An Alamo survivor’s story

Austin—March 6 and April 22 have come and gone a hundred and ninety times and Texans once again turn their thoughts to the Alamo... that small mission fortress where a band of 180 or so Texian defenders stood against Santa Anna’s thousands and bought precious time for the Texas Revolution.

The story has been told in books, films, and schoolrooms for generations. Then there came a voice from the past, humanizing the legend. Such a voice belonged to Mrs. Susanna Dickinson Hannig, the only white adult survivor of the massacre and to the Ohio journalist, Charles W. Evers while visiting Austin in March of 1878. The document offers a rare, first-hand account straight from the survivor herself.

Evers, a newspaperman from Northern Ohio, was traveling through Southwest Texas in the 1870s when he was introduced to Mrs. Dickinson (then Mrs. J. W. Hannig) by Col. Dupre, editor of the Austin Statesman. On March 14, 1878, the two men drove two miles out of Austin to her home. Evers described the visit in a letter to his Ohio paper:

“Austin, Texas, March 14, 1878

“For one of the most pleasing incidents of my stay in Austin I am indebted to Col. Dupre, editor of the Austin Statesman, who kindly drove out with me two miles on a short visit to one of the most historic and to me interesting women of today. I refer to Mrs. Dickinson, now Mrs. J. W. Hannig, the only white survivor of the Alamo massacre, over forty years ago. We were made welcome at her beautiful home, which is on one of those commanding locations for which Austin is noted, overlooking the city and surrounding country.

“Mrs. Hannig is an intelligent woman of excellent memory and is perhaps not far from 60 years of age, although but few gray hairs are yet noticeable on her head. She engaged readily in conversation about that dark episode in her history which robbed her of her husband and partially of her reason for a time. As she conversed she seemed at times to stop as if in a sudden reverie or dream and I fancied I saw almost a wild light dancing in her eyes for a moment, and it would not be strange, for her recital of the events of that awful day would excite the most stolid listener. If Mrs. Hannig was so inclined or if her circumstances required, she could go on the lecture platform and draw crowded houses in any city in the United States.

“She expressed a wish to see Frank Mayo, whom she heard was playing ‘Davy Crockett’ in Texas. She was, of course, well acquainted with Crockett and saw the noble manhood and devotion of himself and comrades through all those eventful 13 days preceding the final, bloody culmination. Her husband, Lieutenant Dickinson, acted during the siege as a sort of nurse and doctor among the men, and she often aided him in caring for the sick and wounded. She was then a young woman and had a child one or two years old, which some writers have stated was killed in his father’s arms. This statement, she says, is incorrect, as well as the story that some of the Texans begged for quarter. She says only one man asked for quarter but was instantly killed. He had two little boys, aged 11 and 12 years. The little fellows came to Mrs. Dickinson’s room, where the Mexicans killed them, and a man named Walker, and carried the boys’ bodies out on their bayonets.

“The room had become dark with smoke and to this circumstance, and the intervention of the Mexican colonel, Almonte, who was educated in New Orleans, and could speak English, and who drove the blood-thirsty Mexicans from her room, she feels indebted for her life. She was shot through the leg between the knee and ankle, but her little child was unhurt. The last she ever saw of her husband he rushed into the room and said, ‘My dear wife, they are coming over the wall, we are all lost!’ He embraced her and the babe, saying ‘May God spare you both!’ then drew his sword and went out. His body when found was riddled with bullets and later burned by the inhuman victors with the rest of the slain.

“Mrs. Dickinson’s escape was almost as thrilling as her capture. Santa Anna tried to persuade her to go to Mexico and take the child. He seemed fearful of the effect of her horrible story among the Texans, and he also seemed afraid to murder her. She states that when she came to her right mind and the reality of her situation stared her in the face, she broke down with grief and for several days her emotion was beyond control.

“Finally, under the persuasion of Almonte, Santa Anna, at her own earnest solicitation, consented to send her under escort to her friends in the direction of Goliad. When out of the camp a few miles the cowardly Mexican cavalry deserted her, probably fearing the vengeance of Deaf Smith and his scouts. She made her way through the prairie on a pony, carrying the child, scarcely knowing where she was going as the country was entirely wild, when to her great fright a human being raised his head from the tall grass and spoke to her. It was the negro, Ben, Col. Travis’ servant. He had escaped from the Mexicans and was nearly frightened to death lest the mounted woman might prove to be a Mexican who would recapture him. Ben was overjoyed to find Mrs. Dickinson and trudged along beside the pony but would take to the tall grass every time any suspicious circumstance occurred. While on the journey they saw two horsemen in the distance. Ben took to the grass and urged Mrs. Dickinson to do so, saying they were Comanches, but she refused to turn aside, declaring she would as soon perish one way as another. As the horsemen approached Ben discovered that they rode with martingales and again he became wild with joy knowing they were white men. It proved to be Deaf Smith and Captain Carnes of the scouts. General Houston had heard the cannonade and sent his scouts to reconnoiter and report. She told me that General Houston wept like a child as he held her hand and heard the terrible fate of the brave defenders of the Alamo.

“I can convey nothing of the interest given to this story by Mrs. Hannig with all its thrilling details. To the credit of the State of Texas, it may be said that this widow of a brave soldier was remembered with a magnificent gift in land, and it is my humble wish that she be spared many long years to enjoy her beautiful, peaceful home.”

C. W. E.

 

Evers’ account is more than colorful journalism; it corrects popular myths that had already begun to harden into legend. The child was not killed in her father’s arms. Not every defender begged for quarter… only one man did, and he was cut down instantly. The smoke-filled room, Colonel Almonte’s English-speaking intervention, the bayonets carrying out the bodies of two little boys… these details carry the raw weight of memory. So does the final embrace from Lieutenant Almeron Dickinson before he stepped back into the fight.

Her escape across the prairie, the terrified reunion with Travis’ servant Ben, the moment Deaf Smith and Captain Carnes rode into view, and Houston’s tears… all speak to the chaos and humanity that followed the fall. Santa Anna himself hesitated to kill her, apparently fearing the story she would carry. Instead, he sent her away, only for his escort to abandon her. The wild land, the fear of Comanches, the desperate hope that the two distant horsemen might be friends rather than enemies… these are the lived realities behind those textbook dates.

For Texan, everywhere, the letter is a gift. The Alamo lies at the heart of the state’s identity. Millions visit the shrine each year, walking the same ground where Susanna Dickinson once walked with her wounded leg and her unharmed toddler. Her words remind us that the defenders were not marble statues but husbands, fathers, doctors, and nurses who cared for one another until the final assault. She remembered David Crockett’s “noble manhood,” her husband’s devotion, and the courage of men who knew they were lost yet fought on.

Texas did right with her. The land grant Evers mentioned allowed her a comfortable life overlooking Austin. She lived well into old age, outliving the wild frontier she had crossed on that lonely pony. Her daughter Angelina grew up, married, and carried the story forward. Descendants still walk among us.

As March 6 and April 22 return for the 190th time, let us remember not only the bugle calls and the cannon fire but also the quiet testimony of a woman who survived the unsurvivable. Charles W. Evers captured her voice before it faded. That voice speaks again… clear, unflinching, and still capable of stirring the most impassive listener.

In the end, the Alamo’s power lies not only in grand strategy or San Jacinto’s battlefield cries to “Remember the Alamo!” or in the glory that April  day, 190 years ago, but in moments like the one Evers recorded: a survivor pausing mid-sentence, eyes distant, reliving the day the walls were breached. That pause, that “wild light” in her eyes, is history at its most human. It belongs to San Antonio forever.