He found that the old Mexican stone and adobe town of San Antonio de Bexar was surrounded by arms-bearing citizens like himself, most impatiently waiting to do battle. General Cós’s Mexican troops were well entrenched. Part of them had taken up positions in an abandoned and partially crumbling mission which had been used as a fortress from time to time ever since Mexico’s first efforts to free herself from Spain. Because of the trees which had grown in profusion around it, the place was known by the Spanish name for cottonwood: Alamo.

The sight of so many guns reminded him uncomfortably of Velasco, three years earlier.

He found little here to indicate much of a military organization. These were volunteers. Few had military training or experience at combat beyond, in some cases, a skirmish or two with Indians. They had come here not so much an army as a ragtag collection of independent individualists who would follow an order only so long as it pleased them to do so. They were free men not suited to any high degree of discipline, one reason they would never be good and willing citizens of a militaristic and authoritarian Mexico.

The bloodletting at Velasco preyed heavily on his mind and did not let him share in the eagerness of so many to open a full-scale battle with the Mexican soldiers. He remembered too well the smell of gunpowder and warm blood, the taste of fear in his mouth. He would fight when the time came, but he would not relish it nor glory in taking other men’s lives. Velasco had burned that foolishness out of him forever.

His immediate concern was to find Michael. Isaac Blackwood had come across a couple of acquaintances from an earlier time when he and his brothers had squatted near Nacogdoches, and James left him in their camp to reminisce. He set about visiting every encampment he could find, inquiring about his brother.

He found to his surprise that Stephen F. Austin had returned. James had heard nothing about Austin’s release from imprisonment in Mexico City. He had met the impresario a couple of times in San Felipe, but he would hardly have recognized him had he not known beforehand who he was. The Austin he saw in camp was haggard and pale and gray. The shadow of death lay in eyes that James had remembered as lively and quick. Prison had left him a broken man of just forty-two years. To honor him for what he had done on behalf of Texas, he had been chosen to be general of this Army of the People. It was done against his wishes, for he was not a military man and had little knowledge of battle tactics. As he had always done when unpleasant necessity had reared its head, he had accepted the responsibility, only to find a considerable division among the volunteers who ringed the town. Some wanted to try to negotiate Cós and the troops out of Bexar. But others, probably a majority, could smell blood and wanted to see it run. Most of them had not been at Velasco.