al Santa Anna drove the Mexican President
             Anastasio Bustamante from power, Texas colonists were initially relieved;
             anticipating a respite from the "intolerable acts" legislated by the highly
             centralized Mexican government (Grigg 37). However, Santa Anna revealed
             himself rather quickly to be a despotic ruler intent upon enforcing martial
             law while dismantling democratic institutions; the Texian "War Party",
             consisting of American colonists, suddenly attracted the membership of men
             that had once favored conciliation and compromise, such as Stephen Austin
             (Grigg 38). War, it seemed, was inevitable.
             Open conflict between Texan and Mexican troops was at hand. A
             series of battles had commenced by 1836, eventually becoming the War for
             Texas Independence. The Alamo fits into this chronology of events in
             peculiar fashion. First of all, its location at San Antonio de Bexar was
             not considered an important one to the Texian cause; it was "too far from
             the American settlements in Texas and too close to the population centers
             of Mexico," according to Sam Houston, commander-in-chief of the
             revolutionary army of Texas, who also surmised that "the War for Texas
             Independence would never be won at Bexar, but it might be lost there
             (Brands 90)." Houston decided to coax the Texans at Bexar away from the
             location in favor of falling back to a mo
             ...