Antonio López de Santa Anna ordered the defenders' bodies burned on three large pyres near the mission, according to the official Alamo website. One defender, Gregorio Esparza, was granted a traditional burial because his brother was granted permission to retrieve his body.

Of the roughly 189 to 257 defenders who died during the Battle of the Alamo in 1836, José Gregorio Esparza is widely recognized as the only defender whose body was not burned in the massive funeral pyres ordered by General Santa Anna. Esparza was a member of the Alamo garrison, but he also had a brother, Francisco, who was a soldier in Santa Anna's Centralist army. Following the fall of the mission on March 6, Francisco Esparza successfully petitioned the General for permission to locate his brother's body and give him a proper Christian burial. As a result, José Gregorio was taken by his family and buried in the Campo Santo (the cemetery of the San Fernando Church) in San Antonio. The remains of the other defenders, including famous figures like Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and William B. Travis, were famously reduced to ashes in two large pyres located near the site. In 1936, a marble sarcophagus was placed inside the San Fernando Cathedral, which is claimed to contain the co-mingled ashes of those fallen heroes recovered after the battle, though Gregorio Esparza's separate burial remains a unique and documented exception in the tragic history of the Alamo's final stand.