Tue, Feb 27 at 7:44 AM
The thirteen days of the siege, battle, and fall of the Alamo added three iconic phrases to the world’s lexicon:
A line in the sand.
Victory or Death!
Remember the Alamo!
Col. William Barrett Travis drew that line in the sand with the tip of his sword.
“Victory or Death!” was born in his heart and flowed from his pen.
And we remember the Alamo because Travis and the rest of the defenders gave their lives for Texas.
Col. William Barrett Travis’ Victory or Death letter has been called a masterpiece of American Patriotism, but the letter reached the world at large in a slightly different form than he intended.
When they printed the original broadside at San Felipe de Austin, Baker & Borden changed a few words, omitted the address line and altered the salutation.
That’s the form that made it into the Telegraph and Texas Register, which was copied by the New Orleans papers on March 16 and finally arrived in Washington DC on March 31. It wasn’t until mid April that the text was printed in the New England papers.
Those New Englanders were the first to read it with the poignancy that you and I experience, as they had already learned the fate of Travis and the Alamo defenders.
Here is the letter: Restored to the form Travis intended.
Exactly as he handed it to Albert Martin who carried it from the Alamo.
Exactly as Martin handed it to Launcelot Smither who took it to San Felipe de Austin
Exactly as Launcelot Smither handed it to the Borden brothers at San Felipe.
Just as Travis wrote it in 1836.
Travis’ Victory or Death Lette