South Carolina's Heroes of the Alamo

At one time a popular bumper sticker in the Saluda, South Carolina, area read, Texas Starts Here. Saluda County was, after all, birthplace and childhood home of two of the Alamo's greatest heroes, William Barret Travis and James Butler Bonham.


Travis was co-commander (along with famed frontiersman James Bowie) of the makeshift fortress when the Mexican army led by General Santa Anna arrived in San Antonio. A lawyer by trade, Travis was a fiery, handsome redhead with a restless spirit. Before coming to Texas in 1831, he had already tried Alabama, where both he and his cousin, James Bonham, practiced law.

Travis was a complicated sort. When he moved to Texas, he had professed to convert to Catholicism (a requirement of Mexican citizenship) and declared himself single, though he had left behind a son and pregnant wife in Alabama. Legend has it that Travis, convinced of his wife's infidelity, killed the man he suspected to be the father of her unborn child. His wife claimed desertion and was granted a divorce in early 1835. Meanwhile, Travis kept written documentation of his extramarital conquests and made plans to marry someone else.


And yet William Travis was considered a fair man, and well disciplined. Along with Bowie, he argued that the Alamo was the only thing keeping Santa Anna from invading the vulnerable settlements of East Texas. On February 24, 1836, Travis addressed the following letter, To the People of Texas and All Americans in the World:

Fellow citizens & compatriots –




I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna – I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man. The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken – I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls – I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism, & every thing dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch – The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country – Victory or Death




William Barret Travis
Lt. Col. Comdt.

His letter has been called "the most famous document in Texas history"  and "one of the masterpieces of American patriotism." After news of the Alamo's fall became known, Travis' stirring words were reprinted by newspapers and pamphleteers around the world. You can see a copy of the letter in the Saluda County Museum.

Though not a leader at the Alamo, James Bonham is reckoned a heroic figure for having at least once (and perhaps twice) escaped through Mexican lines to seek help – returning to again pierce the lines and rejoin his doomed comrades within the garrison. Bonham pleaded for aid from Colonel James Fannin in nearby Goliad – but was rebuffed. Three days later, all but two of Alamo's defenders were dead.


Bonham was related to the important Butler Family of what is today Saluda County, and his brother, Milledge Luke Bonham, grew up to be governor. According to recent research, James Bonham was Travis' second cousin, and the two spent their early boyhoods attending Red Bank Baptist Church together. Though he was expelled after leading a student protest his senior year at South Carolina College, (now the University of South Carolina), Bonham went on to practice law in Pendleton. There, in one notable incident, he caned an opposing attorney for insulting his female client, and was then arrested after "threatening to tweak the nose"  of the judge who attempted to intervene. By 1835, Bonham had set up shop in the Old Southwest, opening a law practice in Montgomery, Alabama, where two of his brothers lived. Before the year was out, however, both of Bonham's brothers had died, and he decided to join Travis in Texas.

Five other South Carolinians perished at the Alamo, but the roles of Travis and Bonham are legendary. On March 5, the day before the Mexicans' final siege, Travis is said to have drawn a line in the sand with his sword, telling the men inside the fortress that whoever was ready to fight to the death should step across and join him on the other side. All but one man did. (Over 150 years later, another emigrant to Texas – President George H.W. Bush – would allude to this bold gesture when he spoke of "drawing a line in the sand" during the Gulf War.)


Today, numerous place-names throughout Texas honor William B. Travis, including Travis County, home of the state capital of Austin, and nearby Lake Travis. But the colonel's legacy reaches further still. Though he lived in Texas for just over four years, the name of this native South Carolinian has become synonymous with the American West in general and Texas in particular. Countless Texan boys are given the rugged first name of "Travis" each year, and Western films regularly use the name "Travis" for their protagonists. (In Executive Decision, Steven Seagal took no chances: his character was named Colonel Austin Travis.) Actors from Lawrence Harvey to Alec Baldwin have portrayed Travis on both big and small screens; in 1991, the bioflick Travis traced his entire life, from South Carolina onward.

Though James Butler Bonham hasn't exactly become a household name, head north of Fort Worth, Texas not far south of the Red River and the Oklahoma border, and you find yourself in the mid-sized city of Bonham, named in honor of the Saluda County native. Home to legendary US Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, Bonham ironically serves as the seat of Fannin County, named for the man who declined to save the Alamo. In the John Wayne film, The Alamo the Duke reserved the choice role of Bonham for his own son, Patrick.


In South Carolina today, you'll find a monument to Travis and Bonham on the lawn in front of the Saluda County Courthouse. The Red Bank Baptist Church, attended by the Travis and Bonham families, still stands today. Bonham's birthplace, now called Bonham House, also stands. To get there, take US 178 east 3.5 miles to SC Secondary Road 328. Take 328 north 0.7 miles to SC 329, and follow this road east for 0.2 mile until you see the old house on the left side of the road. Continue a bit further along SC Secondary Road 329 and you'll reach the Smith-Bonham Cemetery on Richland Creek. James Bonham is not there, of course – his body was burned by Santa Anna's men after the battle, along with those of Travis and all but one of the other Alamo defenders.


You can also find a fine Alamo display at the Saluda County History Museum, including a painstakingly accurate 1/64th scale model of the garrison. Out on SC 121, you'll see a Travis monument erected jointly by Saluda County and the ever-grateful people of Texas. 

