CHAPTER XXXI.
SOMETHING ABOUT GENERAL SAM HOUSTON.
The Alamo had fallen, and now it was necessary to figure up results. As said before, all of the Texans, about one hundred and eighty in number, had been slaughtered, while the loss to the Mexicans was variously estimated at from three to five hundred. The sights about the mission were truly horrible, and never forgotten by those who witnessed them.
It must be said, in all frankness, that the defence of the Alamo was a mistake, for those gallant men must have known that they could not hold out against the overwhelming forces of Santa Anna. And they did not remain there because all escape was cut off, for they could have gotten away just as easily as the reinforcements from Gonzales got in. It was not until the final days of the siege that the Mexicans drew around them closely.
Why, then, did they remain?
The answer is one that every American boy and man ought to remember with pride. They remained because of the principle involved. They
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