Sword-Death

could come to his aid. He knew then that there was no hope, but he never thought of such a thing as giving up the Alamo; no, not he. He called his men together at night, told them how matters stood, and, The Line of the drawing a line on the ground with his sword, said: "Those Chosen by AII. who want to fight it out with me come inside that line, and those who have had enough and think they can escape go outside.' All stepped over the line to Travis' side but one Mexican. Some say he escaped. I do not know what became of him.

"All day and all night long there was shooting with cannons and with rifles. Sometimes the Mexicans got brave and advanced in small parties, but they were always driven back. God must have been with the Texans up to the last day, for not a man was killed until then, although bombs and cannon balls came thick and fast inside the fort at times, and bullets kept whizzing through the air.

"All this time I was taking care of good Colonel Bowie. Besides his fever he was suffering from a fall from a platform. He was not able to get out into the yard to fight, but he would stay with his men, and I nursed him as well as I could.

"With so many in the fort, and with working and shooting going on all about, it was not easy to take care of a man with a fever. But it made little difference, well or sick was all the same after Santa Anna's savage men broke into the fort. All were shot, clubbed or bayoneted to death together.

"Between three and four o'clock in the morning of March 6, Sunday, the Mexican forces were formed for assault. The troops were divided into four columns and each column was supplied with scaling ladders, crowbars and axes. The cavalry were drawn around the fort to prevent any attempt at escape, but, laws! there wasn't any need of that!

"Through the gray light of the morning the bugle sounded, and the bands began playing the Spanish air of 'Deguelo' (cutThe Trumpet Call, "No Quarter." throat). It was the signal of no quarter. The troops came on a run. The men in the Alamo were ready for them, and they were received with a fire from the artillery and rifles which must have killed scores.

"The column headed for the northern wall was driven back in a hurry by Davy Crockett and his men. The attack on the eastern and western walls failed, and then all four columns hurried around to the north side of the Alamo and were driven forward like cattle, by the blows and curses of their officers.

"There was an awful drove of them-more men than I had ever seen together or ever have since. Once again the Texans drove them back, but

on the next trial they scaled the wall, tumbling over it twenty at a time, while the retreating Texans shot them at a frightful rate. The Mexicans carried the redoubt at the sally port and swarmed into the convent yard, driving the defenders into the convent and hospital.

"It was an awful scene-Mexicans and Texans all mixed up. The range was too short for shooting, so they clubbed their rifles and fought hand to hand. The terrible bowie knife did great service. Some

The End of the
Defence; The

of the enemy turned the captured cannon against the soft adobe walls and began firing. Soon all was bang! bang! Massacre Begins. smoke, swearing and general confusion. Crazed men were fighting everywhere, bullets rattled against the stones and blood spattered all about. Oh, there was never anything so bad before and I know there never has been since.

"The Texans fought from room to room in the convent, using their clubbed rifles and their bowie knives so long as they had life in them. Colonel Travis and Colonel Bonham fell dead early in the struggle near the door. Twice the Mexicans fired a howitzer loaded with grapeshot into the big room of the hospital. Fifteen Texans were found dead in that room and the bodies of forty-two Mexicans lay just outside.

"The last of the fight took place in the church, into which the Mexicans poured in droves, having got through the stockade. Seeing that it was all up with the defenders, Major T. C. Evans started for the powder magazine to blow up the building, as agreed upon by the defenders. But as he entered the door he was shot dead. I shudder when I think what would have happened if he had succeeded. I wouldn't be here, that's certain; no, there wouldn't have been even one survivor of the Alamo. Poor Davy Crockett was killed near the entrance to the church, his rifle in his hands. He was the last to die.

Attempt to Blow
Up the Magazine.

"I had hard work keeping Colonel Bowie on his couch. He got hold of his two pistols and began firing them off, shouting all the while to his men not to give up. He was raving. I had moved his cot to the arched room to the left of the entrance to the church.

"Finally a bullet whizzed through the door, grazing my chin-see, it left a scar which is there to-day-and killed Bowie. I had the Colonel in my arms. I was just giving him a drink. Mrs. Dickenson and her child had gone into the room opposite the one I was in. A wounded man, Walters, I think was his name, ran into that room with Mexicans after him. They shot him and then hoisted his body high on their bayonets until his blood ran down on them.

"At nine o'clock the Alamo had fallen. Not one of its defenders was alive. It seemed to me that the fighting lasted days instead of only a few hours.

"The Mexicans spared all of us women and the children in the fort. The survivors were Mrs. Dickenson and her child; Mrs. Alsbury, a niece and adopted daughter of Governor Veramendi, and her little sister, who had gone to the Alamo with Colonel Bowie, their brother-in-law; a negro boy, servant of Colonel Travis, and myself. They all died long, long ago, and poor old Senora Candelaria cannot live much longer.

"After the fighting was ended, five men who had hidden themselves were found by the victors. By this time Santa Anna had left his shelter and come to the shattered fort. The five men were brought before him. A kind officer asked that they be kept prisoners, but Santa Anna laughed and ordered his soldiers to kill the men with their bayonets.

"Then, by order of Santa Anna, the bodies of all the dead Texans were piled in a heap with brush and wood and burned. That was the end of the heroes of that great struggle. Is it any wonder that the old senora's thin blood runs a little faster whenever she hears 'Remember the Alamo?”

