There were around 15 non-combatants in the Alamo who survived the battle on the morning of 6 March 1836 and, among these, were two who became famous for their first-hand accounts of what happened during the 13-day siege of the Alamo and the Battle of the Alamo: Susanna Dickinson, wife of Alamo defender and artillery officer Almaron Dickinson, and Joe, the slave of William Barret Travis (sometimes referenced as Joe Travis).

After the battle, Susanna Dickinson (along with her infant daughter Angelina) was sent toward Gonzales by President/General Antonio López de Santa Anna to let the Texians know what had happened at the Alamo and what they could expect if they continued their revolt. Joe, released later, caught up with Susanna and traveled with her. They arrived on 13 March and confirmed for General Sam Houston the news that had been brought two days earlier on 11 March: that the Alamo had fallen, and there were no survivors.

On the 11th, two Tejanos – Andres Barcena and Anselmo Vergara – had first delivered the news from San Antonio de Béxar, but, as they were not White, Houston dismissed their report and had them arrested as spies. Joe, of course, was Black, and so his testimony would most likely also have been dismissed if it had not been given in support of that of Susanna Dickinson, a White woman and wife of a militia officer.

Susanna and Joe were interviewed at length, and their accounts became the basis for how the fall of the Alamo was understood. The only problem with this is that both were illiterate. There are no first-hand accounts of the fall of the Alamo from the Texian point of view because anyone who could have written them was dead, and the only two witnesses of interest could not write.

Their accounts, therefore, are actually secondhand works phrased and edited by those who conducted the interviews. Their 'eyewitness accounts', therefore, should be better understood as the efforts of Anglo-Americans in Texas to establish the narrative that became the 'history' of the fall of the Alamo, and after they had played their part, they were forgotten.

There were, of course, other survivors of the battle who had been with Susanna Dickinson and her daughter in the chapel of the Alamo, notably Ana Salazar Esparza and her children and Juana Navarro Alsbury (sister-in-law of James "Jim" Bowie, who was not interviewed about the Alamo until the 1880s and whose account was not published until 1995), but, like with Barcena and Vergara, no one was interested in their testimony following the battle because they were not White. Initially, in fact, sources in 1836 listed only two survivors of the Alamo: Susanna Dickinson and her daughter Angelina, the so-called "Babe of the Alamo."

The accounts of Susanna and Joe established several events that have since become Alamo lore, including Travis drawing the line in the sand, the fact that none of the combatants survived the battle, and that David 'Davy' Crockett died fighting. The "line in the sand" legend comes from Louis Moses Rose, allegedly the only Alamo defender to take Travis' offer to leave the Alamo before the final battle, and only appeared in 1873, written down by William P. Zuber, who claimed Rose was a guest of his family shortly after the fall of the Alamo.

Susanna never actually said that she saw Travis draw the line in the sand, but that, on 5 March, he gathered everyone in the courtyard of the Alamo to explain their perilous situation and allow anyone who so chose to leave; this account later gave credence to the Rose/Zuber story. Joe never mentions the line in the sand in his accounts, but he agrees with Susanna that no one survived the battle except someone named Warner, who was then executed.

The famous image of the death of David 'Davy' Crockett, fighting to the last, was established by the reports of Susanna and Joe – even though, by 11 March, there were already accounts circulating that some Alamo defenders had tried to surrender and were executed and, by the end of the month (probably earlier), that one of these was David Crockett. Neither Joe nor Susanna ever claims to have seen Crockett killed, only to have seen his body surrounded by dead Mexican soldiers, but that image seems to have been enough to establish the narrative of Crockett going down fighting.

The following account is taken from the official Alamo website, cross-referenced with Eyewitness to the Alamo by Bill Groneman, Three Roads to the Alamo by William C. Davis, Texian Iliad by Stephen L. Hardin, and A Time to Stand: The Epic of the Alamo by Walter Lord.

