About three o’clock in the afternoon
`` At nine o'clock , General Cos joined Santa Anna with five hundred and forty men , and for a moment I thought we had made a mistake in not attacking the enemy before his reinforcements came up . But the knowledge that Cos was present , raised enthusiasm to the highest pitch . Our troops remembered his parole at the Alamo , and the shameful manner in which he had broken it ; and there was not a man who did not long to kill him for it . `` About three o'clock in the afternoon , Houston ordered the attack . The seven hundred Americans were divided into three bodies . I saw Houston in the very centre of the line , and I have a confused memory of Milard and Lamar , Burleson and Sherman and Wharton , in front of their divisions . '' `` Were the Mexicans expecting the attack , father ? ''