Benjamin Milam

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Benjamin Rush Milam (October 20, 1788 – December 7, 1835) was a famous figure in the Texas Revolution.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Early Texas years 3 Texas Revolution 4 Siege of San Antonio 5 Bibliography 6 External links

[edit] Early life

Milam was born in Frankfort, Kentucky. He was the fifth of the six children of Moses and Elizabeth Pattie Boyd.

Milam had little or no formal schooling. He enlisted in the 8th Regiment of the Kentucky Militia as a private under Captain John Jones. Eventually Milam reached the rank of Lieutenant and fought for several months in the War of 1812.

[edit] Early Texas years

In 1818, learning of the profitable trading among the Indians of the upper Red River, he traveled to Coahuila y Texas to trade with the Comanche Indians. While in Coahuila y Texas he met David G. Burnet who at the time was living with the Indians in an attempt to overcome tuberculosis. In 1819 Milam met José Félix Trespalacios and James Long in New Orleans who were planning an expedition to help the revolutionaries in Mexico to gain their independence from Spain. Milam joined Trespalacios and was commissioned a colonel.

In Vera Cruz and Mexico City, Trespalacios and Milam met with the same reception that Long had received, the non-revolutionaries had them jailed. While in prison, Long was mysteriously killed and Milam blamed Tresplacios for Long’s death. The plot was discovered and Milam was imprisoned for threatening to kill Tresplacios. Milam and his friends were imprisoned in Mexico City where Iturbide had ordered all of them shot. They were imprisoned for about a year, till the fall of 1822, when they were released through the influence of Joel R. Poinsett, U.S. Commissioner of Observation to Mexico, caused him to intercede and secure their freedom and, with the exception of Milam, all of them sent to the United States on the American sloop-of-war USS John Adams (1799).

By the spring of 1824 Milam returned to Mexico, which was adopting the 1824 Constitution of Mexico and had a republican form of government. Milam was granted Mexican citizenship and commissioned a colonel in the Mexican army in 1824.

[edit] Texas Revolution

In 1825 to 1826 he became Arthur Wavell's partner in a silver mine operation in Nuevo León; the two also obtained empresario grants in Texas. In 1829 Milam wanted to organize a new mining company in partnership with Burnet, but failed due to a lack of funds. In 1835 Milam went to Monclova, the capital of Coahuila y Texas to urge the new governor, Agustín Viesca, to send a land commissioner to Texas to provide the settlers with land titles. However, before Milam could leave the city, word arrived that Antonio López de Santa Anna had overthrown the representative government of Mexico and had established a dictatorship. Governor Viesca fled with Milam, but both were captured and imprisoned at Monterrey. Milam eventually escaped thanks to sympathetic jailers who gave him a horse and let him escape.

By accident he encountered a company of Texas soldiers commanded by George Collinsworth, from whom he heard of the movement in Texas for independence. Milam joined them, helped capture Goliad, I assisted Mexico to gain her independence. I have endured heat and cold, hunger and thirst; I have borne losses and suffered persecutions; I have been a tenant of every prison between this and Mexico. But the events of this night have compensated me for all my losses and all my sufferings. He then marched with them to join the main army to capture the city of San Antonio. On 18 November Stephen Austin resigned his command of the Texan forces at San Antonio to fulfill his mission to the United States as a commissioner. Edward Burleson was elected on 24 November by the volunteers to take Austin's place.

While returning from a scouting mission in the southwest on 4 December 1835, Milam learned that a majority of the army had decided not to attack San Antonio as planned but to go into winter quarters. Burleson and his council of officers were still reluctant to attack, and next day at 3 p.m., Milam went to Burleson’s tent and asked permission to call for volunteers to storm the city. Burleson had no option but to go allong with Milam's plan. Milam was convinced that to wait putting off the final assault of San Antonio and any other decision would be a disaster for the cause of independence, Milam then made his famous, impassioned plea: Who will go with old Ben Milam into San Antonio? Three hundred volunteered to attack at dawn on 5 December.

[edit] Siege of San Antonio

Plans were quickly made. They were to from at the abandoned mill, Molino Blanco or Zambrano's mill at three o'clock the next morning with the men who had volunteered, while Burleson was to hold the rest as a reserve. At the same time, Captain James C. Neil was to open fire with two guns on the Alamo in order to distract the Mexicans soldiers.

On 7 December 1835 Milam, standing with Frank Johnson and Henry Karnes near the Veramendi house, was shot in the head by a Mexican sniper and died instantly. He had been trying to observe the San Fernando church tower with a field telescope given to him by Austin. Robert Morris was elected to take over Milam’s command of the first division.

• Losses

The Mexican Army lost upwards of 400 killed, deserted or wounded. The Texans loses were 20-30 killed. The siege ended on December 9, 1836 when Martín Perfecto de Cos sent a subordinate to negotiate a peace with the Texans. Cos and his troops had six days to vacate the Alamo. Burleson provided the Mexican Army with as much supplies as he could spare and the Mexican wounded were allowed to remain behind to be treated by Texan doctors.

[edit] Bibliography

• New Orleans and the Texas Revolution; Miller, Edward L.,Texas A&M University Press; ISBN 1-58544-358-1
• The Alamo and the Texas War for Independence; Nofi, Albert A.; Da Capo Press; ISBN 0-306-81040-9

[edit] External links

• [1] Handbook of Texas Online article about Benjamin Milam