The Alamo
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This Alamo trivia quiz has 100 free questions with answers and covers the mission and the battle from every angle: the 1718 founding of Mission San Antonio de Valero and where the name came from, the thirteen-day siege of 1836, Travis's Victory or Death letter, Bowie's illness, Crockett's disputed death, the survivors, Goliad and San Jacinto, and what happened to the buildings afterwards, from a wholesale grocery to a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It finishes with the Alamo in popular culture: John Wayne's epic, the 2004 flop, Ozzy Osbourne's arrest, Phil Collins's collection and Pee-wee's basement. The first questions suit anyone who has taken the tour; the last ones will test people who can name the man who buried the ashes. Every question is multiple choice with a short explanation after you answer. Every answer has been checked against a primary source, and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 100 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Texian panic followed the fall of the Alamo, as settlers fled east ahead of the Mexican army?
The Runaway Scrape
The Runaway Scrape emptied the settlements as Sam Houston's army fell back east; families fled in cold rain, many dying of disease on the road, until the win at San Jacinto ended the flight.
Q 02During the Alamo siege, Texas delegates voted to do what?
Declare independence
Declare independence: the convention adopted Texas's declaration four days before the Alamo fell, so the defenders almost certainly died without knowing they were fighting for a new republic.
Q 03How many days did the siege of the Alamo last?
13
13 days: Travis had not expected Santa Anna before mid-March, so the Mexican army's arrival on February 23 caught the garrison unprepared and sent it scrambling into the Alamo.
Q 04Two years after the Alamo, Santa Anna lost which body part fighting the French in Mexico's 'Pastry War'?
A leg
A leg: hit at Veracruz in 1838, Santa Anna turned the loss into a comeback, and the sacrifice restored the popularity that defeat in Texas had cost him.
Q 05What was the peacetime profession of William B. Travis, the 26-year-old who commanded the Alamo?
Lawyer
Lawyer: Travis practised law in Alabama, opened a legal practice at Anahuac in Texas, and fell in with the militants whose clashes with Mexican officials led to revolt.
Q 06Mission San Antonio de Valero, which became the Alamo, was named for which Saint Anthony?
Anthony of Padua
Anthony of Padua: Spaniards reached the river on his feast day, June 13, 1691, and named it for him, and the 1718 mission added the title of New Spain's viceroy, the Marquess of Valero.
Q 07The word 'Alamo' is Spanish for which tree?
Cottonwood
Cottonwood is álamo in Spanish; the name probably came from a Spanish cavalry company from Alamo de Parras posted there in 1803, though some trace it to a cottonwood grove nearby.
Q 08Which Catholic order founded the Alamo as a mission in 1718 and ran it until 1793?
Franciscans
Franciscans from a missionary college in Querétaro founded it to convert local peoples; after Spain secularised it in 1793 the mission emptied, and a decade later soldiers made it a fort.
Q 09What did the blood-red flag raised by Santa Anna's army at the start of the Alamo siege signify?
No quarter would be given
No quarter would be given, the flag warned from a church tower in town; Travis answered Santa Anna's demand for surrender with a shot from the Alamo's 18-pounder cannon.
Q 10Travis's famous letter from the besieged Alamo was addressed to whom?
The People of Texas and All Americans
To the People of Texas and All Americans in the World, he wrote, vowing never to surrender or retreat; the appeal drew hundreds of recruits, who were still gathering when the Alamo fell.
Q 11Travis's letter from the Alamo is popularly known by which phrase from its closing line?
Victory or Death
Victory or Death were the letter's last words before his signature, and Travis got the second: he was among the first defenders killed when the walls were stormed.
Q 12The famous frontiersman who rode to the Alamo in 1836 had served which state in Congress?
Tennessee
Tennessee had just voted him out of Congress; he told his constituents they could go to hell and he would go to Texas, and he reached San Antonio weeks before the siege.
Q 13A Mexican officer's disputed diary says the coonskin-capped ex-congressman met which fate at the Alamo?
Executed after capture
Q 21Before the siege, Sam Houston asked the governor's permission to do what with the Alamo?
Demolish and abandon it
Demolish and abandon it: Houston doubted the fort could be held, but Governor Henry Smith refused, and Bowie and Neill resolved to 'die in these ditches' rather than give it up.
Q 22How had Texian rebels gained control of the Alamo in late 1835, before Santa Anna's siege?
