William Barret Travis
An article by Jeffrey Dane.
Personal self-assurance is often mistaken for egotism. They’re not synonymous, but those who have the audacity to possess a palpable degree of self-confidence often have charges of hubris leveled at them by the resentful and small-minded. This is usually more a reflection on the claimant than on the target. For whatever his faults may have been, no-one can level against William Barret Travis a charge of being cowardly or dishonorable in the circumstances for which he is best known, and which gave him posthumous immortality. In spite of his youth — he was only 26 years old when he died in the fall of the Alamo — his words, and most importantly his actions, bespoke a degree of bravery and nobility that is striking in the chronicles of our past.
In July, 2007, Alamo historian Richard Curilla summarized the Travis matter as follows: “People — particularly people on the frontier — did a lot more by the time they were 25 or 30 than most folks do today by that age. They also grew up [more quickly] — and had to assume responsibility. . . Travis, by the time he was 23, had already been a school teacher, an editor-publisher of a newspaper, a lawyer, was married, had a child, left his wife, maxed his credit cards, made a major life move, had fifty-six women and nearly started a revolution singlehandedly!”
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William, the first of eleven children of Mark Travis and Jemima Stallworth, was born in August, 1809 in South Carolina. The entry in the Travis family Bible specifies the date of his birth as August 9. The arrival in America of his ancestors can be traced back as far as 1627 to the Jamestown, Virginia settlement, and one of those predecessors, Edward Travis (Travers), became a well-to-do landowner, and joined a decisive governmental group which called themselves the Virginia House of Burgesses. Other forebears went southward and settled in the Carolinas; some took up farming, and one of them became a leading member of the clergy.
Buck, as he was called by his friends, received his early schooling at home, attended the Red Bank Baptist Church in Edgefield, Saluda County, and helped attend to his family’s farm. According to some sources, including the Handbook of Texas Online, there are indications that one of his childhood playmates was a second cousin, who would ultimately share his fate at the Alamo. His name was James Butler Bonham.
Those in the Travis clan who relocated to Conecuh County in Alabama in 1818 were among the first to establish two communities, Evergreen and Sparta, where the young William went to the local academy. Soon his uncle, Alexander — now the family patriarch — sent the boy for further education in Claiborne, not far from Sparta.
In due course, Travis began to contribute to the training and coaching of the younger pupils. That such associates are often chosen on the basis of merit and value would suggest that Travis had the character of an intelligent and earnest young man.
He began his life in the law when James Dellett, a judge considered to have been the principal lawyer in Claiborne, became his mentor.
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Today many hold to the belief that previous times were simpler. It may be so, but only when they’re seen in perspective, and examined in relation to our own era. The world of the ancient Romans was complex for them, and the world of even our relatively recent forebears in the Texas Revolution was just as convoluted for them as ours is for us today. While Travis never had to trouble himself with a nuisance incidental like the selection of a cellphone plan, he could never so summon a doctor; and the ambulances we now take for granted and which can arrive within minutes in cases of accident or sudden serious illness were decades in his future, and thusly as inconceivable to him as a medevac helicopter. He lived in a world which, like ours, had its own technologies specific to his times — most of us today wouldn’t know how to properly cut a quill-nib into shape — and many of those particular technologies are no longer current. As just one example, to attempt today to load and fire an 1830s musket or pistol without the proper contemporary know-how and skills would be, in a phrase, downright foolhardy.
Intelligence is inherent, while the peripherals to which it gives us access — education, culture, and wisdom — are acquired. A perceptive observation by historian and author Rod Timanus encapsulates a certain important difference between gaining a credential and actually being a wise, sensible person: “Having a degree doesn’t mean you’re intelligent. It means you’re capable of learning.” To see the reality of the concept, we need only look at the questionable manner in which some highly degreed individuals today are conducting themselves and directing others.
Travis had an intellectual bent and something of a scholarly leaning. Under Dellett’s tutelage, he eventually became a lawyer — and then Dellett’s partner, in which capacity he headed their law office for a time in Gosport, across the Alabama River from Claiborne. The young, ambitious Travis had not yet reached his twentieth birthday.
