Everybody talks about Bowie, Travis and Crockett but, to my way of thinking, James Butler Bonham was the most heroic. Bonham, who was boyhood friends with Travis in South Carolina (and whose whole reason for even being in Texas in the first place was because Travis had written him a letter the previous year that described a world of opportunity in Texas for enterprising young men like themselves ), was sent by Travis to obtain aid for the garrison at Bexar on about February 16, 1836. He visited Goliad, but the commander of the forces there, James Fannin, was unable to provide assistance. Bonham's spirit is best described by T.R. Fehrenbach in his Texas opus, Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans:
"At the end, the weary Bonham, a lawyer, a Carolinian of exulted family and a friend of Travis, turned his mount around and rode back toward San Antonio. He was told it was useless to throw away his life. He answered back that Buck Travis deserved to know the answer to his appeals, spat upon the ground, and galloped west into his own immortality."
Thus, Bonham returned to the Alamo on March 3, riding through a hail of Mexican bullets to do it. Imagine being him as he approached the Alamo. He could certainly see the huge Mexican Army and must have known that he faced death either trying to get back inside or in the battle that would certainly follow. He could have turned his horse around, gone back to Goliad or Gonzales, and nobody would have ever known.
James Butler Bonham died in the battle of the Alamo on March 6, 1836, aged 29. He is believed to have died manning one of the cannons.