William Travis, Louis Rose, and That Dang “Line in the Sand” (July 14, 2025)
by Scott Sosebee
Many of you grew up hearing the dramatic story of William B. Travis and his famous “line in the sand” at the Alamo. Almost all renderings have Travis assembling the besieged men on the evening of March 5, where he told the Texians, “We must die. Our business is not to make a fruitless effort to save our lives, but to choose the manner of our death.” The time had come for the men of the Alamo to make a fateful choice.
The men only had three choices, and none of them much better than the other. They could surrender, but as traitors against the Mexican government that meant execution. Another choice was to leave the protective confines of their mission/fort, attack the Mexican lines, and try to fight their way out of San Antonio, but that, too, would be a suicide mission. The last option was to remain inside the Alamo’s walls, try to resist all of Santa Anna’s assaults, and make any attempts to take the Alamo cost the Mexican army dearly. But, no matter what option they chose, each man knew that they would probably die very soon.
It was at this point that Travis made his dramatic flourish. The tale declares that Travis drew his sword, walked to the edge of a building, and then very slowly traced a line with the tip of his saber. In a loud voice, he asked that any man who wanted to stay and fight should cross the line and join him. If you wanted to leave, stay on the other side, and no one will think ill of your decision. Every man, save one, stepped across the line. The one left on the other side was Louis Rose, a veteran of Napoleon’s army. Rose, in the dead of night, left the Alamo, made his way past the Mexican sentinels, and eventually went home to Nacogdoches. The men he left behind fought valiantly on the morning of March 6, but of course succumbed to Santa Anna’s assault, only to live forever as martyrs to the Texan cause.
The story is accepted as fact by almost all Texans, and even those who may question some of its details probably believe that it is representative of how “every Texan should be.” It has to be true, doesn’t it? Well, it may be, but—and I hate to bear such news—it probably is not. The story of the “line in the sand” supposedly comes from Louis Rose, the man who escaped from the Alamo the night of the March 5, but it came from an oral tradition and did not appear anywhere in print or records until 1873, in a story written by William P. Zuber in the Texas Almanac. Also, no one has ever been able to positively place this particular Louis Rose at the Alamo that 1836 winter. There are many different versions of his life that also cast doubt on the story.
Legend and tradition have “Rose” slipping out of a window, traveling down the San Antonio River, making his way to the Guadalupe River, and eventually to Nacogdoches. Rose remained in Nacogdoches until he moved to Louisiana in 1842 and never returned to Texas. He died in Logansport in 1851. There are a number of discrepancies in the story. There are records that indicate that Frenchman Louis Rose, a veteran of Napoleon’s campaigns in Portugal and Russia, did live in Nacogdoches beginning in the late 1820s. He worked for John Durst and Frost Thorn, and participated in the Fredonian Rebellion as well as the Battle of Nacogdoches. Reportedly, he joined with James Bowie’s volunteers at the outbreak of the Texas Revolution, which is how he found himself inside the Alamo in March 1836. However, the name Louis Rose has never been found on the Alamo’s muster rolls, even those compiled after February 1, which is when James Bowie arrived in Bexar. Although one account lists a man with the last name of “Rose” from Nacogdoches as having died at the Alamo, battle survivor Susanna Dickison, as well as William Travis’ enslaved person Joe, both stated that they never knew of anyone names Louis Rose inside the mission.
So how did the story of the line as told by Louis Rose gain traction? According to William Zuber after his escape from San Antonio Rose appeared at his home in Grimes County where he told the story to his host. Zuber may have repeated it to friends and neighbors, but the only record of Rose’s tale to him comes from Zuber’s 1873 article in the Texas Almanac. It was from that piece that the story of the “line in the sand” began to become Texas fact. Before that time, there is no record of Rose telling his story to anyone in Nacogdoches, and after he left for Louisiana, Louis Rose fades from the historical view. Even after the 1873 story, most historians dismissed Zuber’s story as a Texas tall tale, but it gained more credence when Robert B. Blake, while researching Nacogdoches’ history in 1939, came across some documents in the Nacogdoches County Clerk’s records that he said confirmed Zuber’s account, although, really, all it confirmed was that someone named “Louis Rose” lived during the appropriate time period in Nacogdoches. Still, after Blake, the story of Louis Rose gained credence.
Doubts about the “line” story remained, and historians developed many theories about Rose, the “line,” and the actual facts. Thomas Lindley, in his book Alamo Traces, thinks that Rose may have been part of a group of volunteers who had begun to march to the Alamo on March 4, but were driven back by the Mexican army. He subsequently then told his tale as an explanation of why he did not perish at the battle. Others write Rose off as spinning a yarn, while still more claim that it was Zuber who told the fantastical story. Most do agree that Travis did at least inform the men under his command that their situation was dire and that they had no escape, but whether or not he drew that “line in the sand” remains in question. But, that story is not as dramatic, is it?
The East Texas Historical Association provides this column as a public service. Scott Sosebee is a Professor of History at Stephen F. Austin State University and the Executive Director of the Association. He can be contacted at sosebeem@sfasu.edu or via www.easttexashistorical.org.