During his time as a teaching assistant, one of his pupils was Rosanna Cato. She was sixteen years old when they were married on October 26, 1828, and on August 8 of the following year the young couple became parents of a son, Charles Edward Travis.
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This was an active time for Travis and he became involved in three enterprises. Countless men involved in the Texas Revolution were Masons, and he became a member of that fraternal organization (Alabama Lodge No.3); he also joined the Alabama Militia as an adjutant; and he soon set up shop as a publisher and founded the newspaper, The Claiborne Herald.
He arrived, the very next year, at a difficult junction, and the direction he took determined the very course of the remainder of his short life. That direction was personal as well as geographical. Without the proof of historical documentation, an account of this muddle is that he thought his wife had been unfaithful; that he killed the man he believed was responsible for the child she was now expecting (and who was given the name Susan Isabella, though Travis never saw her); and that he abandoned his family and made his way to the territory of Texas. Another report is that he set off to escape being jailed for nonpayment of debts: debtors’ prison was still a contemporary “punishment” for insolvency.
It could be said he did the wrong thing in having fled — but another, valid view would be that he did it for what would amount to the right reasons. Aside from the entirely understandable wish to avoid incarceration, and for what is certainly a nonviolent “crime,” in being able to operate functionally in practical surroundings on a day-by-day basis, he’d have the opportunity to make some kind of contribution to the practical world in which he was living. In a debtors’ prison, he’d make no contribution.
In either case, William Barret Travis arrived in Texas in early 1831. At the town of San Felipe he acquired some land from “The Father of Texas,” Stephen F. Austin. Travis didn’t reveal that he still had a wife back home. He soon opened a law practice in the port town of Anahuac, situated on Galveston Bay at its eastern point. The official language was Spanish, and he studied it while trying to set himself up as an attorney in this area, where there was a paucity of lawyers.
Even before Travis’ arrival at Anahuac, a law had been enacted (on April 6, 1830) banning Anglo immigration to the territory. He eventually connected with a group of activists who had opposed this decree. Considerable stress and strain was caused, and continued to grow, by the friction that existed between the government of Mexico, and the Americans who had settled in the Texas territory. It should be remembered that what is now Texas was then still part of Mexico (independence was still six years away, and statehood was a full fifteen years distant), and its inhabitants were if not completely controlled by its government they were in fact subject to its laws. The Americans living in Texas were faced with this fact.
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Travis made no secret of his disagreement with and opposition to John Davis Bradburn, whose loyalties were with Mexico and who, with the title of Colonel Bradburn, was in control of the Mexican forces garrisoned at Anahuac. An interesting historical footnote is that Bradburn, an American by origin — Virginia-born and Kentucky-raised — is remembered by posterity with the name Juan Bradburn, rather than by “John.” Travis was a determined young man, and regardless of whether or not his intention was to incite a revolt, a revolt at Anahuac is what ultimately took place.
The primary clash happened in 1832. Bradburn had been retaining fugitive slaves, and Travis had been selected to get them returned. Through a series of intrigues, real or imagined, Bradburn suspected Travis of subterfuge and arranged to have him (and his associate, Patrick C. Jack) arrested and detained. Bad news, then as now, could travel quickly; there ensued a scandale, and a massed contingent was formed, which rallied to Anahuac to demand the freedom of the two jailed men. Those forces arrived there on June 10, 1832.
Word of the disturbance ultimately reached Nacogdoches. The town’s Mexican commander, Col. Jose de las Piedras, rode for Anahuac. While he sided with Juan Bradburn, he also soon recognized a serious logistical imbalance: there were more Anglos than Mexicans, certainly too many for his forces to deal with successfully. An exchange of prisoners was finally arranged, the rebels insisted Bradburn be relieved of his command, and de las Piedras directed that Travis and his partner be set free. They were at first remanded to the local authorities and then altogether released.
The disturbances at Anahuac eventually brought about conflicts later in the summer at Nacogdoches and at Velasco, which in turn prompted formal appeals to rescind that April 6, 1830 anti-immigration law.
