"information on battle of the Alamo" Topic

My son was reading a book on Texas and asked about the Alamo,so explained the battle to him as well as background and what happened after.
Remember reading thru a book in the bookstore recently that offers a new theory that many of the defenders tried to breakout but were cut down by Mexican cavalry in the attempt.
Does anyone know which book(s) may disuss this please? Also any online links offering good views of the battle available too?

Thanks,
Mark

Its in the CAMPAIGN Osprey

First I heard of this. I've heard the surrender theory, but not this one. They do have a good diarama of the battle at the visitor's center. I'm sorry I don't know any related web sites, what with me being Texan and all.

Jeff Long's Duel of Eagles is an excellent telling of the story. It's a plain telling that cuts through the mythology of the Alamo. Highly recommended.

I've heard the theory but don't know how much faith to place in it. It is supposed to be based on the location of the funeral pyre(s). It was originally thought that there was only one, but recently it seems there may have been a second one some distance away. The theory is the second pyre was for those who broke out and were cut down by the cavalry.

The problem with the Alamo is the lack of any hard primary evidence from the Texican or Mexican side. Many people wrote about the battle afterwards, but much of it is contradictory. Santa Anna may have ordered at least one of his Generals to inflate the number of defenders to 600. The initial body count was 183 'killed in the Alamo' and that has long been the figure given as the total number of defenders. But it may mean just what it says. That was the number of bodies found in the Alamo that day, and a number of defenders had been killed by the cavalry outside the Alamo and weren't part of the initial bodycount. That may have been another 70+ men. There is a "missing" body of men (70-80) who marched off to help at the Alamo and were never heard from again, but aren't listed among the defenders. It's possible they made it. Some of the later body counts show 250 +or- a couple as defenders.

No one is sure just how many Mexicans were killed. Santa Anna probably downplayed the number, but may only have been referring to the men actually killed during the assault, and not men who later died of wounds. Numbers given by others range from 24 to 300 (From various Mexican sources). The latter is probably close to casualties during the assault, and died of wounds later, given that research into the returns of the units involved in the assault are available for strength before and afer the assault. American sources range as high as 1500.

The Alamo is a mighty legend in our history, (even though it isn't part of American history, but Mexican history), and as such resists attempts to revise what "we all know" to be true. It is a fine example of the statement "When the truth becomes legend, print the legend".

Something my nephew in law just said. That there may have been a Masonic meeting the night before the last battle. Also that may be the reason that Santa Ana wasn't executed after the battle of San Jacinto. My only question, wouldn't Santa Ana have spared the master Masons after the battle? 183 to 192 Texan casualties is the norm I'm used to hearing, with up to 2400 Mexican.

Hi

I had heard the story of the runners being cut down. Growing up in the southwest as a kid at an old mission with a lot of mexican friends, I heard the story first from the mexican myth side.

Heard aboutJuan Sequin as a name before I heard about most of the other "names".

That being said, the reasoning was a little odd. "Mexicans are as good as anyone, therefore, there had to be more guys in the alamo to hold up the army and cause the large number of casualties. No one saw the bodies because most ran."

Thus, the 600-800 number that shows up.

Another "proof" was that the texians took the alamo from the garrison despite the garrison being a lot more than the ca.180 white guys defending.

I am pretty willing to do a "tevia"…"he's right too". In that I know mexicans are as good as anyone etc. I think the missing point is that the fight revolved around the idea that both sides were offended by Santa Ana! The mexican troops were good, but had no reason to fight for "the Napoleon of Mexico", and the ex-tennesseeians, now Mexicans had folks they actually hated to fight.

Letting modern pride or identification with the participants means everyone wants to revise the story!

Rocky

BLOOD OF NOBLE MEN is the best Alamo book. It addresses the breakout theory, even having an illustration of onbe of the Texians shooting a dragoon.

