for the Davy Crockets of this world. All regular soldiers like you and me can hope for is their respect." He then tossed back his drink with one swallow and pointed at the door. "Now, kindly go outside and muster the men. Tell them plainly our situation and don't try to sugar coat it. Make it clear that reinforcements will not be arriving and that any of them that want to leave should do so right away before we are totally cut off. Also make it clear that any that do choose to stay will most probably either die here or be taken back to Mexico as prisoners of war."

Now it was Travis who was frowning. "But, sir, if I tell the men that, we'll hardly have any left at all come morning!"

Bowie poured himself another drink before responding. "Travis, all of them are volunteers who came here of their own free will. They deserve to know the truth. Besides, I think you'll be surprised by the number of them that choose to stay."

Still frowning, Travis headed for the door.

"So that's the plain truth of it, men," Travis said to the volunteers he had assembled in the courtyard. "No help is on the way, we are vastly outnumbered and if do you stay here you will either die or be taken prisoner. Both Colonel Bowie and I want you all to know that you are free to leave if you want, but it must be now before we are completely cut off."

Travis then drew a line in the sand and stepped back. "Any man that steps over that line is free to go with my blessing. In many ways you'd be foolish not to, for staying would be madness. Magnificent madness, but madness just the same!"

Over two hundred men shuffled about and glanced at one another. Then someone from the back called out. "Are you 'n' Jim fixin' to stay, colonel?"

"We are."

"'N' Davy?"

"He's stayin' 'n' so are his men."

The fellow that spoke then smiled broadly. "Well then, so am I!"

In the end not a single man stepped over the line.

The largest and final attack began just before dawn on March 6th, 1836. Most of the women and wounded non-combatants had gathered in the church for safety. The Mexican soldiers climbed up the north outer walls of the Alamo complex, and most of the Texicans fell back to the barracks and the chapel, as previously planned.

Davy and his men however were too far from the barracks to take shelter there and so were the last remaining group out in the open. They crowded behind the low wall in front of the church, eventually having to use their rifles as clubs and their knives and tomahawks, as the action was too furious to allow reloading.

"Seem's like this might be the end o' the trail, Davy!" Moses yelled as he avoided a bayonet lunge and buried his tomahawk in the soldier's tall shako. The blade remained stuck so he let go of the handle and drew his belt knife. "It's been a real pleasure traveling with ya, Davy."

Laying about him with his precious 'Ol' Betsy', Davy grinned back at his old friend. "Same goes for me, Moses—'cect you still owe me for that hound pup."

"What hound pup?!" Moses grunted as he punched a soldier in the face and pushed him off the wall.

"The one with five toes on her hind leg."

"That was nearly thirty years ago!"

Davy's grin widened. "I was waitin' for the right time to bring it up."

The actual Battle of the Alamo lasted less than 45 minutes and when it was over nearly all of the defenders were dead. Santa Anna ordered his men to take their bodies to a nearby stand of trees, where they were stacked together and wood piled on top. That evening, they lit a fire and burned their bodies to ashes, but the spot was not marked and can no longer be identified.

All that is certain about the fate of David Crockett is that he died there at the Alamo on the morning of March 6, 1836 at age 49. According to many accounts, between five or six wounded Texicans surrendered during the battle. Santa Anna had ordered the Mexicans to take no prisoners. Angered that those orders had been ignored, he demanded the immediate execution of the survivors, but a number of his officers refused to do so. Staff officers who had not participated in the fighting then drew their swords and killed the unarmed Texicans.

As Fate would have it, Santa Anna himself was captured and killed a little over a month later by an army led by Sam Houstan. Their battle cry at the time was 'Remember the Alamo'!