In April, 2005, an article titled The Shot Heard Around The World appeared in Connecticut’s Middletown Press. Authored by Rod Timanus, it states, in part, “. . . Although the other twelve British colonies in North America suffered under the same laws and restrictions, the Massachusetts colony had become a hotbed of unrest, with many people advocating self-government free of English control.” In the 1830s, more than a half-century after Lexington and Concord, the same principles applied to the Texas territory: it, too, had become a hotbed of unrest, with many people advocating self-government free of Mexican control.
After the Anahuac conflict, Travis relocated his law practice to San Felipe. He was elected to the city council in 1834, even though he was only 24. He also met and cultivated a relationship with a young lady living at Mill Creek, Rebecca Cummings. Travis seems to have wanted to marry her once his divorce from his wife was final.
That same year, Rosanna Travis started divorce proceedings against her husband. The charge of desertion she had leveled against him was seen as grounds for the divorce she ultimately obtained. It became final the following year (though she remarried within about six months). She did, however, allow their son to go to Texas, and while young Charles Edward Travis lived there with another family, he was now in closer proximity to his father than he would have been if he had remained with his mother. The family with whom the young boy lived was that of David Ayers, the man to whom William Barret Travis addressed the last known words he ever wrote, voicing his own hopes for his not-yet-seven-year-old son.
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Travis never did marry Rebecca Cummings, and he might not even have been aware of when his divorce from his wife Rosanna had taken effect. In the summer of 1835, with an ever-growing intensity that would keep him extremely active until the day he died, he became involved in the events and proceedings that culminated in the Texas Revolution.
Young men with powerful libidos, and the pride in the masculine triumphs usually coupled with them, have been a feature of any era and there has never been a shortage of them. In this regard Travis was no different. In his diary he actually kept a written record of his conquests in this sphere. It’s interesting to note, too, though the reason is speculative, that he chose the Spanish language to record such successful accounts, using the vernacular word chingaba to verbalize the entry. (Leonardo Da Vinci, too, so “coded” his own notes by writing them backwards, though in his case the circumstances and reasons were quite different). That he had nearly a dozen siblings has even led some to suggest that “Buck” Travis’ own libidinous leanings might have been genetic, but this would of course be entirely conjectural if not altogether preposterous.
One of Travis’ tasks was to purge Anahuac of a new Mexican military force, headed by Capt. Antonio Tenorio, that had been established there by the self-proclaimed Napoleon of the West: His Excellency, Generalissimo Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna y Perez de Lebron. For this purpose, Travis was ordered by James B. Miller to return to Anahuac with about two dozen men, where he easily accomplished his mission.
It’s been said you can’t argue with success, but the narrow-minded who focus only on what suits them will still do so. They’re the people who will wish you luck — and then actually resent you when you find it. To offer a concrete and very relevant instance in such a case: it’s a matter of record that many who proclaim most loudly their love of the human race are in fact difficult neighbors, and are intolerant or suspicious in their personal and family relationships. Their general, rhetorical benevolence seems to break down the moment it’s tested by the practical demands of an individual case. Success, in any form, frequently comes with a price: a personal accomplishment for some can be as dangerous as a professional failure for others. Those who had advocated peace were troubled by what Travis had done in stirring the pot in which this tension had been simmering, and for some time afterward he was seen as an agitator by innumerable Texians.
A line spoken by Richard Widmark (portraying Jim Bowie) in John Wayne’s film The Alamo was, “I hate to say anything good about that long-winded jackenaypes, but he does know the short way to start a war.” It may have prompted nods of agreement if Travis’ own colleagues had heard it in the mid 1830s. Firebrands can produce explosive results.
One of Santa Anna’s general officers, Martin Perfecto de Cos, relocated with his contingent of troops to San Antonio de Bexar, and he ordered that Travis and his adherents be handed over to him by the Texians for military judgement. While sources disagree, the story still persists that Gen. Cos was Santa Anna’s brother-in-law.
