The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963 Page: 468
641 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
of the approach of an enemy was communicated by three of their
own men, who had been captured on the 7th of June, and were sent
in with a very lengthy communication from Elisondo,14 the com-
mander of the Spanish forces. He had arrived and encamped about
one and a half miles northwest of the town, and sent in his prisoners
with the friendly communication. In which he represented to them
that his countrymen could not be relied on, neither for truth or
courage; that he was one of the first to raise the standard of liberty,
and was betrayed and deserted by his pretended friends, and had been
pardoned by the clemency of his sovreign [sic], and if the Americans
would abandon the expedition and deliver to him seventeen of the
Mexicans, naming them, he would guarantee them their pay accord-
ing to their agreement with Bernardo, and they should be furnished
with the necessary supply for their return home unmolested.d The
Americans made no reply, but were ordered to parade on the plaza;
when they formed, Col. Ross proposed that they should march out
in the night and make the best of their way home. That from the
friendly tone of Elisondo's letter he would probably not persue. The
men unanimously refused to retreat. He then proposed to retire to
the Alamo;15 the men again refused to abandon the town. It was
then near dark, and he rode off under pretext of placing out the
picket guard, but he procured an escort and abandoned his men and
the country, and returned to Natchitoches, in anticipation of a general
slaughter of the men whom he had abandoned to their fate.116 The
miles west of San Antonio undetected. Information derived from John Villars, in
Gulick and others, Lamar Papers, VI, 151; Information from Capt. Gaines, ibid.,
I, 282.
"14Ignacio Elisondo was an early adherent of the 181o revolution in Mexico.
Las Casas sent Salcedo and Herrera from San Antonio to him for detention. These
royalist officers reconverted Elisondo to loyalty to the crown. On March 21, 1811,
he captured the rebel leaders, including Hidalgo, at Acaitia de Bejan. After the
Battle of the Medina, in which he commanded the advance guard, he was sent
in pursuit of the defeated republicans and by September 3, 1813, he had executed
seventy-one rebels and held more than loo prisoners. On September 12, while
resting his troops at the Brazos, on his way back to San Antonio, he was wounded
severely by one of his own officers and died a few days later. Warren, The Sword
Was Their Passport, 50, 54, 69, 69n, 80.
dThe Americans had become so disgusted with the service that they would no
doubt have accepted the terms proposed by Elisondo, and abandoned the expedi-
tion, if it had not been coupled with the demand to surrender the Mexicans;
and when General Toledo arrived, they willingly surrendered into his hands the
entire command and control of all further proceedings, as the only means of con-
ciliating the friends of the cause. It might have done so had it not been for the
insideous [sic] charge made against him by Bernardo.
"11El Alamo was the name given to Mission San Antonio de Valero when it was
secularized. Castafieda, Catholic Heritage, III, 210.
"neRoss had developed a liaison with a Mexican girl who warned him that the
Mexican population had been won over by Elisondo and planned, in conjunction468
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963, periodical, 1963; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101196/m1/504/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.