We all know the defenders of the Alamo put up one heck of a fight against the forces of General Santa Ana in 1836. But not long after the famous battle, another group surrendered at the Alamo without firing a single shot.
The year was 1861 and Texas was about to get involved in a nasty little fray called the Civil War. At the time, San Antonio was the main Texas supply depot for the U.S. Army. The Alamo housed a huge federal arsenal of guns, ammunition and supplies. But the soon-to-be Confederate States of America had other plans for those munitions and sent a Texas Ranger to confiscate them.
Colonel Ben McCulloch was named by a Secession Convention in Austin to come to San Antonio to "persuade" the 160 Union Army troops inside the Alamo to surrender their weapons and themselves.
On February 16, 1861, U-S Army commander General David Twiggs stood on one of Alamo's ramparts, looked out to see 1,000 of Colonel McCulloch's men surrounding his troops and decided he'd better do as he was told. Twiggs surrendered without firing a shot.
Had General Twiggs chosen instead to fight, the Alamo -- not Fort Sumter -- would have gone down in history as the place where the first shots of the Civil War were fired.
This Saturday, February 13, the "Surrender of General Twiggs" will be reenacted in front of the Alamo. The Reenactment is sponsored by the Alamo Camp of Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Alamo Rifles Company K, 6th Texas Infantry. More than 150 living history actors in period dress will recreate the event.
There will be two performances. The first takes place at 11:00 a.m. The second is at 2 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public.