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The single event that actually started the Texas Revolution, the “Come and Take It” cannon incident, occurred on October 2, 1835 at the Guadelupe River, near the town of Gonzales but closer to the present-day hamlet of Cost, Texas. Though Travis quickly went there with several hundred people, the engagement was over by the time they arrived. As Lexington, Massachusetts is the site of The Shot Heard ‘Round The World that started the Revolutionary War, Gonzales is the site of the firing of the first shot of the Texas Revolution.
Today, historical markers in the area memorialize the seminal event that took place there. The massive stone marker near the shoulder of the highway at Cost, Texas is inscribed, “Near here on Oct. 2, 1835 was fired the first shot of the Texas Revolution of 1835-36 — the shot heard round the world. At Gonzales the Texians defied the Mexican government and refused their demand for the Gonzales cannon with the ‘Come and Take It’ challenge until reinforcements arrived from other parts of DeWitt’s colony and from the colonies on the Colorado and Brazos [rivers]. They then pursued the Mexicans from Gonzales to near this point and fired upon them with this cannon, driving them back to Bexar. This shot started the [Texas] Revolution and was directly responsible for adding more territory to the United States than was acquired by the freeing of the original thirteen colonies from England.”
The smaller marker located a short distance away — on a bank of the Guadelupe River itself and within sight of the remains of the original ferry landing on the opposite shore — is believed to be on the very spot from which that first shot of the Texas Revolution was sounded. The granite slab reads, “Here was fired the first gun for Texas independence Oct. 2, 1835. Erected by the children of Gonzales city schools April 21, 1903.”
Travis soon returned to San Felipe. Declining a position as an artillery major, he was assigned to the cavalry with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. One of his duties was as the principal officer in charge of recruiting. As such, he was instructed by Governor Henry Smith to enlist a hundred men to buttress the Anglo forces in San Antonio, who were then under the command of Col. James C. Neill. It was January, 1836.
When he was able to engage fewer than thirty of the one hundred reinforcements Gov. Smith had specified, Travis was faced with an awkward and embarrassing situation, and he asked to be relieved of his command. Gov. Smith wouldn’t grant this, and told Travis to report to Col. Neill, who took personal leave soon after Travis’ arrival in San Antonio — leaving the young officer in charge of about fifty men.
Soon there appeared in San Antonio the one hundred volunteers Travis had hoped to find — but they arrived with James Bowie and were under his command. For whatever reason(s), disagreements arose between Travis and Bowie about just who would be in charge, and they finally agreed to a joint command of the Texian forces. The peace between them lasted a full day, because Bowie soon had to take to his bed; whether from a fall (according to some legends) or by illness, it is still impossible to say with certainty, but we know he was suffering from an illness “of a peculiar nature.” Travis now became the commanding officer at the Alamo.
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William Barret Travis spent what remained of his life — every week of it — caught up in the arrangements for the defense of the Alamo, and preparing for the appearance in San Antonio of the Mexican forces. With his chief engineer, Green B. Jameson, Travis made arrangements for the repair and reinforcement of walls, the building of ramps for cannon emplacements, and the stockpiling of supplies within the compound. In particular, he directed the construction of a wooden palisade to fill the largest and thusly the most conspicuous gap in the fortifications. This breach existed between the southwest corner of the church, and the Low Barracks, and after its positioning the palisade extended diagonally from and connected the two points. This area behind the palisade, in front of the church inside the compound, was defended by David Crockett and his men during the siege.
At the Alamo in San Antonio today, paving-stones are conspicuously set into the ground to outline not only the palisade’s positioning, but also, wherever possible, elsewhere around the periphery of the place to give a sense of the original perimeter of the entire 1836 compound. By the layout of today’s Alamo and its surroundings, it’s understandably difficult for the unaware to know that the walls of the original complex encompassed an area the size of two football fields — and that when people are facing the front of the Alamo church, they’re actually standing inside what was then the Alamo grounds and would have been virtually surrounded by the perimeter walls in 1836.
