Remembering The Alamo Survivors: Susanna Dickinson And “The Babe of the Alamo”

When I was growing up, everybody I knew believed a common myth that there were no survivors among the defenders of the Alamo mission. This myth has been perpetuated over the years for various reasons, but whatever the reasons, it is not true. While it is accurate, perhaps, that all combatant defenders perished in the fighting, there were, in fact, survivors. Among the survivors of the battle were Susanna Dickinson and her infant daughter, the one they called “The Babe of the Alamo.”

This past Saturday was the anniversary of the Battle of the Alamo. On March 6, 1836, General Santa Anna, commanding Mexican military forces at the time, attacked the Texans holed up inside the mission. The attack came after a brief siege, and in the ensuing battle, hundreds of attackers and defenders were killed, including, Jim Bowie and Davy Crocket. For reasons still unknown today, General Santa Anna spared the life of Susanna Dickinson and her baby daughter, Angelina, and they were released.

Susanna Wilkerson was born in Tennessee in 1814, and was married at the age of 15 to Almaron Dickinson. Shortly thereafter, they moved to Texas. Caught up in the turbulent times during the push for Texas independence from Mexico, her husband volunteered to help defend what is now San Antonio, Texas. It wasn’t long before Susanna, and their daughter Angelina, joined him in the Alamo Mission. And, while Almaron died in the famous battle, his wife and daughter were spared.

In the aftermath of the battle, and because of the subsequent release granted by General Santa Anna, Susanna was able to inform the rebellious Texans about the catastrophic loss at the Alamo Mission. It was, in part, due to her eyewitness testimony of the battle, that angry Texans rallied and successfully completed their quest for independence at the Battle of San Jacinto the following month, when Santa Anna surrendered his army.

Angelina, “The Babe of the Alamo,” married several times before passing away sometime around 1870, in either Galveston or New Orleans. And her mother, Susanna, widowed at such an early age, went through a slew of husbands over the years. With her fifth and last husband, Joseph Hannig, she eventually moved to Austin, Texas, where she died in 1883. Upon her death, she was buried in Austin’s Oakland Cemetery, where she rests today. With her passing, went the last of the remaining Anglo defenders of the Alamo.

Texas Independence Day

March 2nd of every year is a very special day for Texans. For it is on this day, that citizens of Texas annually celebrate something which cannot be celebrated by citizens around the rest of the country, Texas Independence Day. Unlike any other state, Texas was once an independent and sovereign nation.

It was on March 2, 1836, in Washington-on-the-Brazos, that an assembly of representatives from various small villages and settlements throughout Texas voted to approve the Declaration of Independence from Mexico. In the words of the document itself, the signers declared “that the people of Texas do now constitute a free, Sovereign, and independent republic.” Through the actions of this assembly of delegates, the Republic of Texas was formed.

The move toward independence was precipitated by Mexico’s decision to create a centralized form of government, which greatly diluted the power of the individual Mexican states, including the state of Coahuila y Tejas, which now includes parts of present day Texas.

It was an official Texas State Holiday today, and in Austin, the capital of Texas, there was an observance at the Texas State Cemetery, where fifteen signers of the “The Unanimous Declaration of Independence made by the Delegates of the People of Texas,” on that day long ago, are buried.

Declaring independence is one thing, securing the independence declared is something else altogether. On March 6, 1836, less than a week after independence was declared, the upstart Texans were dealt a bloody setback at the Alamo Mission in San Antonio, by the Mexican military leader, Santa Anna.