The siege of the Alamo, its heroic defense, and the massacre of its valiant defenders are among the most notable events of Texas history. The incidents of the siege continue to arouse the most intense interest among all lovers of great deeds and heroic achievements. That “Thermopylae had its messenger of defeat but the Alamo had none” has become the pride not only of Texans, but of the whole English race as well. That these men, one hundred and eighty in number, should place themselves in the path of Santa Anna's army to stay his advance until an opposing force could be collected shows them to have been quite as devoted to their country and its preservation as were Leonidas and his Spartan band in the brave days of old. Any particulars concerning the life and death of any of the garrison of the Alamo will be of interest to all.
In 1835 there lived near Athens, Georgia, a planter by the name of Thomas Malone. His family was originally from Virginia. He had accumulated at this time quite a considerable fortune and was the father of several children. The oldest of these children, a young man with dark hair and complexion, was about eighteen years old, and was named William T. Malone. William was inclined to be wild and wayward but his father was a man of strict habits, looking upon dissipation with no lenient eye. One night the boy got too much in his cups with some of his convivial companions, and being ashamed to face his father after the spree, he fled from home, going to New Orleans, Louisiana. His father, anxious to save him hastened to New Orleans, trying to overtake him and to beg him to return to his sorrowing mother and family. When he reached the city his son had already gone, having taken passage on a boat for Texas. The father returned to the sorrow-stricken household and reported his failure. The exact date when the young man left his home can not be discovered but it appears to have been some time in the fall or winter of 1835. After William T. Malone had arrived in Texas he wrote one letter to his mother which family tradition says she carried on her person until it was worn out.
In the fall of 1835 San Antonio was besieged and in December it was captured from the Mexicans by a portion of the Texan army under the command of Colonel Milam. An incomplete muster roll on file in the General Land Office shows that on November 23 Malone was a member of Captain T. F. L. Parrott's company of artillery, but whether he was with Milam in the storming of the Alamo is uncertain.
On the second day after the beginning of the siege of the Alamo by the Mexicans Colonel Travis sent Ben F. Highsmith to La Bahia, a distance of more than ninety miles, to Colonel Fannin, asking for aid. Highsmith says that when he left San Antonio there was in the Alamo a young man by the name of Bill Malone, and his description of the young man's person and estimate of his age correspond with the description given by the family. They both speak of the young man's having lost the little finger on his left hand. Highsmith escaped from San Antonio at night, and carried the message from Travis to Fannin. Fannin was unable to send aid to Travis, stating that his command was on foot and without supplies to undertake the expedition. Thereupon Highsmith returned to San Antonio and from a distance saw that the Alamo was surrounded. He turned back and sought and found Houston and his army and later participated in the battle of San Jacinto. The Alamo, after a desperate defense of two weeks was stormed and all persons within its walls were slain except the negro man belonging to Colonel Travis, and Mrs. Dickinson and her infant child.
After the war was over, the father of young Malone sent an agent to Texas to learn the fate of his son. This person saw both the negro who had belonged to Travis, and Mrs. Dickinson, and they both said that there was a young man in the Alamo by the name of Malone, and Mrs. Dickinson said that she saw him die, fighting bravely to the last.
It appears that land certificates were issued to the heirs of William T. Malone for services rendered to the Republic of Texas by him. These certificates declare that he was killed in the defense of the Alamo.109 They were taken back or sent back to his mother, and she declared in her grief that she would not have them, for they were bought with the price of her son's blood.
The last inexplicable fact remains; notwithstanding that all these facts appear to be well established, yet the name of William T. Malone never seems to have been on the original muster rolls of the men who fought and fell at the Alamo, nor upon the copy of the rolls that yet remains in the Land Office, nor upon the monument that perpetuates the names and fame of the heroic dead. Was his name upon the original muster rolls that were destroyed in the burning of the Adjutant General's office before the Civil War?110 Was his name casually omitted from the copy of the rolls that chanced to be preserved from the fire? Or did Malone fight like Smith of the Wynd “with a free hand, belonging to no company or clan”? Did he arrive at the Alamo just in time to enter its fatal walls? Crockett came to the Alamo almost alone. Did Malone come in the same way? Mrs. Dickinson says that he had been there but a short time and belonged to the same mess as her husband. By some mischance his name has not been preserved on roll or monument, but let it be placed forever in the historical records of Texas. Let not the name of the wayward but heroic young man be forgotten.
