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The Mexican army offered surrender to the Alamo defenders, and 27-year-old commander of the Alamo William Barret Travis’ response was a single defiant cannon shot. After 12 long days of siege by the numerically superior Mexican forces, legend says that Travis offered escape to those defenders who did not want to stay with him and face certain death, calling the question on his offer with a literal line in the sand drawn with his sword. Mere hours later, all the defenders lay dead on the grounds of the mission, never knowing that, four days earlier, a convention of delegates from all over Texas had drawn up and signed a Declaration of Independence from Mexico, formally establishing the Republic of Texas. At
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