The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 5, July 1901 - April, 1902 Page: 263

Notes and Fragments. 263
NOTES AND FRAGMENTS.
"LAST MESSENGER FROM THE ALAMO."-The Proceedings of the
Tenth Annual Meeting of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas
contains an article under this caption, by their excellent historian,
Mrs. Addle B. Looscan, who therein infers that the messenger,
Capt. John W. Smith, left the Alamo "in the evening of the 3d
of March, in all likelihood after dark"; which inference conflicts
with my conclusion in the QUARTERLY of July, 1901, that he left
after midnight on the morning of the 3d, therefore before the
departure of Rose on the afternoon of that day, and that his silence
concerning Travis's speech does not tend to disprove Rose's state-
ment.
The inference that Smith left the Alamo late in the evening of
March 3d is drawn from two considerations: first, Travis's remark
in the dispatch borne by Smith, and dated March 3d,-"Col. J. B.
Bonham got in this morning at eleven o'clock"; and secondly-
another inference-that Smith made all necessary changes of horses
on the way.
I believe that my note in the QUARTERLY of October, 1901,--
The Escape of Rose from the Alamo,-proves that Travis, being
weary and pressed for time, made a blunder (surely not an extra-
ordinary one), and that his meaning was 'yesterday morning,'
'last evening,' or 'tonight.' If so, the above quoted inference rests
solely on another inference.
The nature of Smith's route to Washington proves the imprac-
ticability of his changing horses on the way. Though I believe that
there was a standing government ordinance to keep relays of horses
on express routes, none were kept. I carefully read the proceed-
ings of the governor and the council every week in the Telegraph
and Texas Register till my departure for the army, on March 6,
1836; but I never saw therein any statement that such relays were
established anywhere. This neglect resulted from two causes: the
poverty of the government, and the impracticability of keeping
relays on parts of the routes from Bexar and Goliad. The road
from Bexar to Gonzales did not then, as later, lead by the present
'town of Seguin, but the eastern part of it lay southwest of the
Guadalupe River, the entire distance being estimated at seventy