The account seems to have been first written down on 20 March 1836 by William Fairfax Gray and then published (or republished) on 25 May 1836 in the newspaper The Frankfort Commonwealth. The narrative begins with Joe's account and then includes details provided by Susanna.

One problem with the accounts, as one will see, is that Susanna was hiding in the Alamo chapel during the battle, and Joe, after Travis was killed, took refuge in one of the Alamo's buildings. The account claims that Joe shot through loopholes in the building, and so, it is supposed, he would have seen what was happening – but only in his field of vision. Susanna, in the sacristy of the chapel, could not have seen any of the events she is said to have witnessed.

Even so, the accounts were accepted as truth – or, rather, the revised versions of whatever Susanna and Joe said were – and they formed the basis for what 'actually' happened at the fall of the Alamo.

The garrison was much exhausted by hard labor and incessant watching and fighting for thirteen days. The day and night previous to the attack, the Mexican bombardment had been suspended. On Saturday night, March 5, the little garrison had worked hard in repairing and strengthening their position until a late hour.

And when the attack was made, which was just before daybreak, sentinels and all were asleep, except the officer of the day who was just starting on his round. There were three picket guards without the fort; but they too, it is supposed, were asleep, and were run upon and bayonetted, for they gave no alarm that was heard.

The first Joe knew of it was the entrance of Adjutant Baugh, the officer of the day, into Travis' quarters, who roused him with the cry, "The Mexicans are coming." They were running at full speed with their scaling ladders, towards the fort, and were under the guns, and had their ladders against the wall before the garrison were aroused to resistance.

Travis sprang up and, seizing his rifle and sword, called to Joe to take his gun and follow. He mounted the wall, and called out to his men, "Come on, Boys, The Mexicans are upon us and we'll give them Hell!"

He immediately fired his rifle and Joe followed his example. The fire was returned by several shots and Travis fell, wounded, within the wall, on the sloping ground that had recently been thrown up to strengthen the wall. There he sat, unable to rise. Joe, seeing his master fall, and the Mexicans coming near the wall, and thinking with Falstaff that the better part of valor is discretion, ran and ensconced himself in a house, from the loopholes of which, he says, he fired on them several times after they had come in.

Here, Joe's narrative becomes somewhat interrupted but Mrs. Dickinson, the wife of Lt. Dickinson who was in the fort at the time, and is now at San Felipe, has supplied some particulars which Joe's state of retirement prevented him from knowing with perfect accuracy.

The enemy three times applied their scaling ladders to the wall; twice they were beaten back. But numbers and discipline prevailed over valor and desperation. On the third attempt, they succeeded, and then they came over "like sheep."

As Travis sat wounded, but cheering his men, where he first fell, General Mora, in passing aimed a blow with his sword to dispatch him. Travis rallied his strength, struck up the descending weapon, and ran his assailant through the body. This was poor Travis' last effort. Both fell and expired on the spot.

The battle now became a complete melee. Every man fought "for his own hand" with gun-butts, swords, pistols, and knives, as best he could. The handful of Americans, not 150 effective men, retreated to such cover as they had, and continued the battle, until only one man, a little weakly body, named Warner, was left alive.

He, and he only, asked for quarter. He was spared by the soldiery but, on being conducted to Santa Anna, he ordered him to be shot, which was promptly done. So that not one white man, of that devoted band, was left to tell the tale.

Crockett, the kind-hearted, brave, David Crockett, and a few of the devoted friends who entered the fort with him, were found lying together with twenty-one of the slain enemy around them. Bowie is said to have fired through the door of his room, from his sick bed. He was found dead and mutilated where he had lain.

The body of Travis, too, was pierced with many bayonet stabs. The despicable Colonel Cos fleshed his dastard sword in the dead body. Indeed, Joe says, the soldiers continued to stab the fallen Americans until all possibility of life was extinct.

Captain Baragan was the only Mexican officer who showed any disposition to spare the Americans. He saved Joe, and interceded for poor Warner, but in vain. There were several negroes and some Mexican women in the fort. They were all spared.

