Alamo, ah'la mo, an old Catholic mission located at San Antonio, Texas, and celebrated for the battle that occurred during the war for Texan independence, in 1836. The mission was a stone structure surrounded by a strong wall over two and a half feet thick and eight feet high. Within this enclosure about 180 Texans and Americans under Colonel Travis were besieged by the Mexicans under Santa Anna. Among the company were James Bowie, David Crockett and J. B. Bonham, all prominent Texan pioneers. The attack was made so suddenly that the troops had little time to procure supplies of food or ammunition, but, notwithstanding their limited means and the superior numbers of the Mexicans, they resisted the siege for eleven days. Then Santa Anna, having received large reenforcements and heavy artillery, assailed the mission early on the morning of March 5, and overcoming a gallant resistance, in which nearly all of the inmates were killed, captured the place. Regardless of the laws of war, the Mexicans murdered in cold blood the few Texans remaining and spared only a colored man and the women and children. This atrocity incensed the Texans to the utmost limit, and for the remainder of their struggle with Mexico "Remember the Alamo" was their battle cry. The fierceness of this conflict and the peculiar circumstances attending it have given the Alamo the name of the "Thermopylae of America."