A Mexican general surrendered it
A Mexican general surrendered it: Cos gave up San Antonio and the Alamo in December 1835 after five days of street fighting, then came back with Santa Anna's army to help storm it.
Q 23Roughly how many Texian defenders died holding the Alamo against Santa Anna's army?
Executed after capture, wrote José Enrique de la Peña, who said Santa Anna had him and a few other survivors killed on the spot; others say he died fighting, and historians still argue.
Q 14Fess Parker starred in a 1954-55 Disney miniseries about which Alamo defender?
Davy Crockett
Davy Crockett made Parker a hero to a generation of children almost overnight, and the series set off a nationwide craze for coonskin caps.
Q 15Jim Bowie's fame and knife grew out of an 1827 sandbar brawl near which Mississippi River town?
Natchez
Natchez: the nearby Sandbar Fight began as a duel and became a melee; Bowie, shot and stabbed, killed an attacker with his big butcher knife, and the reports made the blade famous.
Q 16Why did Jim Bowie give up his share of command early in the Alamo siege?
He was bedridden with illness
He was bedridden with illness after collapsing on the siege's second day; from his cot he urged his men to obey Travis, and he was killed there when the fort fell.
Q 17Which step did Jim Bowie take in 1830, six years before dying at the Alamo in a fight against Mexico?
Became a Mexican citizen
Became a Mexican citizen: Bowie swore allegiance in 1830 and bought up Texas land grants, and the next year he married Ursula de Veramendi, daughter of a leading San Antonio family.
Q 18Which Tejano officer survived the Alamo because Travis sent him out as a courier to seek reinforcements?
Juan Seguín
Juan Seguín rode out through enemy lines, fought at San Jacinto, and returned to give the Alamo dead a burial; as mayor of San Antonio he was later driven to flee to Mexico.
Q 19A relief force of about 32 men reached the besieged Alamo from which Texas town?
Gonzales
Gonzales sent its ranging company, which slipped through the Mexican cordon before dawn on March 1 and died with the garrison five days later.
Q 20Which lone Alamo defender is said to have refused to cross Travis's line in the sand?
Louis 'Moses' Rose
Louis 'Moses' Rose, by most accounts a veteran of Napoleon's army, is said to have left the fort that night instead; the story reached print years later through a family who sheltered him.
About 200
About 200: the official roll lists 189 names, and research may push it to 257. Taking the fort cost the far larger Mexican army an estimated 400 to 600 killed and wounded.
Q 24Why was Gregorio Esparza the only Alamo defender spared the funeral pyres?
His brother was a Mexican soldier
His brother was a Mexican soldier: Francisco Esparza, who had served on the other side, got permission to search the dead and gave Gregorio the only Christian burial among the defenders.
Q 25Which Alamo survivor did Santa Anna send east with her baby to warn Texians?
Susanna Dickinson
Susanna Dickinson, widow of an Alamo artillery captain, carried the news with her infant Angelina; her report confirmed the garrison's fate and sent Houston's army into retreat.
Q 26Travis's enslaved servant Joe survived the Alamo and was returned to bondage; what did he do a year later?
Escaped on horseback
Escaped on horseback: on the first anniversary of San Jacinto, the man who had told Texas's leaders how the Alamo fell took two horses from the Travis estate and rode away.
Q 27Alamo master of ordnance Robert Evans was shot trying to do what as the fort fell?
Blow up the powder magazine
Blow up the powder magazine: charged with keeping the gunpowder from the enemy, Evans made for it with a torch and was shot down just short, a survivor of the battle later recalled.
Q 28Under their shared-command deal at the Alamo, Travis led the regular soldiers while Jim Bowie led whom?
The volunteers
The volunteers: they refused to take orders from a regular army officer and elected Bowie instead, so the two men agreed to share authority over the garrison.
Q 29Three weeks after the Alamo, hundreds of Texian prisoners were shot on Palm Sunday at which town?
Goliad
Goliad's massacre, carried out on Santa Anna's orders, killed most of James Fannin's surrendered command, and 'Remember Goliad!' joined 'Remember the Alamo!' as a battle cry at San Jacinto.
Q 30Sam Houston avenged the Alamo at San Jacinto in a battle that lasted roughly how long?
18 minutes
18 minutes was all it took: Houston's army caught Santa Anna's camp off guard during its afternoon rest and charged shouting 'Remember the Alamo!'