Only one of the negroes was killed, a woman, who was found lying dead between two guns. Joe supposes she ran out in her fright and was killed by chance shot. Lt. Dickinson's child was not killed, as first reported. The mother and child were both spared and sent home. The wife of Dr. Alsbury and her sister, Miss Navarro, were also spared and restored to their father, who lives in Bexar.

After the fight, when they were searching the houses, an officer called out in English, "Are there any negroes here?" Joe then emerged from his concealment and said, "Yes, here's one." Immediately two solders attempted to dispatch him, one by discharging his piece at him and the other by a thrust of the bayonet.

He escaped with a scratch only from the steel and one buckshot in his side which, however, did little damage. He was saved by the intervention of Captain Baragan, who beat off the soldier with his sword.

The work of death completed, the Mexicans were formed in a hollow square, and Santa Anna addressed them in a very animated manner. They responded to it with loud vivas. Joe described him as a light-built, slender man, rather tall, sharp, but handsome and animated features, dressed very plainly, somewhat "like a Methodist preacher", to use the negro's own words.

Joe was taken into Bexar and detained several days. He was shown a grand review of the army after the battle and was told there were 8,000 troops under arms. He supposes there were that many but those acquainted with the ground on which he says they formed, think that not half that number could be formed there.

Santa Anna took much notice of him and questioned him about Texas and the state of the army. Among other things, he asked if there were many soldiers from the United States in the army and if more were expected. On being answered in the affirmative, he sneeringly said he had men enough to march to the city of Washington if he chose. The slain were collected in a pile and burned.

Life after the Alamo for Joe Travis and Susanna Dickinson, and, for that matter, Angelina Dickinson, did not go well.

Following the Battle of Goliad on 10 October 1835, the only casualty among the Texians was the former slave of George Collinsworth, Samuel McCulloch, Jr, who had been wounded. After independence was won, when the Texas Constitution of 1836 banned any free Black from living in Texas, McCulloch and his family, and their descendants, were exempted because he was the first to shed blood in the fight for an independent Republic of Texas.

Joe had no such luck. Initially honored as a war hero and the only adult male survivor of the Alamo, Joe was treated well as he sat for interviews and told his stories of the siege and battle. He traveled on his own to tell William B. Travis' son, Charles Travis, how his father had died – and then was re-enslaved on the Travis plantation under a new master, John Rice Jones, executor of the estate of William B. Travis.

He escaped in April 1837, was caught a few months later, and returned to Jones, who rented him out for hard labor. In 1838, he escaped again and, with nowhere else to go, fled to the farm of William B. Travis' brother, Nicholas, in Alabama. Nicholas seems to have bought Joe's freedom from Jones at some point between 1839 and 1854. He lived with them for 15 years, changing his name to Ben at their request when they named their newborn son "Joseph." For unknown reasons, he left Alabama at some point and returned to Texas, where he leaves the historical record circa 1878.

Susanna's life after the Alamo was also far from easy. She was hailed, at first, as the "Messenger of the Alamo," but, after her story had been told enough, was forgotten. She petitioned the Texas government for a pension in 1836, since her husband died in battle for their cause, but was denied.

With no means to support herself or her daughter, she married John Williams in November 1837 but quickly divorced him on the grounds of cruelty. In 1838, she married Francis P. Herring, who drank himself to death in 1843. In 1847, she married Peter Belles, who eventually accused her of having been a prostitute (which she may have been for a while) and divorced her in 1857. That same year, she married Joseph W. Hannig and remained with him until her death in 1883.

Angelina Dickinson was married at least twice, seems to have engaged in prostitution to make a living, and died at the age of 37. By that time, the accounts given by her mother and Joe Travis had become Texas history, and, throughout her life, Susanna Dickinson would tell her stories of the fall of the Alamo to anyone who would listen – but Susanna, Angelina, and Joe never received any recognition after their initial celebrity in 1836, no freedom for Joe or pension for Susanna or Angelina. Recognition and respect would only come later, after they had been dead for quite some time.