From the pamphlet put out by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas:
Unsheathing his sword during a lull in the virtually incessant bombardment, Colonel William Barret Travis drew a line on the ground before his battle-weary men. In a voice trembling with emotion, he described the hopelessness of their plight, and said, “Those prepared to give their lives in freedom’s cause, come over to me.” Without hesitation, every man, save one, crossed the line. The one, Colonel James Bowie, stricken with pneumonia, asked that his cot be carried over.
For the past twelve days, since February 23, when Travis had answered Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna’s surrender ultimatum with a cannon shot, the defenders had withstood the onslaught of an army which ultimately numbered 4,000 men.
Committed to death inside the Alamo were 189 known patriots who valued freedom more than life itself. Many, such as the 32 men and boys from Gonzales who had made their way through Mexican lines in answer to Travis’s plea for reinforcements, were colonists. Theirs was a fight against Santa Anna’s intolerable laws. Others were volunteers such as David Crockett and his “Tennessee Boys,” who owned nothing in Texas and owed nothing to it. Theirs was a fight against tyranny and the love of a good fight. A handful were native Texans of Spanish and Mexican descent who suffered under the same injustices as the colonists. There were also about 20 women, children, and slaves. Susanna Dickinson and her daughter were the only American women, although two Mexican women were sisters-in-law to Jim Bowie.
Now, with ammunition and supplies all but exhausted, those who rallied to the Texas cause awaited the inevitable. It came suddenly in the pre-dawn hours of March 6.
With bugles sounding the dreaded “Deguello” (no quarter to the defenders/take no prisoners of the soldiers), columns of Mexican soldiers attacked from all sides. Twice repulsed, they then concentrated their third attack on the weaker north wall.
After the battle, according to some historians, one of the Mexican commanders had captured a handful of the Alamo’s defenders. He had promised them captivity, not death. Santa Anna did not honor that promise and ordered them killed. All bodies were buried in a mass grave.