THE NEWS OF THE FALL Five days before the fall of the Alamo a little group of men began to gather at the village of Washington, on the Brazos river in Texas.

The name of the little town indicated well whence its people had come.

All the houses were new, mostly of unpainted wood, and they contained some of the furniture of necessity, none of luxury.

The first and most important article was the rifle which the Texans never needed more than they did now.
But this new and little Washington was seething with excitement and suspense, and its population was now more than triple the normal.

News had come that the Alamo was beleaguered by a force many times as numerous as its defenders, and that Crockett, Bowie, Travis and other famous men were inside.