Consider this: He will find a way or make a
way for freedom."
Subsequent events proved the opinion of Thomas Worth correct
with regard to the garrison in the Alamo. David Crockett!
James Bowie! Barret Travis! The names were a host in
themselves; one and all refused to couple them with retreat.
"Military defeats may be moral victories, young man," said
Crockett to Thomas Worth; "and moral victories make national
greatness. The Roman that filled the gulf with his own body--
the men who died at Thermopylae--they live to-day, and they
have been talking with us."
"But if you join Houston you will save many lives."
"That isn't always the point, sir. Jim Bowie was saying there
was once a lover who used to swim two miles every night to see
a young woman called Hero. Now, he might have waited for a
boat and gone dry-shod to his sweetheart; but if he had, who
would have cared whether he lived or died? The Alamo is
our Hero. If we can't keep her, we can die for her."
The same spirit moved every soul at Goliad. Fanning was there
with nearly nine hundred men, and he had named the place Fort
Defiance, and asserted his determination to hold it. In the
mean time, Houston was using his great personal influence to
collect troops, to make treaties with the Indians, and to keep
together some semblance of a provisional government.
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