Susanna Dickinson Biographical Sketch exited the Alamo, a bullet tore through her leg.
bullet tore through her leg. Because of that injury, General Santa
Susannah (or Susanna) Wilkerson was born in Tennessee around 1814; she married
Almaron Dickinson at the age of 15 and the young couple soon settled in the DeWitt
colony in Texas, then under Mexican control. (Mexico had won its own independence
from Spain in 1821.) Almaron received a plot of land on the east bank of the San Marcos
River. The couple’s daughter, Angelina Elizabeth, was born in December 1834.
The initial skirmishes in what would become the Texas Revolution began in the fall of
1835, when a small group of DeWitt colonists (including Almaron Dickinson) banded
together to prevent the removal by Mexican forces of a cannon that had been given to
the town of Gonzales for protection from attacks by Native Americans. Almaron joined a
volunteer force that traveled to San Antonio de Bexar and secured the town for the
Texans in early December, and Susannah soon joined him with Angelina.
THE BATTLE OF THE ALAMO
Located near San Antonio, the fort known as the Alamo was built in the early 1700s as a
Franciscan mission. Later abandoned, the mission was occupied by Spanish troops at
various times after 1800; as it stood in a cottonwood grove, the fort was called “El
Alamo” after the Spanish word for that tree. In December 1835, the Texan volunteers
who captured San Antonio occupied the Alamo. Though Sam Houston, the newly
appointed commander of the Texan forces, argued that San Antonio should be
abandoned due to the lack of sufficient troops to defend it, the Alamo’s defenders dug
in nonetheless, prepared to defend the fort to the last.
When Mexican troops arrived in San Antonio in February 1836, Almaron Dickinson
moved his wife and daughter into the Alamo. On February 23, a Mexican force
numbering somewhere between 1,800 and 6,000 men (according to various estimates)
commanded by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna began a siege of the fort. In the
days that followed, the Alamo’s defenders received reinforcements, but still numbered
less than 200 men. Commanded by Colonels James Bowie and William B. Travis, the
Texans– including the famous frontiersman and folk hero Davy Crockett–held out for 13
days, but on the morning of March 6 Mexican forces broke through a breach in the
outer wall of the courtyard and overpowered them. Santa Anna ordered his men to take
no prisoners, and all of the defenders, including Almaron Dickinson, were killed. The
Mexican forces suffered heavy casualties as well, losing between 600 and 1,600 men.
IN THE AFTERMATH: LEGACY OF THE ALAMO
The small handful of survivors consisted mostly of women and children, including
Susannah, who was 21 years old at the time, and her baby Angelina Dickinson. As she
Anna supplied her with a horse to reach Gonzales. Santa Anna sent Susannah and
Angelina to the Texan camp in Gonzales, accompanied by Colonel Travis’ freed slave and
another black servant and carrying a letter of warning intended for Sam Houston. For
the Texans, the Battle of the Alamo became a symbol of their heroic resistance and their
struggle for independence. On April 21, 1836, Houston and some 800 men defeated a
numerically superior Mexican force under Santa Anna at San Jacinto, shouting
“Remember the Alamo!” as they attacked.
After Texas won its independence that fall, Susannah Dickinson applied to the new
government for aid, including back pay and compensation for her husband’s land; she
was refused and was left in poverty. Susannah was illiterate and didn’t have skills to
work.
In the years that followed, Susanna suffered through several stormy marriages. She
married John Williams in late 1837, but his abusiveness prompted their divorce by
March 24 of the following spring.
She then married Francis P. Herring who died in 1843. This marriage was followed by
her union to Peter Bellows. She divorced the latter after he charged her with adultery
and prostitution.
Susanna received praise from the clergy for her work nursing cholera victims in Houston.
In 1857, Susanna married German emigrant, Joseph William Hannig . This was her fifth
marriage, but a stable and happy one. The couple soon moved to Austin, where Hannig
ran a successful cabinet shop and furniture store.
Until her death in Austin on October 7, 1883, Susanna was active in relating her
experiences in the Alamo and commemorating its heroes wherever she could find an
audience.
The following resources were used in creating this sketch of Susanna Dickinson:
History.com: http://www.history.com/topics/susannah-dickinson
Texas A&M University:
http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/adp/history/bios/dickenson/dickinson_susa
nnah.html