Siege of Bexar Part Two
The following are excerpts from “REMINISCENCES OF SION R. BOSTICK” published by The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 5 Oct. 1901.
“General Austin told us that we might shoot at the Alamo if we wanted to. I belonged to the crowd that managed the gun. We were delighted with the privilege of shooting at the Mexicans, and we pulled the gun to within a few hundred yards of the Alamo fort. We loaded the little gun and fired, and we hit the fort and knocked down some of it.” “While in camp at that old mill, we moved our cannon down and put it in an irrigating ditch. The Mexicans built barricades in the streets and fired at us for several days. We returned the fire. I watched their balls hit, and when they got still I picked them up, and we fired them back at them.”
“ Early in December we started in to take the place. The nights were dark. We did not go by the open roads or streets, but we went through the old adobe and picket houses of the Mexicans, using battering-rams made out of logs ten or twelve feet long.” “Punching holes in the walls through which we passed. How the women and children would yell when we knocked the holes in the walls and went in. We had dug our way through the houses until we were opposite the portholes in the barricades.” “The guns in these barricades were pointed down the street, and we were behind each side in the houses. They could not turn the guns around so as to shoot at us, but we could shoot at them. We moved our cannon into a street so as to knock down some of the barricades.” (Sion says after about a week their cannon was lying dismounted in the street, and General Ben Milam wanted to get it and when he went into the street a canister shot hit him in the head and killed him.)“After several more days fighting we captured the barricades.” (On Dec. 8 after bitter house-to-house fighting.) “The soldiers who had been behind them retreated into the Alamo.” “They soon put up a flag and called for a cessation of hostilities until a consultation could be held.” “After parlaying they agreed to give up the fort with all its cannon” (Neither side had supplies for prisoners, General Cos and his men were released on their pledge to leave the territory north of the Rio Grande and not return. Each man was allowed to keep a rifle and limited ammunition.)
“we all dispersed to our homes.”
(Cos broke the pledge returned in February of 1836 and attacked the Alamo.)
Sion Bostick, in the midst of the Siege on December 7, 1835 turned 16 years old.