Monument of Alamo Defenders by Coppini
From Juan Abamillo, San Antonio resident, sergeant with Capt. Seguín’s Cavalry Company; James Rose, 31-year-old rifleman, nephew of James Madison, 4th president; Joseph G. Washington, 28-year-old private with Tennessee Mounted Volunteers; James Garrett, 30-year-old rifleman with Captain Blazeby’s infantry company, came as member of New Orleans Greys; Charles Zanco, 28-year-old lieutenant from Denmark:
Our bodies were stripped and thrown into a heap. They tossed us into carts and took us outside the walls. About 3:00 p.m. they laid wood and dry branches and stacked our bodies (182-189) on them, layering with more wood. About 5:00 they poured oil on us and lit it with a torch to make us burn. We were ashes before the sun set.
Captain Juan Seguín was sent out as a courier for Travis and was not at the battle. He returned after the battle of San Jacinto to San Antonio as a military commander. On February 25, 1837, he conducted a burial service in our honor. Part of our ashes was scooped into three heaps and placed in a coffin covered in black with the names of Travis, Bowie, and Crockett carved inside. A procession from San Fernando church halted at the place where the ashes had been gathered outside the entrance to the Alamo and across the ditch a ways. Three volleys of muskets were fired. The procession went on to the peach orchard, where a grave had been prepared.
We were denied a soldier’s grave. Our ashes were buried a year later. Now dead, our angry spirits rage so none will forget our courage in the face of overwhelming forces.
- 19. Franciso Antonio Ruiz, "Fall of the Alamo, and Massacre of Travis and His Brave Associates," J.A. Quintero, trans., in James M. Day, ed., Texas Almanac, 1853-1873 (Waco: Texian Press, 1967), p. 357.
- 20. Frederick C. Chabot, The Alamo: Mission, Fortress, and Shrine (San Antonio: Frederick C. Chabot, March 1936), p. 47; ibid., p. 531.