I'm fairly persuaded that there were indeed about 250 defenders, of whom about 70, when the perimeter was breached and resistence became futile, attempted to breakout to the east, possibly covered by the guns in the chapel. The Mexican cavalry waited until they were too far from the walls to run back, then charged down on them with lances. Their bodies were burned where they were, and so not counted among the 180.

Btw, we do have a LOT of primary source material, and a lot of it from the Texian perspective. BLOOD OF NOBLE MEN does a good job of setting conflicting accounts side by side, so you get a sense of where the puzzles mainly are. Lots and lots is known, but the battle and siege have been so exhaustively analyzed that questions are bound to remain.

My guess is about 600 total casualties for the Mexicans. The majority of those would be wounded, of course, but a higher than normal percent of wounded would have died due to poor or non-existent medical care, and all would have been out for the rest of the campaign.

link

And Mark, the newest ALAMO movie is excellent. Thornton's portrayal of Crockett is masterful. Watch it with your son. (There is some bad language.)

Thanks doc. Gonna have to wait on that one or hit the local library.

On the above link is a book by Lemon…excellent because it's a 25mm model of the Alamo that is so good it looks real. Agree, Blood of Noble Men is a very good read on the Alamo.

I understand that once the Mexicans were inside the compound, it made no sense to continue to fight to hold it, and more sense to fight your way out and live to fight another day…but you have to give Santa Anna his due, he planned for this contingency and placed the Lancers masterfully. Supposedly one or two Texians did manage to escape but withheld their testimony because the mood was that anyone who didn't die was a coward, traitor or worse.

As mentioned above, much has been written, a lot has been proven, but much is just conjecture and will never be proven.

As for online links, any Google search, including the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, will provide much to pore over. That's how I found out lots of interesting info. Don't focus upon only the Alamo, but check out the rest, including San Jacinto and Fannin.

Yes, the book of photos of the model Alamo is amazing.

Alamo de las Paras is the best website.

link

A repost of the above. Seems the bug may be back as there was a couple of unrelated words attached to the end of mine.

What is really odd, for me, is growing up in the 50's with Disney's Davy Crockett and the craze it spawned. As a kid and for much of my adult life the Alamo always had the facade is now has. But when I got into looking at the "real" Alamo in an occasional interest way, I find it weird to see the current facade instead of the ruined one it actually had at the time of the battle.

The photos of the Alamo model that purports to show it at the time of the battle bring up some interesting questions. There is a decided lack of firing steps and flat roofs. The idea of the garrison manning the walls and firing into the masses of soldiery below the walls seems a bit far-fetched given they had almost no way to see over them. Given 18 cannon, and the fact that there were more they didn't mount I suspect that the 183 men were mostly servicing the artillery and only grabbed guns when they could no longer bear on the columns. Given that the average gun crew is ten men, that would be just about right for the number of guns with a commander for each important position. The walls were just to long to adequately man them. I believe the circumference gave a frontage of 10 feet or more per man. Given the execution done on the columns as they approached, it would have had to be cannon fire doing the damage, and well served cannon at that.

But. The photo book shows a single cannon at the pallisade defended by Crockett. That small gun alone, plus the abatis of fallen trees, isn't likely to be enough to defend the weakest point in the fort. There had to be men there who weren't engaged in servicing the guns. The length of the pallisade is given as 116 feet, and if you look at 18th century books on manning walls, you need around 60-70 men to adequately defend it. Which now brings us up to the nearly 257 total I've seen.

Travis has a major effect on disposition of the defenders. He is a rank amateur who has read a book. The equivalent, or less, of a fresh faced 2nd looey. And prickly about his position. I am willing to bet that he did everything by the book. Literally. He would have had complete gun crews for all his guns, manned the wall that needed manned with the proper number of men, and created a citadel to defend against the final assault which is suggeste in the Illustrated Alamo. That is what the book said to do, it is probably what Jameson would have recommended, and it was probably done that way. As a result, it is entirely possible that 60-70 men were killed outside the Alamo after the fort fell.

