A Newly Uncovered Alamo Account: By Pedro Ampudia, Commanding General of the Mexican Army over Texas Artillery

"El Ecla," a six-and-a-half inch bronze howitzer that was captured from the Mexicans at Matamoros during the Mexican-American War housed at West Point. Based on its age, size, and where it was captured, it is highly likely that this piece was one of the four howitzers that the Mexicans had in Texas during the revolution. Two of the four howitzers fired on the Alamo. Photo by the author.

In commemoration of the two-hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the struggle for Mexico's independence from Spain, the archives of the Mexican military have been digitized and placed online. Hundreds of new documents are now available to Texas history researchers. The documents are nearly all in Spanish and are handwritten; however, if one is persistent and has a basic knowledge of Castilian Spanish, a gold mine of Texas Revolution period information awaits. One such document is Pedro Ampudia's account of the Mexican siege of the Alamo.¹

Pedro Ampudia was a Lieutenant Colonel of the Permanent Mexican Artillery. As Antonio López de Santa Anna first entered Béxar² at the head of the First Division of the Mexican army,³ Ampudia and the artillery of the First Division were a part of his column. This column consisted of the Permanent Jiménez Battalion,⁴ the Active Battalion of San Luis, the Permanent Matamoros Battalion, the Permanent Cavalry Regiment of Dolores,⁵ the Permanent Cavalry Regiment of Veracruz, the Permanent Cavalry Regiment of Coahuila, various presidial cavalrymen, and the Division Artillery. The total strength of the First Brigade, not counting its sick and deserters, would have been between 1,450 and 1,540 officers and men.⁶

The artillery of the First Division consisted of two four-pounder cannons,⁷ two six-pounder cannons, two eight-pounder cannons, and two six-and-a-half inch howitzers.⁸ They were manned by sixty-two artillerymen. There is no evidence in the Mexican historical record that any other pieces of Mexican artillery arrived at the Alamo prior to the beginning of the assault on March 6, 1836.

From the following document it is apparent that Santa Anna requested a report from Ampudia soon after the completion of the assault. He wanted to know which of the officers who served under Ampudia had shown exemplary behavior during the action. Ampudia gave Santa Anna, and eventually Texas history researchers, much more. He presented a brief account of his own and his artillery branch's actions during the siege and the assault of the Alamo. He also attached two appendices to his account. One was a listing of the armaments that had been captured from the Texans after the fall of the Alamo. The second was an inventory of armaments that the Mexican army had consumed during the siege and the assault.

The first appendix is published in The Alamo Reader in 2003.⁹ A reference to this document first appeared in William C. Davis's Three Roads to the Alamo in 1998.¹⁰ Davis described this item as "newly discovered," but failed to tell who had done the discovering. He did not mention the second appendix in his work.

The second appendix is also published in The Alamo Reader, but there is no record of who found the document.¹¹ It is referenced to the Bancroft collection at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley. There is no mention in any of these sources of the Ampudia account that follows these two items in the online Mexican Military Archives.

The Ampudia account and appendices are copies that were sent by Ampudia to the Commanding General of Artillery of the Mexican army, José Antonio Moro, in Mexico City. Moro then had a copy of these sent on to General José María Tornel, Secretary of War and Navy. These seem to be the copies that are now in the online source.¹²

Your Excellency

I have the honor to insert...