mo, a strong fortress near the town. With the exception of three persons—a woman, her child and a negro servant—the whole garrison, numbering one hundred and eighty, were mercilessly slaughtered. This massacre cost Mexico far more than the men whose lives were lost. A few days afterward the Texans defeated Santa Anna at San Jacinto, taking as spoils of war all the land which but a short time before the United States had offered to buy, and extending their borders southward to the Rio Grande. But, greatest loss of all, the lawlessness and the barbarity of her leaders now stood confessed before all the world, alienating those whose sympathies she most needed and giving enemies of republicanism fresh occasion to triumph.
Mexico had now been for nearly thirty years struggling toward freedom. Much of the time the cause of the people had been lost sight of save by a few patriots who deserved the name. The blindness, the ignorance and the folly of her political leaders had excited now the world's pity and now its scorn or anger.
About ten years after the scenes of the Alamo all eyes were turned to where the forces of Mexico and those of the United States were gathering for conflict on the debatable land between the two nations. As an independent republic, Texas was much dreaded by the United States, as she might at any time fraternize with Mexico or accept an English protectorate, which was quite as much to be feared. The annexation of Texas by the United States, in 1845, led before long to war with Mexico. That government had never recognized the independence of her revolted State. She had good reason, besides, to know that Texas proper was but a small part of the territory coveted by her neighbor:
