William Barret Travis' "God & Texas" Alamo Letter - Fine Art Print
Everyone knows William Barret Travis' famous "Victory or Death" letter, as well they should. His lesser known "God & Texas" letter - his final update from the Alamo and his final plea for reinforcements - has a message and a history that'll give you goosebumps.
Its more famous sibling reflects a Travis who is alarmed but steeling himself to make a stand, and playing masterfully to the patriotism of his fellow countrymen. By the time he wrote his final letter, though, he had been besieged for more than a week. He had not surrendered or retreated but he knew the score a little better. Bowie was out of commission. Trenches had been dug. There had been skirmishes. The Immortal 32 had arrived but Fannin had not. Travis wrote about all of this on March 3.
The Victory or Death letter of February 24 was directed at the Provisional Government. By February, that government had disintegrated. It had two ersatz governors (Smith, impeached but still acting; Robinson appointed by the council that had been dissolved by Smith) but no actual governance. Impeached governor Henry Smith ordered 300 copies of Victory or Death printed for distribution on February 29, alongside a message from him.
Fast forward a week from the famous letter and you find Texas remaking itself. The Convention had convened, as conventions do. Independence was declared on March 2. The following day, Travis sent his final letter out of the doomed Alamo.
Late on the morning of March 6, as Travis' mortal coil was being tossed onto a funeral pyre, members of the Convention at Washington were listening to a reading of his final plea for men to come fight with him. They sent orders to Baker & Bordens to print a thousand copies each of two documents: the Declaration of Independence and the Travis missive from Bexar.
Baker & Bordens didn't receive the letter at their place in San Felipe until just before lunchtime on March 8. While the Defenders' ashes smoldered in San Antonio, the printer hurriedly set the type of the letter of a dead man and finished by nightfall. The printing of the Declaration was likewise set up in haste and at night.
When the print work was done, a soul could not be found to carry the historic broadsides back to the Convention in Washington. Travis' words of March 3 did not begin their journey back to Washington with the Declaration on March 10. Then Baker & Bordens used the type they'd already set to publish both documents in the March 12 edition of their Telegraph & Texas Register.
Susanna Dickinson would reach Sam Houston at Gonzales with news of the Alamo's fall the following day. The Convention would hear the news on the 15th. Baker & Bordens were ordered to print 150 broadsides announcing the fall on March 16. Men who had gathered in response to Travis' plea would comprise the nucleus of Sam Houston's army and you know the rest of the story.
Gail Borden billed the new nation $65 for producing Travis' letter - about two grand in today's money. Only three copies of the original thousand are known to exist (one fewer than its more famous sibling). One copy came up at auction in 2009 but bidding didn't quite meet the $250,000 reserve.
Using the one copy I could access, I set the type for a modern God & Texas letter so that every Texan may read the words of a doomed but determined man, besieged for ten days inside the walls of the Alamo. The type is clean, clear and legible. Across the top is scrawled the iconic sign off: "God & Texas - Victory or Death!!"
When folks ask you about it, tell them the story of how Travis' words echoed through the cold Convention house mere hours after the Alamo fell. It will give them goosebumps. Guaranteed.
Physical Details
- 24 by 18 inches (fits in a standard frame)
- Printed using archival inks
- On heavyweight fine-art paper
The paper is heavyweight fine-art. It is acid free, cold pressed, with an elegant ever so lightly textured finish. This surface allows the inks to 'bite', reproducing the shading and tonality of the original map vividly, beautifully, and exactly.
The inks are guaranteed color-fast for 80 years, which means you won't need to lay out the extra money for UV glass. You can hang your map in direct sun and it will be just as bright when they are passed on to the next generation it is the day it ships.