The main breach was at the north wall. This would have meant a pressure on the defenders that pushed them south, and into the long barracks and into the plaza in front of the church. The palisade was never breached, if I recollect correctly. I don't recall seeing it mentioned, and the fallen tree abatis would have worked rather well, combined with the fire from the small gun and the men on the palisade to make it nearly impregnable. My theory is that the men killed outside the Alamo were mostly defenders of the palisade that found themselves being hit in the rear and driven over it and out into the open. And if so, it is entirely possible that Crockett was among them. They would have formed a small group, and headed east, where the least resistance was to be found. They may have picked up a few of the artillerymen from the chapel along the way as the palisade, and the short drop from the gun platform in the chapel were the two quickest ways out of the Alamo after the plaza and courtyard had fallen. Moving east they would have encountered the flooded, marshy area on the northeast side of the Alamo, and the ditch draining it. There also appears to be a road with a small bridge spanning the creek. This area, which wasn't attacked by a column, would be the most likely area for the cavalry patrol to operate. And it would have been here that the lancers would have done their work.

My theory. And worth every penny you paid for it.

By the by, if you have the Illustrated Alamo book, I hope you have read it as well as looked at the photos. I found it a fascinating read.

And thedrake, what was the name of the book you picked up in the book store.

Thanks Mikhail- interesting suggestions.

Cool website Doc…I liked the book review portion. Disappointed that Duel of Eagles was not there, but happy to see that Three roads to the Alamo was. I picked that up at a discount book store and have yet to read it. So now I am definately looking forward to it.

Mikhail,cant remember the title;do remember it had excerpts of the account written by a Mexican soldier in it (which IIRC the authenticity of the account has been disputed but was recently used by an archaeological team as basis for finding evidence of the battle and Santa Ana's march from Mexico.)

de la Pena

Hi

ya, what is wrong with bill! We need a way to do the "tilda" over the "n"!

Grin.

Rocky

de la Pena was considered bunk since his account didn't match what was "known" about the Texas Revolution. He is taking on more credibility with since they found he was correct about a change of the line of march, which, if I recall, was nearly a 90 degree change relative to the original line of march. Everyone knew that the Mexican Army went just one way until they found the evidence that they had made the change of route de la Pena referred to. That gives a bit more credence to his other statements.

Always nice when the bloke who no-one believes turns out to be right! A belated hurrah for La Pena…

BLOOD OF NOBLE MEN

The theory is that a few men could have escaped over the East wall (if I remember correctly). The number of 189 Alamo defenders could have been more than 250, because there were a few that escaped only to be cut down by Mexican Cavalry that surrounded the entire Alamo, for that very purpose, no quarter.
There was one personal account where someone had made it back to his lands, only to die from lance wounds.

I personally believe that there were a few that tried to escape…imagine yourself in that postion. Some men run from fear, others stay thier ground, so its easy for me to believe that a few made it over the walls only be cut down by Cavalry. Santa Anna expected this, and that is why he had Cavalry postioned all around the compound. The east wall after the 3rd attack, would have been the way to escape.

The Blood of Noble Men, is by far one of the must read books about the Alamo, amoung others.

Cheers,
Tom

Mike Lerementov makes some really good points. I for one do not think that an aging Crockett went to the Alamo to die for Texas independence, let the 20-year olds do that. So the idea of "running away to fight another day" makes complete sense to me. Plus, if he has been in Congress, doesn't it make sense that he may be able to bargain his way out of a death sentence by talking to Santa Anna? A man from his own age group and a fellow politician.

There has been a LOT of fresh evidence and analysis on the Alamo in the past few decades. Consider joining the Alamo Society (publishes The Alamo Journal several times a year containing news and articles of interest from many contemporary scholars and enthusiasts), the international organization of Alamo enthusiasts of all stripes, from academics to filmmakers to reenactors to fans of the Disney series. You can find the group website easily enough and make inquiries from there.

I also refer buffs to The Alamo Reader, edited by Todd Hansen (I think), a bounty of annotated first-hand documentation.