John Coltrane of High Point, NC: Jazz Music’s Patron Saint

John Coltrane was born in 1927 in Hamlet, North Carolina, but his family moved to High Point when he was still an infant, and he was raised there. His grandfather, William Blair, served as presiding elder in the A.M.E. Zion Church; his father worked as a tailor and played music at night. By the time John was 12, however, his father and both grandparents were dead. That same year he joined a local band and began playing clarinet and E-flat alto horn. His mother moved north at the start of World War II, and he joined her in Philadelphia in 1943, after graduating high school.

By the time he got to Philadelphia, Coltrane was playing alto sax, but eventually he switched to tenor sax, and later in his career, to soprano. He recorded his first side with a quartet while in the Navy, and later went on to play with Cheraw, S.C.-born Dizzy Gillespie, and later with trumpeter Miles Davis, who fired Coltrane in 1956 because of his heroin addiction, hired him back, and fired him again in 1957.

In 1957, Coltrane experienced what he later described as a spiritual awakening, of which he later wrote:

I do perceive and have been duly re-informed of His OMNIPOTENCE.

Though he’d have some setbacks, Coltrane successfully kicked heroin and signed as a solo recording artist for the first time. His music, always creative, became more radical—“anti-jazz,” Down Beat called it. Now traveling with the Thelonious Monk Quartet, Coltrane experimented with sounding several notes simultaneously. He recorded with Miles Davis on the landmark Kind of Blue, and in 1961 scored a pop hit record with his version of “My Favorite Things,” which became his signature song. This was Coltrane’s most prolific period; he wrote most of his own material, and every year brought several recordings. Perhaps 1965 was his watershed year; he finally reached a happy medium between his experimental leanings and the traditional style with his deeply spiritual album, A Love Supreme, which earned two Grammy nominations. The music was divided into four parts entitled "Acknowledgment", "Resolution", "Pursuance", and "Psalm." It was his best-selling record of all time.

Coltrane died unexpectedly of liver cancer in July, 1967, but he has lived on in the release of his previously unrecorded works—for which he posthumously won a Grammy.

But perhaps his greatest impact has been on another level: Coltrane’s music has been cited by many listeners for its spiritual power—for its ability to convey spiritual truths through sound. The saxophone player named a saint by the African-Orthodox Church, which sees his music as a conduit to the Divine—a sort of aural icon, akin to the traditional painted icon. Coltrane’s image is itself the subject of several such icons to be found clear across the country from High Point, in San Francisco, where the small congregation of St. John the Divine worships each week, using the Tar Heel saxophonists’ music as a sonic liturgy.

Vicksburg: Charleston's Counterpoint to the East

I spent last week in Vicksburg, MS with my son, researching for an upcoming title for Globe-Pequot Books. Bill Serrat of the Vicksburg Chamber Visitors' Bureau graciously showed me around town and appointed veteran Battlefield Expert Harry McMillan to show me around the National Military Park.

I have often written that the two most Southern places on earth are The Citadel Military College and Beauvoir, Jefferson Davis' final home in Biloxi Mississippi. I must now add to this a third location: Vicksburg's Old Courthouse Museum. More on that, and the reasons for this designation, in a later post. For now, I want to give some overall impressions of what Union and Confederate troops came to call "The Gilbraltar of the South."

Vicksburg sits high above the bluffs above the Yazoo River today. In 1862-1863 when US Grant was trying everything he could think of to take the fortress city, the river was the Mississippi. Built on the inside curve of a hairpin turn, Vicksburg gave its occupants the chance to see boats coming and going for miles. During a portion of these miles, Vicksburg could see the boats traveling quite slowly as they backpaddled to a snail's pace to navigate said turn. Hence, as long as Confederates held Vicksburg, they could keep Union boats from traveling south from the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico. (To be continued...)

Plantation Life Demographics

It's easy to romanticize the lives of the privileged few living inside a plantation's Big House, but the vast, vast majority of people who lived, worked, and died on a plantation never even crossed the threshold of the Big House door. On some Lowcountry sea islands, slaves outnumbered slaveowners by 1000 to 1.

Trying to understand life on a pre-War plantation by focusing on its owners is like trying to understand the reality of life in Folsom Prison by studying the daily life of its Administrative Staff.

The Ghost Of Alice Flagg

One favorite South Carolina legend says that 15-year-old Alice Flagg, buried at All Saints Episcopal Church, Pawleys Island, haunts the area, still looking for an engagement ring her brother hurled into the salt marsh to show his disapproval of her lumberjack beau. Why Alice still wants the engagement ring when her fiancé is long dead is a mystery--apparently ghosts have limited access to the obituaries. And, for that matter, limited access to each other--otherwise, why doesn't she hook up with the lumberjack's spirit now, instead of looking for the ring?

Anyway, not only do some insist that Alice is still among us, but they suggest that she haunts on an on-call basis: to make Alice appear, walk backwards around her grave (marked simply, ALICE) thirteen times and call her name twice. Others recommend starting at the letter "A" on her stone and walking clockwise six times and then counter-clockwise six times.

It is also common for visitors to leave a ring on the huge granite slab atop her grave. Most of these rings are plastic, and groundskeepers remove them lest the local birds choke to death on them. A lovesick ghost teenager is one thing, but nobody wants choking ghost seagulls fluttering around.