7
PAPERS OF MIRABEAU BuoNAPARTE LAMAR
were then consigned within the walls of the Alamo - that same Alamo which in 1836, became the cradle of Texas Liberty, and the scene of prodigies of valor. There the gallant Patriots Gutierrez, Hoss, Kemper and the others slept their first sleep of triumph on the night of the 31st of March. There they sealed a legacy which was reYealed in such bright and beautiful colors in 1836. On the first of April at 9 o'clock in the morning the Republican Army, at the beating of the drum, proceeded from the Alamo to the Main Plaza. They crossed the river on an execrable bridge, where now is a most excellent one at the termination of Commerce street. The Spanish army having disbanded and fled the night previous, only a few terror-stricken persons and some c·itizen families of that party, were visible. Gutierrez immediately took possession of the Public Buildings, lately supplanted by the magnificent stone-house of the Messrs. Vance, now in progres8 of erection. He forthwith formed a Junta or Council from the citizens who were Yiolently opposed to the Spaniards and of course mostly in favor of the establishment of Mexi can Independence. This Junta was compo�ed of eight or ten indi viduals with a President and Secrehlry. · According to the written memoranda of Gutierrez himRelf, it was formed for the sole purpose of passing judgment upon the military prisoners. The Secretary of this Junta, Don Mariano Rodriguez still survives. -At the time of which I speak he was a youth of lively parts. At present he vege tates in San Antonio, an obsolete septuagenarian, with extremely lim ited recollections of the past and most decided carelesimess for the future. On the night of the second, or it may be on the fifth .of April, a party of sixty Mexicans in command of Capt. Antonio Delgado took from San Antonio, the fourteen Spaniteh victims including four of Mexican origin. Arriving on the East side of the Salado near the spot where the battle of Ro;,illo had been fought, they hastily dis mounted from their horses and with no other weapons, save their blunt knives, which these monsters carried in their girdles for camp use, they cut the throats of their prisoners, previously heaping upon them the most insulting expre�i::ions and outrageous epithets. Some of these assassins, with brutal irony, whetted their knives upon the soles of their shoes in the presence of their bound victims. 0 shame of the human race! 0 disgrace and affront upon the <le1>ren<lants of a christian nation! Who can retain his compoi:ure and pass in silence this hideous episode in the annals of Bexar? We owe to posterity a faithful his torv. It beconws us to reveal to our descendants these horrible trans pirations, that thev by their futnre conduct may wash out the foul stains that rorrode our beni gn soil! The <lay following the as;as1,ination, I myself saw this band of mur rlerers, lerl hv their chief Antonio Del g' ado, halt in front of the Gov ernment buildings. I myself heard them inform Bernardo Gutierrez, that thn fonrteen victims hri<l heen put to cleath. On that very morn ing, with a concourse of other �xpertant youths, I stoo<l before thnsr same buil<lings. I saw Captain Dehrn<lo enter the room anrl salute Gen eral Gutierrez. He hastily uttered some words mingled with shame an<l terror an<l placed in his han<l a paper whirl! I was le<l to beliew, con taine<l a, list of those who had been exeC'uterl.
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