dreadful.
One by one, however, the buildings were carried at the point of the
bayonet, and the little groups of Texans broken up and destroyed.

The last point to yield was the chapel, which seems to have been held by
a somewhat larger force than any of the other buildings. However, after
the parade grounds were cleared and the other companies destroyed, it
was possible to burn the most of the fort and thus batter it down and
kill its brave defenders.

It is said that toward the close of the struggle in the chapel,
Lieutenant Dickinson was seen to leap from one of the windows with a
small child in his arms, and that both were shot as they leaped. This
was perhaps the last act in the great tragedy, for if any were alive in
the chapel after the lieutenant made his attempted escape, they were
quickly bayonetted where they stood.

With the dead and dying strewn around, Santa Ana entered the fort. What
he saw there, we cannot attempt to describe, but a few things we must
mention. In his own room they found Colonel Bowie dead in his bed, where
he had lain too sick to rise; but he had had strength to use his
weapons, for four Mexicans had fallen, shot to death in the room, while
a fifth lay across the bed with the Colonel's terrible knife sticking in
his heart. Near the door of the magazine it is said that they found
Major Evans, the master of ordnance, shot down with a burning match in
his hand, before he could fire the powder and blow the fort and his
enemies into the air.

[Illustration: COLONEL BOWIE USED HIS WEAPONS TO THE LAST]

Upon a high platform in one corner, there was a small cannon which was
turned upon the Mexicans in the fort and did terrible execution. Who
handled it is not exactly known, but near it were found the bodies of
David Crockett and five of his companions. It is said, though possibly
without much foundation, that when Santa Ana stepped into the courtyard
he found Crockett and his companions still fighting.

Concealed in one of the rooms under some mattresses, five men were
found, and under a bridge crossing an irrigating ditch another was
discovered. All these were immediately shot by the orders of Santa Ana,
and so hastily and excitedly was it all done that a Mexican was killed
with them by accident. The wife of Lieutenant Dickinson, a negro servant
of Travis, and a few Mexican women were the only human beings whose
lives were spared.

Thus fell the Alamo. In thinking of this bloody tragedy