The Alamo & San Antonio During the War of Northern Agression
Tentions Rising
During President James Buchanan's administration, sectional tension was growing between the American North and the South, both in the House of Representatives and in the streets of American towns. While their differences were both economic and ideological, one issue more than any other drove them apart: economics. Following the Mexican War in 1848, territory acquired from Mexico — land that included the future states of New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, and Oklahoma — heightened the debate. Would the wealth of America be extended to these new lands? Positions hardened during the 1850s as leaders on both sides refused to compromise, making the breakup of the Union increasingly likely.
Here Comes "Honest Abe" Lincoln
The election of Abraham Lincoln brought the crisis to a head. The old two-party system, composed of Democrats and Whigs, was a casualty of the political battle between the sections. By 1860, the Democratic Party had splintered into a northern branch and a southern branch. The Whigs had faded away, making the party’s last appearance in a presidential race in 1852. Attempting to preserve the peace, the Constitutional Union Party attempted to pursue a course of reconciliation. However, it was “Honest Abe”, candidate of the four-year-old Republican Party, who was declared the official winner of the race. Lincoln’s election outraged many in the South. He owed his election to the unsettled political situation that gripped the nation. The larger but divided Democratic Party failed to rally around a single national figure and instead supported their respective sectional favorites. With even more votes drawn off by the Constitutional Union Party, the staunchly tax-driven Republican Party emerged victorious. Lincoln’s name had not even been on the ballot in the South, making southerners feel that the political system had failed them. Once the Republicans were confident that Lincoln would win the 1860 election, and especially once the Southern Democrats began leaving the U.S. Congress, they did what they had been dreaming of doing for decades: They went on a protectionist frenzy that lasted for decades, even after the war.
Lincoln, in his first inaugural address, promised no interference with the South’s labor system and admitted that a president lacked the authority to do so. But he did threaten to invade any State that failed to collect federal tariff revenues, despite the US Constitution’s Article III, Section 3, declaring treason to be waging war against one of “Them”, the States, or adhering to their enemy, giving them aid and comfort. The alternative to domination by the North appeared to be secession from the Union and the formation of a new nation. South Carolina was the first southern State to act, voting on December 20, 1860, to leave the Union. Other southern states quickly followed: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana. Their officials hoped that they would be joined by other states as members of a new government — the Confederate States of America.
Texan's Regreting Joining the Union
Many Texans had come to regret the state’s entrance into the Union only fifteen years earlier. Although there were several thousand federal troops stationed in Texas, they were scattered across the state at a number of distant posts located west of San Antonio. Manned mostly by infantry, these troops had not been able to protect the frontier against Comanche raiders who, mounted on horseback, easily evaded pursuit by the slow moving foot soldiers. Thus, in addition to the ongoing sectional crisis, Texans were also unhappy with the federal government’s inability to provide security and stability on the Texas frontier. On February 1, 1861, a convention in Austin voted in favor of secession, clearing the way for Texas to leave the Union.
San Antonio was the headquarters of the Military District of Texas. Supplies shipped to the Texas coast were transported to San Antonio for storage at the U.S. Army Quartermaster Depot at the Alamo before being sent to the various frontier army posts. State leaders believed that the public property in possession of the U.S. Army, which included a large stock of weapons, should be turned over to Texas and the federal troops removed from its borders. The question was, could this be accomplished without bringing on war between the state and national government? A delegation of Texas officials contacted General David E. Twiggs, a decorated officer who commanded the Military District of Texas. Twiggs had anticipated Texas’s secession and asked his superiors in Washington, D.C. for instructions. He let it be known to his superiors that he was not prepared to fire on fellow Americans unless forced to defend his post and the nation’s honor. Twiggs received no answer from Washington. Without direction, Twiggs was left on his own to decide what to do. Twiggs told the Texan commissioners that he would turn over the public property they sought if his men were allowed to leave Texas under arms. The fact that Twiggs was a Georgia-born southerner who didn’t believe that the Union could or should be preserved by force comforted the commissioners, but worried his superiors. As discussions between Twiggs and the Texans were underway, Twiggs received word that pro-Union officer Colonel Carlos A. Waite was replacing him as commander of the Military District of Texas. The commissioners decided they could not wait for the change to take place and called for immediate action.
