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Three
Alamo expressions are almost universally known: “A line in the sand,”
“Remember the Alamo,”
and “The Alamo had
no back door.”
The world will never know whether Col. William B. Travis used his
saber to draw a line on the ground and invited all who chose to
fight to the death to cross it. But the expression endures as resolutely
as our memory of the siege that ended on the morning of March 6,
1836.
The second leg of the triad, “Remember the Alamo,”
is well-documented as the last three words hundreds of Mexican soldiers
heard before they died at the hands of Sam Houston’s vengeful army
during the battle
of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836.
But who first noted that the old Spanish mission in San
Antonio had no back door? And what if the Alamo
did have a back door, or at least a secret escape route?
On
Sept. 15, 1894, the Eagle Pass Guide reprinted a story from the
St. Louis Globe-Democrat, “The Alamo’s Secret Passage.”
The piece began:
“There has been a tradition among the Mexicans of this city [San
Antonio], since the early part of the present century, that
the old Alamo and Conception Missions are connected…by means of
an underground passage, and a discovery has just been made …which
leads to the belief that the tradition is well founded.”
A few days earlier, the story went, workmen digging a well on the
farm of one Walter Scott, just south of town, struck a layer of
rock.
“After penetrating this barrier they came upon a passage which is
about 8 feet in height and 5 feet wide,” the story continued. “The
sides are walled with rock slabs, and the bottom seems to be laid
with a material resembling cement. The passage runs in a north and
south direction, and at the time the discovery was made it was half
filled with water, it being just after heavy rains…. The top of
the passage is about 12 feet from the surface. It is in direct line
between the two missions, and Mr. Scott is thoroughly convinced
that he has at last discovered the long-lost passage, and that upon
further exploration he will bring some wonderful things to light.”
The story said a brief exploration of the passage had been made,
but no one had gone very far because of the water. The unidentified
author of the article said secret passages were common in the missions
of Mexico and the Southwest and that they were “constantly [being]
discovered and explored, even at this late day, and in some of them
immense amounts of treasure have been brought to light.”
While that’s possible, the notion of secret tunnels is a definite
folk tale sub-category, often connected with the broader treasure
story genre. The idea behind the tunnels, of course, is that they
were used as escape routes in the event of Indian attack.
The story went on:
“When the Franciscan Fathers came to the new world they found many
enemies …with which to contend in their work of advancing [religion]
and civilization. They built these missions and fortified them so
that in case of attack from the savages or other …enemies they could
make resistance. [It]…is a well-known fact that in many places in
Mexico they were successfully used in turbulent times, and when
the attacking party would enter the religious edifice it would be
found deserted.”
The passages were both well-built and well-disguised, the story
noted.
“Another thing that lends color to the theory that the Alamo
and Conception Missions are connected…,” the story said, “is that
in the north wing of the Alamo
in one of the cell-like rooms that was formerly occupied by the
severe and sober-appearing monks, there is a spot about five feet
square in the cement floor which within the past few years has sunk
several inches, and when one walks upon the spot there is a hollow
sound.…”
Should the existence of a passage running three miles from the Alamo
to Mission Conception
be proven, the story said, “the discovery will also reveal that
the Texas martyrs who lost their lives in the Alamo,
had they known of the existence of this outlet, [could] have saved
their lives by escaping through it.”
None of the basic Alamo
histories mention anything about a tunnel ever having been found,
though scholars do believe some of the Alamo
defenders tried to escape once they realized they had no hope of
survival inside the mission. The underground rock-lined structure
found in 1894, assuming the story wasn’t made up, might have been
a remnant of the Spanish irrigation system that connected to the
San Antonio River.
As for the “back door” line, it is variously attributed to the late
Maury Maverick Jr. or some unnamed member of the Daughters of the
Republic of Texas. Supposedly, when President John K. Kennedy visited
the Alamo in 1960,
he asked following his appearance to be escorted out the back door
of the old mission.
“There is no back door to the Alamo,”
Kennedy learned. “That’s why they were all heroes.”
© Mike Cox
"Texas Tales"
March 6 , 2008 column
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