Like a Ghost of the

Senora Candelaria did not tell the story as connectedly as it is here set down. She was very feeble then, but possibly realizing that her end was near she threw all of the fire left in her worn old brain into the telling. Sitting in the sunshine in sight of the Alamo she loved Past, The Seeress So much, she unfolded the narrative slowly, with frequent intervals for rest. She spoke mostly in Spanish, with occasionally a sentence in broken English. Her voice had lost its force, but her hands had not. Her gestures were eloquent. Much of the story was told by gestures, for which words have been supplied.

of Slaughter.

Apart from her wonderful experience in the Alamo, Senor Candelaria's life was full of incident. She was born amid turmoil. Her parents, Don Jose Antonio and Senora Castanon, led a party of settlers along the Rio Grande in 1785. They halted for a night on the bank of the river where Laredo now stands. That night they were attacked by Indians. During the panic which ensued, while the settlers were shouting, clapping their hands and swaying the bushes in order to lead the savages astray as to their number, the future Madame Candelaria was born. After soldiers from Rio Grande had driven the Indians away, the settlers returned and founded the town of Laredo. There the battle-born Mexican child grew to womanhood, noted for her beauty. When she was eighteen she married and moved to San Antonio. Her first husband was killed by Indians while on a surveying

expedition. She married again, and her second husband met an equally violent death. She had three sons, only one of whom lived to manhood.

The State of Texas long ago voted her a small pension, and she lived in a little cottage near the Alamo. Toward the end she grew blind, and tottered the last few steps of her long road to the grave in darkness. Texas will see that her memory is kept green.

I

DECATUR, THE YANKEE TAR.

BY COLVILLE BALDWIN.

T was a bright, cool morning in October, 1812, that the great fight between the American frigate, the "United States," commanded by the immortal Decatur, whose fame is the common heritage of the American people, North and South alike, and the British frigate "Macedonian," commanded by Captain Carden, took place.

As an illustration of the grand fighting qualities that belong to the American Navy, it deserves a place even above that which would naturally be given it as a story of mere heroic achievement. Without courage man The coward is everywhere and universally despised. And quality found with almost every people, in differing forms

is a poor thing. yet courage is a

and degrees.

There is a courage of brutality which has won many battles, oftener on the wrong than the right side. It is based upon a cruel instinct for blood, a fierce, wild impulse to conquer and hold others in subjection, and an utter disregard of all chivalric considerations.

There is, again, a courage that is born of a devotion to a noble cause, as, for instance, when it springs from so great a love for liberty for all mankind that its possessor willingly dares the worst that may

to the Good.

befall man, and cheerfully sacrifices not only life, but his Courage Belongs own freedom, that others may enjoy that which he sets above all other earthly blessings. This courage can only be found in the loftiest, noblest spirit. It cannot exist in the vulgar, commonplace man. It flourishes by the side of the sweeter attributes of that type of human nature nearest akin to the divine. The man who has it is sympathetic, tender toward misfortune, unselfish in impulse, even to the utmost of personal sacrifice, scorning that which is low and unworthy, yielding to the

leadings of the heart even after bitter experiences which in another would chill the confidence of man in his fellow-man. Our own American poet has sung of the men who have this heaven-inspired courage:

"The bravest are the tenderest,

The loving are the daring."

In these two lines he paints the composite picture of the long list of heroes whose exploits crowd the pages of American history.

And of these, no man was more deservedly conspicuous, no man more universally loved, no man more distinguished for the possession of the characteristics of the highest type of manhood, than Commodore Stephen Decatur.

He was born at Sinnepuxent, Md., January 5, 1779, and was the son of Captain Stephen Decatur, also for many years an officer of the United States Navy. The younger Stephen, the subject of our sketch, entered the service in 1798 as a midshipman, and so efficient was he that a year later he was promoted lieutenant. It is a coincidence that before joining the navy he was employed, at the age of seventeen, to superintend the getting out of the keel pieces for the frigate "United States," that he was in that vessel when she was launched, was assigned to her as midshipman when he first entered the service, and afterward as lieutenant, subsequently commanded her as captain, as well as when she served as flag-ship of one of the squadrons of which he was commodore, and in her fought one of the most brilliant battles history records. She seems to have been a favorite with him, and right staunchly did she respond to every demand her great commander made upon her.

From the beginning of his career, Decatur manifested those heroic impulses which have made his name and fame an imperishable ornament to the history of our navy-a matter of undying pride to every true American. As a youth it was said of him that he was possessed of an uncommon character, was an officer of rare promise, "one not equaled in a million.” While still a midshipman, serving on board the "United States," he was on deck one day when, in the midst of a howling tempest, the ship rang with the cry, "Man overboard!" and the boats were lowered away.

"Without hesitation," says the historian, "Decatur sprang from the mizzen-chains, and in a few moments his muscular arins were holding the drowning man above the waves, which he continued to do Risks His Life to until the boats reached the spot, when he passed the nearly dying youth into one of them, and then climbed in himself. It is of such men that heroes are made, and the one that Decatur saved, while himself gaining celebrity, lived to see his preserver attain a

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