In 1877, an article titled “Extract from a Lecture on Western Texas” in the Daily Express indicated the pyres were no longer there. The bodies had been reduced to cinders occasionally a bone of a leg or arm was seen almost entire.”

Bernard, a surgeon of Fannin’s command who visited the Alamo ruins a few weeks after the battle, wrote in his diary of May 25, 1836, “… after looking at the spot where it is said that Travis fell and Crockett closed his immortal career, we went to visit the ashes of those brave defenders of our country, a hundred rods from the fort or church where they were burned. Kindling wood was distributed through the pile and about 5 o’clock in the evening it was lighted.”ĭr. About 3 o’clock in the afternoon of the next day they commenced laying wood and dry branches upon which a file of dead bodies were placed, more wood was piled on them and another file brought, and in this manner all were arranged in layers. “He sent a company of dragoons with me to bring wood and dry branches from the neighboring forests. “Santa Anna, after the Mexicans were taken out, ordered wood to be brought to burn the bodies of the Texans” Ruiz wrote. In 1860, Ruiz recounted what he had seen for the Texas Almanac.

The earliest mention I found of the pyres was by eyewitness Francisco Antonio Ruiz, the alcalde (mayor) of San Antonio when the Alamo fell. Credit: Courtesy / UTSA Digital Collections The Halff Building, one of the locations where Alamo defenders’ bodies are believed to have been burned.

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