William Travis

William Barret Travis is best known for his role in the Texas Revolution. In the 1820s he worked as a teacher and attorney in Sparta, Alabama. He also served in the Alabama Militia. In 1831 he left his practice, the militia, and his pregnant wife and son and moved to Mexico where he became involved in the Texas Revolution in 1835, entering the Texan army with the rank of lieutenant colonel at the age of 26. He was assigned as the army's chief recruiting officer. On February 3, 1836, he arrived at the Alamo in San Antonio with a company of reinforcements and relieved Colonel James Neill as the mission's commanding officer. Later that month the mission was beseiged by a large Mexican army under General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. On February 24 he wrote an open letter to all Texan revolutionaries describing the dire situation in which his command found itself but swearing to fight to the death. He sealed the letter in an envelope marked "Victory or Death" and sent it to the town of Gonzales with courier Albert Martin. The letter did not bring Travis reinforcements but did increase the morale of Texan revolutionaries elsewhere and remains a required part of the Texas Department of Education's social studies core curriculum content standards to this day.

Travis was killed with all his men on March 6, 1836 when the Alamo fell to the Mexican army.

William Travis in "Lee at the Alamo"
As Robert E. Lee prepared to stand his own seige in the Alamo in February 1861, he thought of the stand made by Davy Crockett, William Travis, James Bowie and others almost exactly 25 years earlier. He reflected that the effective force at his command was hardly any larger than their tiny volunteer garrison and suspected that in the end he too would be defeated.