Susanna Dickinson

One of the members of the Alamo's garrison was Christopher Adams Parker. His father, William Parker, came to Texas in spring 1836 seeking information as to his son's fate. Mr. Parker corresponded with the editor of a Louisiana newspaper, The Free Trader. This excerpt from his April 29^th letter describes the Alamo's fall as related by Susanna Dickinson.¹

. . . . My informant above quoted states, that on his way in, he saw and conversed with Mrs. Dickinson, the widow of one of the gunners at the fall of the Alamo, and the only white person in the fortress at the time of the final catastrophe of this post, who was spared by the enemy, and permitted to return to the American settlements. He says that Mrs. D. informed him, that of the five who, for a moment, survived their companions, and threw themselves on the victor's clemency, two were pursued into her room, and subjected in her presence to the most torturing death.² They were even raised on the points of the enemy's lances, let down and raised again and again, whilst invoking as a favor, instantaneous death to terminate their anguish, till they were at last too weak to speak, and then expired in convulsion. . . .

Footnotes

1. John H. Jenkins, ed., Papers of the Texas Revolution (10 vols.; Austin: Presidial Press, 1970), 6:121-112. back to text
2. More detailed accounts by Susanna Dickinson appear in Bill Groneman, Eyewitness to the Alamo (Plano, TX: Republic of Texas Press, 1996), 23-24, 68-70, 73-74, 77-79, 80-83, 96. According to her other accounts, one of the men killed before her was Jacob Walker of Nacogdoches. Mrs. Dickinson apparently could neither read or write, therefore, all of her accounts of the battle were written down by other people. back to text