The Alamo fell on March 6, 1836, four days after Texas Independence was declared. Reuben Marmaduke Potter was a resident of Matamoros at that time. Through visits to the site and interviewing eyewitnesses, he put together an account of the battle which was published in the Magazine of American History, January, 1878, titled “The Fall of the Alamo”.

The principal eyewitness from whom he acquired much of the information was Juan N. Seguin of San Antonio, who had been an officer of the garrison up to within six days of the assault.
You can read Capt. Potter’s full account on-line under “Mission San Antonio de Valero” on the Texas A&M website.

Capt. Potter’s moving poem, Hymn of the Alamo, is printed on page 5 of this Dolphin Talk issue.

Hymn of the Alamo

By. R.M. Potter
“Rise, man on the wall, our clarion’s blast
Now sounds its final reveille;
This dawning morn must be the last
Our fated band shall ever see.
To life, but not to hope, farewell!
Yon trumpet’s clang, and cannon’s peal,
And storming shout, and clash of steel,
Is ours, but not our country’s knell!
Welcome the Spartan’s death–
“Tis no despairing strife–
We fall! We die! But our expiring breath
Is Freedom’s breath of life!”
“Here, on this new Thermopylae,
Our monument shall tower on high,
And ‘Alamo’ hereafter be
In bloodier fields the battle cry.”
Thus Travis from the rampart cried;
And when his warriors saw the foe,
Like whelming billows move below,
At once each dauntless heart replied,
“Welcome the Spartan’s death–
‘Tis no despairing strife–
We fall! We die! But our expiring breath
Is Freedom’s breath of life!”
They come—like autumn’s leaves they fall,
Yet, hordes on hordes, they onward rush;
With gory tramp they mount the wall,
Till numbers the defenders crush–
Till falls their flag when none remain!
Well may the ruffians quake to tell
How Travis and his hundred fell
Amid a thousand foemen slain!
They died the Spartan’s death,
But not in hopeless strife–
Like brothers died, and their expiring breath
Was Freedom’s breath of life!