Before General Santa Anna left Villa de San Fernando our San Antonio, in pursuit of Gen. Sam Houston , he ordered General Andrade to stay back and destroy the Alamo compound, but the Mission Church was not destroyed, as Santa Anna ordered. 

 

This is a story, that is left for us and the Alamo's history.

 

"Ghostly tales about the Alamo can be traced all the way back to 1836. Several weeks after the Battle of the Alamo, Santa Anna ordered General Andrade to raze the Alamo and in doing so ensure that nothing was left standing. Like any military commander holding the rank of general, Andrade delegated this unwholesome task to a trusted subordinate, Colonel Sanchez.

 

Upon the arrival of Colonel Sanchez and his men, all that remained of the old mission was the chapel. Resolute to carry out Santa Anna's demands, Colonel Sanchez instructed his troops to begin tearing down the church. As the detail set about preparing to carry out the order, work was abruptly halted when six ghostly monks materialized from the walls of the chapel. 

 

The soldiers watched in stunned silence as these "diablos" slowly advanced waving flaming swords over their heads, while all the time issuing a warning in an inhuman screech, "Do not touch the walls of the Alamo". Heading the ghostly advice, Colonel Sanchez and his men retreated with their tails between their legs.

 

When General Andrade heard of Colonel Sanchez's cowardice, he returned to the Alamo himself with troops and a little insurance, a cannon. Andrade instructed his gunners to aim the cannon at the front doors of the chapel, but before it could be prepared to fire, the six ghostly monks re-appeared with fiery swords in hand. As the moaning figures approached the flummoxed general and his contingent, they again issued their unnerving warning. The ghosts moaning voices startled Andrade's horse and the general was unseated. When General Andrade had regained both his composure and the reins of his steed, he was disgusted to see his men fleeing for their lives. Considering the situation this was something the general should have done but instead, Andrade remounted his horse and turned to look at the Alamo one last time. 

 

To his horror, the general watched as a wall of flame erupted from the ground in and around the low barracks. The smoke from the unholy fire then congealed into the form of a large, imposing man. In each of the massive figures hands were balls of fire, which he hurled at the general like an avenging angel. 

 

General Andrade retreated from the scene presumably before the fireballs could hit their mark and no one has dared harm the sacred site since. Folks at the time believed that the larger than life spirit was an amalgamation of the spectral energy of all of the dead Alamo defenders that when combined, it created the missions menacing protector.

 

Official records and later archeological excavation's conducted at the Alamo seem to contradict the engrossing story of General Andrade's encounter with the six phantom monks. Factual evidence suggests that Andrade successfully leveled many of the walls of the fort and dismantled or burned the wooden palisade that had been erected in front of the church and along the south wall of the compound. Apparently General Andrade was not as scared by the fiery giant as the previous story suggests. 

 

During the late 1800's, the ghostly activity at the Alamo was big "news" in San Antonio. In 1894, the City of San Antonio pressed the mission into service as a police headquarters and jail. It was not long before, prisoners housed in the old barracks started to complain about all kinds of ghostly activity there."

Alamo Ghost....site.

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COURTESY / Ricardo Rodriguez Alamo Legacy & Missions Assoc.