Alamo
The Alamo, San Antonio
(credit: Courtesy of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce)
Eighteenth-century mission in San Antonio, Texas, site of a historic siege of a small group of Texans by a Mexican army (1836) during the Texas war for independence from Mexico. The abandoned mission was occupied occasionally by Spanish troops, who named it the Alamo (“cottonwood”) after the surrounding trees. At the start of the war in December 1835, volunteers occupied the Alamo and vowed to fight to the death any attempt to recapture it. In February 1836 a Mexican army of several thousand began a siege that lasted 13 days. The Texan force of about 180, led by
Jim Bowie and including
Davy Crockett, was overrun; nearly all the defenders were killed (about 15 persons, mostly women and children, were spared). Mexican casualties were at least 600. “Remember the Alamo!” became a rallying cry for Texans through the remainder of the war.
Alamo the. a mission in San Antonio, Texas, the site of a siege and massacre in 1836 by Mexican forces under Santa Anna of a handful of American rebels fighting for Texan independence from Mexico
Alamo
fort at San Antonio that was site of Mexican massacre of Texans (1836). [Am. Hist.: Jameson, 8]
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