jeep xj will not start after rallying it?

last week i was rallying my jeep, not too hard because it was in snow but the rpms were up there, anyways, i drove it home and parked it. today i tried to start it and nothing works, no headlights or anything. i jumped it and it started up, but as soon as i disconnected the jumper cable, it died. i was thinking maybe the alternator took a dump, and i had just run all the power out of the battery, so i put a charger on it so i could move the jeep, after 5 seconds the charger trips, telling me that there is a direct short somwhere in my system. has anyone ever seen this? any ideas? am i on the right path? also, my speedo cable was resting on the exhaust, and burnt it, causing the speedo to not work, could that have caused any of this mess im in right now?

How old is your battery? Have your alt tested at a parts house

I had a similar problem except I was driving down the interstate instead of rallying and it was a 92 Trooper instead of a Jeep... But it turned out that my battery was completely toasted. As in one of the cells inside had burst. I could jump start it but it would immediately die upon removing the cables. Got a new battery and it worked fine right up until the tranny exploded a few months later...

well here is the latest: i had previously posted that when i hooked up a charger, it woul trip the safety breaker inside the charger after five seconds, so i disconnected the battery cables and tried hooking the charger back up, and it is charging just fine now. does this mean my problem is in my cables?

Remove alternator and have it checked