After the fall of the Alamo, Captain Potter became highly interested in that pivotal battle and wrote this narrative for the San Antonio Herald in 1860. Because of great interest in the subject of the Alamo, this pamphlet was circulated extensively. Captain Potter opens his narrative:

The fall of the Alamo, whose tragic results are so well known, was an action whose details, so far as the final assault is concerned, have not been fully or correctly given in any of the current histories of Texas. The reason is obvious when it is remembered that not a single combatant from within survived to tell the tale. While the official reports of the enemy were neither circumstantial nor reliable. A trustworthy account of the assault could only be compiled by comparing and combining the verbal narratives of such of the assailants [as] could be relied on for veracity, and adding to this such light on the matter as may be gathered from military documents of that day. As I was a resident of Matamoros when the event happened, and for several months after the invading army returned thither, I had opportunities for obtaining the kind of information referred to which few persons, if any, still living in Texas have possessed; and I have been urged to publish what I have gathered on the subject, as by means of it an interesting fragment of history may be saved.

     Among the subjects discussed by Potter in his handwritten ink notes in the text and at the end, are:

The plate of the Alamo at the front contains Potter’s corrections to the plan and sets out the placement of Texan defenses (the upper case letters refer to locations on the plan):

Correction. S represents porte cochere or wide passage through the center of the house (F.) [again referring to keyed letter on plan] having one room on each side. The dotted lines [small sketch] represent a projecting stockade in the front of the larger outer door of that passage, which covered a two gun battery. The entrance M was a palisade gate between the court yard of the house F and a point of the wall. The largest gun in the works a 12 pounder was planted at the S.W. corner T.

Page 6 discusses how many Texans were actually at the Alamo and questions the calculation thereof by Francisco Antonio Ruiz, who as Alcalde of San Antonio at the time, was ordered by General Antonio López de Santa-Anna to count, identify, and dispose of fallen Texans: 

The dead bodies of the defenders when burned according to the statement of Mr. Ruiz numbered 192. Contrary to this as the number of living men in the garrison on the morning of the assault, we may fairly estimate that not more than 165 or 170 were effective.

On page 7 Potter refutes Yoakum’s suggested interior dimensions:

Had the enclosure been no longer than he represents the success of the first attack would have been more doubtful. 

A footnote on p. 9, refers the reader to the leaf of handwritten notes by Potter inserted at end of printed text. This note relates to the details of the Mexican attack and an analysis of casualties and wounded:

*1 - Since this was published I have learned a few additional particulars from a gentleman who was an officer in the Army of Texas at San Jacinto [Francisco Becerra], and, being a native of San Antonio, was able to converse understandingly with the Mexican officers captured there. I learn[ed] from him that when the columns of attack first moved, and for some time before, the guns on the south side of the fort were answering the battery in front of them. I therefore erred in my stating that the cannon on both sides were at that moment silent. – Mr. Ruiz, who, according to this statement, listened to the din of the operations where he could not see them, seems to have been misled by this cannonade, and, in his recollections twenty odd years after, supported the fire of the Fort was all directed against storming parties, instead of against the besieging batteries. Hence his idea that a large portion of the Mexican loss was caused by Travis’ artillery. - See the Scrap pages which follow this. - My informant above referred to says that the guns on the north side of the Fort had time to make but one fire against the column advancing in that quarter, although it was staggered a short time near the breach. The guns on the south side, when their aim was turned from the besieging batteries to the assaulting force, could not have made more than two discharges before one of the columns on that side entered. The column against the north breach was checked, and that against the chapel repulsed, I presume, at nearly the same moment; and I infer that while the main attention of the garrison was drawn to these two points, the other column entered with less opposition.

My informant thinks I have rated the average force of the Mexican corps a fraction too high, and that it fell short of five hundred. He is confident the battalion of Toluca contained but four hundred and odd. - Mr. Ruiz in his statement asserts that it numbered 800, out of which only 130 were left alive. - Now if 670 were slain outright, how many were wounded? The remaining 130 would be an incredibly small proportion. The whole corps must have gone to the grave yard and hospital; yet only seven weeks after, a portion of it was killed and taken at San Jacinto, and a small remnant, not in that action, retreated with Urrea to Matamoros. – The Story of the Eight Hundred, equally with that of the 1600, in Ruiz’s statement shows what reliance is to be placed on local legends.

My San Jacinto informant thinks my estimate of the Mexican loss about right - that is five hundred killed & wounded, a little more or less. The captured officers who had been in the assault generally rated thereabout,- some above & some below it. - The highest conjecture, made by one officer only, was that the killed and wounded might have approached seven hundred. This though probably in excess indicates that I have not gone too high. 

On page 9 Potter discusses the possible leader of the first wave of Mexicans who breached the Alamo: 

*A leader but not the commander the column. He [Col. Duque] was the commanding officer of the battalion of Toluca, but my after-recollection is that Cos or some other general officer commanded the column.

A footnote on p. 12, refers the reader to the leaf of handwritten notes by Potter inserted at end of printed text. This note relates to Almeron Dickinson’s fatal leap when trying to rescue his child:

*2. - The authenticity of this incident, Dickenson’s [alternate spelling for Dickinson] has been questioned. – I heard it related with doubt on my part in the earliest verbal accounts of the action which I listened to in Texas; but it was afterwards mentioned by my servant ex-Sergeant Becero, who said he witnessed it. His reference to it was not suggested by any inquiry or allusion of mine; and, though he may have heard it spoken of before by others, it, seemed to come up spontaneously among his recollections when he first narrated the assault to me. The leap is generally spoken of as being made from the top of the chapel; but Becero, according to my present recollection, said it was from an upper window of the south side.  When I first saw that building in 1841, there was at the point referred to, not a window, but a small breach or notch in the upper part of the wall, which may have been knocked out to serve as an embrasure. The opening, which is now converted into a window, is about 15 feet from the ground.

