Of this wild army, half ruffian, half adventurous, most of the men were poor, although they came in many cases from good families. They had behind them an undeniable sentiment in favor of the independence of Texas, and were backed by money raised for that purpose. General Jackson openly and notoriously favored the annexation of Texas, and perhaps even of Mexico, and went so far as to suggest a few practical though unauthorized plans of his own as to how the army might be used to bring about a conflict and later a pax Jacksonii. Thus we find our hero, Davy Crockett, once more falling into the plans of his former chief, his recently victorious antagonist, Old Hickory. It is possible that Crockett was deceived in his pilgrimage to Texas. There is more than a suspicion that he was used as a cat’s paw in a political movement. He says that “Houston is enjoying the support of the Government, while others are left to do the fighting.” He continues, “Houston has dealt with us in prevarications.” He calls Houston the “agent” and Jackson the “manufacturer.” Yet certainly Crockett was backed by a prevalent and strongly growing sentiment. The records are too vague and insufficient. We shall never fully understand all these complications of early and adventurous politics. Be all these things as they may, Crockett was one of the devoted little band of a hundred and eighty-three Texans, who in time found themselves besieged by an army of Mexicans from five thousand to eight thousand strong. The peons of Santa Anna’s worthless army came on day after day, the bands playing the Dequelo, which meant “no quarter.” For eleven days the Texans held the Alamo, in that historic fight whose details are so generally and so uncertainly known. These one hundred and eighty-three men killed of the enemy more than one thousand. Worn out by loss of sleep and continuous muscular exertion, their arms simply grew weary from much slaying. Their hands could no longer push down the ladders weighted with the struggling peons goaded forward by the swords of their officers. At length an assault was lodged. The swart Mexicans, more in terror than in exultation, poured across the broken wall. In the hospital lay forty helpless men, each with his rifle at his side. These, sick and crippled, broken-bodied, iron-hearted, poured their last volley into their assailants as they came in. A cannon was discharged down the room and nearly a score of the crippled and sick were blown to pieces. Outside, in the open space, the lances of the Mexicans reached farther than the clubbed rifles or the bitter, biting knives of the stalwart Americans, now raging in their last tremendous, magnificent and awful Baresark rage.