WILLIAM BARRET TRAVIS

To the Citizens of Texas. Commandancy of the Alamo, Bejar, Feb. 24, 1836. Fellow-Citizens, I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans, under Santa Ana. … Though this call may be neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible, and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor and that of his country. Victory or Death. W. Barret Travis, Lieutenant-Colonel Commandant. … [San Felipe de Austin: Printed by Baker & Bordens, about 27 February 1836]



Broadside (9 7/8 x 7 5/8 in.; 251 x 193 mm). Very light offsetting from Henry Smith's proclamation "Texas Expects Every Man to Do His Duty" (Streeter 145), which was integrally printed with the Travis letter, faintly creased where formerly folded twice horizontally.

Streeter, Texas 185

Travis's desperate but dignified plea from the Alamo: "Victory or Death"! This dispatch from the commander of the Alamo, carried to San Felipe by militiaman Albert Martin, is among a handful of American statements—including Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address and Robert E. Lee's General Orders No. 9—that, through the strength and succinctness of their own diction and cadence, defy explication or analysis.

"I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans, under Santa Ana. I have sustained a continual bombardment and cannonade, for twenty-four hours, and have not lost one man. The enemy have demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise the garrison is to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken. I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, and our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender nor retreat: then I call on you, in the name of liberty, of patriotism, and of every thing dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all possible despatch. The enemy are receiving reinforcements daily, and will, no doubt, increase to three or four thousands, in four or five days. Though this call may be neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible, and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor and that of his country." Following his exhoratory closing, "Victory or Death," Travis added a hasty, but optimistic postscript: "The Lord is on our side. When the enemy appeared in sight, we had not three bushels of corn; we have since found, in deserted houses, eighty or ninety bushels, and got into the walls twenty or thirty head of beeves."

William Barret Travis, something of an intinerent lawyer, was born in South Carolina. Only twenty-seven when Jim Bowie's death from typhoid left him in sole command of the Alamo, Travis was one of the youngest leaders of the Texas revolution. With fewer than two hundred regular milita and untrained volunteers holding the Alamo, Travis kept Santa Anna and his regular Mexican Army troops—perhaps as many as four thousand—at bay from 23 February until the garrison was overrun on 6 March.

Revisionist historians have been unable to obscure Travis's heroic achievement. He and his men found death at the Alamo, but they laid the foundation for the ultimate victory of Texas.

This is the first separate printing of Travis's "Victory or Death" letter, and possibly the first printing overall. (It has not been determined if it preceded or followed the broadside "Meeting of the Citizens of San Felipe," which also printed Travis's call for reinforcements; see Streeter, Texas 132a. Both versions differ in minor incidentals from the holograph letter, which is in the Texas State Library.) The present copy is evidently previously unrecorded. Streeter's Bibliography of Texas locates just two copies: his own (now at Yale) and one at the Texas State Library (now missing). Another unrecorded copy, still conjugate with Smith's proclamation, was sold by us, 21 May 1993, lot 4.