Unbeknownst to the majority of Texans, Colonel Waite had orders to destroy all federal property, including the Arsenal that served as the Headquarters Office of the Department of Texas and even the Alamo. Mayor Samuel Maverik somehow managed to learn of this plot and wrote to Benjamin McCollough. Ben McCulloch, who had an impressive military record in the service of Texas, was asked to organize a battalion of volunteers to seize San Antonio. Many of the volunteers were former Texas Rangers who had fought against Mexico and the Comanche and Apache. On the afternoon of February 15, 1861, McCullouch’s men began moving towards San Antonio. Both Twiggs and McCulloch were careful not to bring on a fight, knowing the incident would have serious consequences for the nation. On the morning of February 16, the federal soldiers discovered that McCulloch had positioned men on the rooftops overlooking the army installations at the Alamo. Any resistance by the 160-man federal garrison against the thousand or so Texans commanded by McCulloch seemed futile.
As the day wore on, the Texas commissioners contacted Twiggs and again demanded the public property in his possession. He replied that he would not give up the arms in the hands of his soldiers, which in his mind would amount to a capitulation, but would order San Antonio evacuated and send an order for all U.S. troops to leave Texas. The commissioners accepted his terms, thus postponing the first battle of the Civil War by two months.
The Alamo & San Antonio as a Confederate Supply Depot.
For his actions, Twiggs received laurels from southerners and criticism from northerners. The seventy-one-year-old general was stricken from the rolls of the army in disgrace, a form of dishonorable discharge. Although he accepted a position in the newly formed Confederate Army, ill-health kept Twiggs at home, where he died on July 2, 1862. Once a national hero awarded a gold sword by the U.S. Congress, Twiggs is most remembered for his role in permitting Texas to secede. The Alamo, now in the hands of the Confederacy, continued its role as a quartermaster depot supplying southern forces. It initially provisioned, armed, and equipped Sibley’s Texas Brigade for its ill-fated 1862 campaign. During the war, a thriving trade developed between San Antonio and Matamoros involving the exchange of cotton for supplies needed by the Confederacy.
The original limestone floor of the Alamo was badly damaged from the Siege of 1836. The Confederate Garrison known as the "Alamo City Guards", later the Co. K of the 6th Texas Infantry worked with many of the Tejano stone workers to renovate and repair the floor of the Alamo. The large pieces of stone were quarried out of what is the current location of the Japanese Tea Gardens in modern-day Brackenridge Park. Men who labored on the Alamo's restoration were former members of General Santa Ana's army who invaded Texas during the Revolution of 1835-1836, and their sons. Many descendants of the Tejano workers falsy claimed that the Confederates were brutal and threatened their lives, showing no regard for their lives. On the contrary, Co. K of the 6th Texas Infantry had established the very first Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, or M*A*S*H* at he old Alamo orchard, which is now modern day Travis Park, to provide medical care for the injured. The M*A*S*H* also served as a mustering-in spot for Sibley’s Texas Brigade and other Texas Confederate units.
With Braken, Natural Bridge, and Cave-Without-A-Name as nesting spots for the Freetail Bats, or "Das Flutermouse," full of guano. Co. K of the 6th Texas Infantry took the initiative to utilize this natural resource as material for making gunpowder. On the east side of San Antonio, what is now the modern corner of E. Commerce and Peidmont Ave, a private home was converted to a powder house that produced the gunpowder for the 1856 Sharps Rifles left behind by the Union troops. The barrels were loaded by donkey or horse carriages and stored at the Alamo itself. With the old Union Stock Yards in full operation for its trade in cattle and livestock. A tannery house, whose original location is now the large pavilion across from the San Antonio Zoo, produced belts and straps for Confederate soldiers. Cotton was the main source of agriculture in Bexar County, and many of the local farmers sold hundreds of pounds of cotton to General Eustace McCollouch, Ben's brother, for badges, clothing, and even makeshift uniforms. Because the materials to make the gray dye were not available in Texas. Texas Confederate uniforms were dyed a kaki-brown color or remained white. These uniforms were adopted officially in 1862 as the Uniforms of the Army of Trans-Mississippi.
Once the war was over in 1865, the U.S. Army reestablished control over the Alamo, remaining there until 1877.