Travis found the time to give his ring to Angelina Dickinson, the baby daughter of Susanna Dickinson, the only Anglo woman who survived the battle. Today that ring, donated years later to the shrine by Susanna Dickinson’s descendants, is often given a place of honor on display at the Alamo.
The perception of the Alamo’s historical status was realized by Travis, whose name might have remained only an archive account or a textbook entry, just to be lost to posterity. Fortunately, he had that intuitive sense of fate that prompted him to choose, in one of his communiques, a particular word that made all the difference. — “. . . If they overpower us, we fall a sacrifice at the shrine of our country, and we hope Posterity . . . will do our memory justice. . .” Thus wrote Travis from the Alamo itself on February 25, 1836.
He wasn’t clairvoyant — but he didn’t have to be. That he used the word shrine in his letter, long before the Alamo became so known as a national symbol, seems very noteworthy — the more so, as his dispatch is dated only two days after the siege began and thusly predates the realization that the defenders were to fight literally a losing battle. Indeed, even a mere six weeks after the final siege, “Remember The Alamo!” became a rallying cry at San Jacinto, and has since become an indelible expression in the collective American mind.
Then again, speculation, though fruitless, can be fascinating: perhaps Travis did believe when he wrote that letter that the garrison was doomed — and perhaps he used the word shrine for that very reason.
Even as late as March 3, Travis had been hoping for reinforcements. We will never know for certain at what stage he realized that the circumstances for him and the men of the Alamo were hopeless. We do know, however, that he refused to grovel and buckle. Some would call this stubbornness and decline, others would call it integrity and dignity.
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We live in an era where some amazing, thought-provoking concepts and their details are often taken for granted. An unusual and very revealing relic is on display at the Whitehead Memorial Museum at Del Rio, Texas, right on the Rio Grande border between Texas and Mexico, and about 30 miles from Brackettville, where John Wayne’s film The Alamo was made. The artifact is a large, sealed jar of earth from the Alamo grounds in San Antonio. That this soil was rescued and preserved even in 1836, soon after the final battle, bespeaks a revealing degree of reverence for what happened on that fateful day, and is a clear indication of the momentous significance with which the event was seen even then, certainly by the unnamed person who salvaged and saved that soil.
Despite Travis’ several dispatches in which he all but pleaded for reinforcements, less than three dozen men arrived from the town of Gonzales. He and his men were hopelessly outnumbered. Still, he would not back down. In his letter of February 24, 1836 — the day after the 13-day siege began — he wrote, “The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken — I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls — I shall never surrender or retreat.” According to Western historian Dr. Stephen Hardin, the likely location of where Travis “answered the demand with a cannon shot” is delineated today, like so much else in and around the Alamo, with a reconstructed section of wall in the south-westernmost corner of the original complex, now located across the street from the Alamo church.
The only known life-painted portrait of the well-to-do James Bowie was done in Boston in 1832-33 by professional portraitist G.P.A. Healy, whose studio was then at 13 School Street, near the waterfront. (The current building dates from 1888). Similarly, there is only one known life-rendered likeness of the not-so-wealthy Travis, attributed to amateur artist Wiley Martin.
According to his slave, Joe, Travis is said to have been one of the first Alamo defenders to perish, with a bullet through the forehead, in the roughly 90-minute final battle. The spot where he’s believed to have died, at a cannon emplacement on the north wall, is now completely outside of what is today’s Alamo compound. For one to stand on that approximate spot today, one must be well inside the main United States Post Office (just off Alamo Plaza, to the north), from the steps of which one has a clear view of the Long Barracks on the present Alamo grounds.
( Author’s Bio )
Jeffrey Dane is a researcher and historian whose work appears in the USA and abroad in several languages. He has contributed to a number of books, including several by Western writer and artist Rod Timanus; he wrote the Foreword for The Alamo Story: From Early History to Current Conflicts by J.R. Edmondson; and he delivered a presentation on James Bowie at the Alamo Society Symposium in San Antonio in March, 2007. Jeff is also a contributing writer for Alamo Sentry.com.
Drawing (above) of William Barret Travis by Wade Dillon (2009).