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TEXANS BEGIN TO FIGHT BACK

A man named William Barret Travis, Buck Travis, gathered about two dozen followers,
mounted a small brass canon on a sawmill truck and parked at the front gate of Fort
Anahuac. There they demanded the fort surrender and the forty four Mexican soldiers
did surrender. This drew mixed reactions in Texas because most Texans felt obligated
to be loyal to Mexico but that attitude was quickly changing and in the summer of 1835
a convention was planned for Washington-on the-Brazos to prepare for an inevitable
war with Mexico.

During this time Austin wrote a letter to his cousin and said;
“A great immigration from Kentucky, Tennessee, etc, each man with his rifle...
would be of great use to us- very great indeed..... I wish a great immigration this
fall and winter from Kentucky, Tennessee, everywhere; passports or no
passports, anyhow. For fourteen years I have had a hard time of it, but nothing

shall daunt my courage or abate my exertions to complete the main object of my
labors to Americanize Texas. This fall or winter will fix our fate- a great
immigration will settle the question.”

And, it did. All Texans and most Americans know about the fall of the Alamo after
a five hour battle on March 6, 1836 and the final Texan victory at San Jacinto led by
Sam Houston. Texas won its independence from Mexico on April 21, 1836 with only
two Texas soldiers killed.

While the battles to gain independence were going on in Texas Austin and others were
in the United States trying to get some help. They were not too well received by
Eastern bankers and others there but were well received in the Southern states. The
Southern states produced violent emotional reactions. “Friends of Texas” groups met

calling for volunteers to go to Texas and fight. Austin called them the “armed
emigrants to Texas” groups.

Almost every Southern state sent men and weapons. Alabama stripped its state arsenal
of muskets. Two thousand volunteers were raised in Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.
None of the money, weapons and volunteers, however, arrived before the end of the
war. Texas had done it all by itself.

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