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PENNSYLVANIANS AT THE ALAMO

By John L. Moore

More than 185 years have passed since Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna led a Mexican army across the Rio Grande in early 1836 to end the revolution under way in Texas.

At San Antonio, his troops besieged The Alamo, which fell on March 6, its garrison overwhelmed after a siege that lasted 13 days. Victorious, the general ordered his troops to kill all the surviving defenders. The massacre gave rise to the battle cry, “Remember The Alamo!”

Nearly forgotten today are the 15 Pennsylvanians who died defending the old mission – men like George C. Kimble who in 1836 operated a hat factory in the east Texas town of Gonzales; John Purdy Reynolds, a Mifflin County physician who studied medicine in Philadelphia; and Reynolds’ friend, William McDowell, who had accompanied the doctor on a journey to Texas in 1835.

Along the way McDowell and Reynolds fell in with a party of travelers from Tennessee, led by a former congressman, David Crockett.

All died as Santa Anna’s soldiers surged over the mission’s walls and rushed the garrison.