On p. 12 (third paragraph) is a discussion of a few men who attempted to leap from the outer barriers but who were cut down by Mexican gunfire:

One of the men concealed himself under a bridge of the irrigation ditch near the font, & remained hidden till late in the day, when he was discovered by some of the camp women who were washing near the bridge. He was dragged out & manacled.

On page 15 Potter refers the reader to the leaf of handwritten notes by him inserted at end of printed text, in which he discusses how Travis came to be in command, discipline issues of the men, and the psychological affect of the first Mexican volley on the Texans.

*3. - Mr. N. Lewis who remained in San Antonio till the enemy entered the Plaza, & stopped a short time at the Alamo after he left the town, has lately given me some information about the condition of the garrison at that juncture; and its lack of discipline was much greater even than I had supposed. The wonder is, not that officers were unable to move to a better position, but that they had been able to take the command together where it was. There were then two governments in Texas, both mere shadows; and the Volunteers at San Antonio did not fully recognize either. The Governor and the Council had repudiated each other; and each branch set up for itself. Travis was assigned by the Governor to relieve Col. [James C.] Neill of the command San Antonio. The garrison were unwilling to receive the former except as Second in command, and clamored for an election of Colonel. Neill, to get over the matter, left a written order for the election of a Lieut. Colonel, and was about leaving town when some of his men, who has ascertained the nature of the order, mobbed him and threatened his life unless he changed the provision to one for Colonels election. He was constrained to comply, and, on the amended order, Bowie was unanimously elected. This was I think about two weeks before the enemy arrived. - It happened that Bowie was disabled early in the siege, & the actual command devolved upon Travis, whose letters are all signed by him as Sr. Col. commanding.

When Mr. Lewis visited the Alamo, after the town was in possession of the enemy, the confusion which prevailed there beggared description. Bowie with a detachment was engaged in breaking open deserted houses in the neighborhood and gathering corn. Another squad was driving some cattle into the enclosure (o.o.) east of the Long Barrack. Within the works he saw but one officer at his post, an Irish captain named Ward. Though usually one of the greatest drunkards in the crowd, he on that occasion stood with his men by the guns of the south battery, ready to use them. Many of the volunteers who had sold their rifles to obtain the means to dissipation were clamoring for guns of any kind, and the rest appeared at the moment to be without orders, or without obedience. Had the enemy marched over at once, the place could have been taken far more easily than it – afterwards was by a larger force. Yet in the disorder of that hour we hear of no attempts at flight or desertion among the garrison; and the appearance of the enemy, after the first damaging shock was over, seems to have inspired a greater amount of discipline than the men had before thought capable of. RMP

Handbook of Texas Online: Reuben Marmaduke Potter:

Reuben Marmaduke Potter (1802-1890), soldier, author, and customs officer, son of Ichabod Potter, was born in Woodbridge, New Jersey, on February 14, 1802. From 1827 to 1833 he was an agent of a commercial house in Matamoros, Tamaulipas. During the Texas Revolution he was successful in obtaining a decree of amnesty from the Mexican government for twenty-one Texans who were the Matamoros prisoners. Potter arrived at Velasco, Texas, on July 20, 1837, and between 1837 to 1845 served as chief clerk, deputy collector, and collector of customs at the port of Velasco and as comptroller of customs at Galveston. In May 1841 he prepared for Mirabeau B. Lamar a Spanish translation to be carried to the people of Santa Fe by the Texan Santa Fe expedition. In 1844 Potter was appointed to carry money to Mexico for the relief of the prisoners of the Mier and Texan Santa Fe expeditions. In 1846 he served as interpreter for José Antonio Navarro during the first session of the state Senate.

In December 1846 Potter became secretary to Maj. Gen. Thomas S. Jessup, quartermaster general of the United States Army, and accompanied him on a tour of inspection of Mexican ports invested by United States troops during the Mexican War. Potter was appointed military storekeeper of the Quartermaster Department on March 23, 1848, and in April 1851 accompanied Henry Whiting, the assistant quartermaster general, on a tour of inspection of army posts in Texas. Potter was assigned to duty in San Antonio in December 1857 and was made a prisoner of war on April 23, 1861, when federal troops at San Antonio surrendered to Confederate forces under Ben McCulloch. After being given a parole that prohibited his entering military service or taking up arms, he reported to Washington in May 1861 and was assigned to quartermaster duties in New York. He was appointed captain on July 28, 1866, and retired from the army on June 30, 1882.

Potter did considerable writing. In October 1836 he wrote the “Hymn of the Alamo,” which received attention in several Texas publications. Many of his articles dealing with the history of Texas were published in Eastern papers and periodicals such as the New York Times and the Magazine of American History. Potter was considered an authority on the Alamo, and Henry A. McArdle consulted him when gathering information for his painting Dawn at the Alamo. Potter married Fidelia Burchard in Austin on March 23, 1853; they had one daughter. He died in New York on March 18, 1890, and was buried in Woodbridge, New Jersey. The monument that commemorates the establishment of Cameron County bears his name.

Auction 22 Abstracts