Benjamin Franklin Highsmith (September 11, 1817 – November 20, 1905) was an American frontiersman and soldier who fought in the Texas Revolution and the Mexican–American War and served as a Texas Ranger under John Coffee Hays. He is remembered chiefly as a courier who carried dispatches out of the Alamo shortly before its fall, and in his last years was widely described as the last man living who had seen and spoken with Travis, Bowie and Crockett inside the fortress.Groneman 2019."Last Messenger From the Alamo", Boston Evening Transcript, December 9, 1905, p. 21 (reprinted from the Springfield Republican).

Early life

Highsmith was born on September 11, 1817, in the St. Charles District of Missouri Territory, a son of Ahijah M. Highsmith, who had served as a scout and ranger in the War of 1812. A. J. Sowell's 1900 account instead gives his birthplace as Lincoln County, Mississippi, an error repeated in his 1905 obituary.Sowell 1900, p. 1.

The family came to Texas in 1823 as part of Stephen F. Austin's colony and settled on the Colorado River above the present town of La Grange.Sowell 1900, pp. 1–2. In 1830, aged thirteen, Highsmith made his first trip to San Antonio de Béxar with a party that included James Bowie and William B. Travis.Sowell 1900, p. 2.

Texas Revolution

At fifteen Highsmith joined a militia company under Aylett C. Buckner and was present at the Battle of Velasco on June 26, 1832, where his captain was killed.Sowell 1900, pp. 2–3. He settled at Bastrop the same year and made his home there for roughly the next fifty years.

He took part in the opening actions of the revolution: the Battle of Gonzales in October 1835, the Battle of Concepción, the Grass Fight, and the Siege of Béxar, entering the town that December with Ben Milam's volunteers.Sowell 1900, pp. 4–8.

Alamo courier

Highsmith remained with the garrison that occupied the Alamo after the fall of Béxar. By his own account, given in interviews and depositions late in life, Travis sent him from the Alamo on February 18, 1836, carrying an appeal for reinforcement to Col. James W. Fannin, Jr., at Goliad. Returning some days later he found the town already invested by the Mexican army; he paused on Powder House Hill, was sighted by Mexican cavalry, and outran the pursuit to reach Gonzales, where he reported the condition of the garrison to Sam Houston.Sowell 1900, pp. 9–11. Houston then sent him out again, with a youth named David B. Kent, carrying an order directing Fannin to abandon Goliad — an order Fannin delayed obeying, and whose consequence was the Goliad massacre.

Highsmith's account of the ride reached print through a letter to the Galveston News and through Sowell, who interviewed him in 1897 for the same paper; the two published versions are therefore not independent of one another.Sowell 1900, p. 1.

He fought at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836. The Handbook of Texas places him in the company of Capt. William Ware, while C. Richard King assigns him instead to Billingsley's regiment, the unit in which his father served.Groneman 2019; King 2002, ch. 22 nn. 36–37.

Republic of Texas service

In August 1840 Highsmith rode in the pursuit of the Comanche raiding party that had sacked Linnville, and fought at the Battle of Plum Creek near present Lockhart.Moore 2007, Plum Creek roster.Sowell 1900, pp. 18–19.

Soon after Plum Creek he joined the ranger company raised by John Coffee Hays and stationed at San Antonio, serving through the company's campaigns west and northwest of the town.Sowell 1900, p. 20. Sowell also places him among Hays's rangers at the Battle of Bandera Pass, north of present Bandera. The date of that engagement is uncertain — accounts variously give 1841, 1842 and 1843 — and Stephen L. Moore has questioned Sowell's list of participants, noting that several of the men named do not appear on Hays's muster rolls until 1842.Sowell 1900, pp. 20–22; for the disputed date and Moore's criticism see Moore 2007.

Highsmith afterwards joined the Somervell Expedition against Mexico, but turned back with Hays when the expedition was abandoned, and so was not among those taken in the Mier Expedition who drew lots for their lives in the black bean episode.Sowell 1900, p. 28.

Mexican–American War

Highsmith marched into Mexico under Capt. Robert Addison Gillespie, fighting at Palo Alto and at Monterrey, where Gillespie was mortally wounded storming Independence Hill.Sowell 1900, pp. 29–30. At the Battle of Buena Vista in February 1847 he was himself wounded.Traylor 1938. He was later granted a Mexican War pension on account of two severe wounds received in the service.

Later life

Highsmith married Elizabeth Turner, a daughter of Adam Turner; the couple had thirteen children.Traylor 1938. In 1882 the family moved from Bastrop to Bandera County. When Sowell interviewed him in 1897 he was living on Blanco Creek, between the Sabinal and Frio canyons, and was already nearly blind.Sowell 1900, p. 1.

He died on November 20, 1905, near Utopia in Uvalde County, in his eighty-ninth year, blind and in poverty. News of his death travelled well beyond Texas: a Springfield Republican notice headed "Last Messenger From the Alamo" was reprinted in the Boston Evening Transcript.

See also List of Texian survivors of the Battle of the Alamo

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