"The Alamo has fallen." Topic

6 March 1836, General Santa Anna and the Mexican army overcame the defenses of the Texians and captured the Alamo.

Many models and miniatures have been created to refight or commemorate this battle. The situation is hopeless for the defenders, yet as a game, there is much to interest me. Even though the battle was long ago and far away, the cannon fire and bugle calls still reverberate through time.

You're surrounded
And outnumbered ten to one;
They've announced they are taking no prisoners
And now they are pouring over the walls.

But even when you have no chance, you still have a choice . . .

TSR or SPI had a small version of the Alamo board game. I swear every time I played the Mexicans, they lost.

I've just received a copy of Exodus from the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth, by Phillip Thomas Tucker.

It promises to be a good read and I hope to learn something.

Remember the Alamo! (or choose Hertz)

Let us know how the book is. Been looking for a good book on the topic.

Jeff Long's Duel of Eagles is an excellent book on the Alamo, as is William C Davis' Three Roads to the Alamo, not really an Alamo book per se but a great biographical account of the three main american players, Travis, Bowie and Crockett and their lives leading up to that fateful encounter.

One of the greatest songs ever…….

YouTube link

Honor the Fallen. I recommend "Texas Illiad" by Stephen Hardin. Good summation of the entire conflict.

YouTube link

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"Dual fo Eagles" is a great book. The author shows the major historical figures as real people, warts and all. The book covers the major battles of the Texas War of Independence.

I like the part about the French Nap. Wars veteran takes off over the wall when given the choice by Col. Travis to stay or go. He lives to a long successful life, with a big family and was always asked if he wished he had stayed and fallen with the others at the Alamo.

He always said that he was very happy he left when given the chance.

The best book on the Alamo is Huffines' BLOOD OF NOBLE MEN. A LINE IN THE SAND is also very good.

And don't overlook this one:

The Ballad of Bowie Gizzardsbane

Harsh that hearing for Houston the Raven:
Foes had enfeebled the fortress at Bexar,
Leaving it lacking and looted the while
Hordes were sweeping swift on the land,
Hell-bent to crush him. The cunning old prince
Did not, though, despair at danger's onrushing;
Hardy with peril, he held it, perused it,
Reading each rune of it. Reaching the facts,
He thumbed through his thanes and thought of the one
Whose guts and gray matter were grafted most neatly.
"Riders!" he rasped, "to race after Bowie!"
"Bowie," he barked when that bearcat of heroes
Bowed to his loved prince, "Bexar must be ours
Or no one must have it. So hightail, burn leather!
Hold me that fortress or fire it and raze it.
Do what you can or else do what you must."

Fame has its fosterlings, free of the limits
Boxing all others, and Bowie was one of them.
Who has not heard of the holmgang at Natchez?
Fifty were warriors, but he fought the best,
Wielding a long knife, a nonesuch of daggers
Worthy of Wayland. That weapon had chewed
The entrails of dozens. In diverse pitched battles
That thane had been leader; by land and by sea
Winning such treasure that trolls, it is said,
Closed hills out of fear he'd frisk them of silver.
Racing now westward, he rode into Bexar,
Gathered the garrison, gave them his orders:
"Houston the Raven is raising a host;
Time's what he asks while he tempers an army.
Never give up this gate to our land.
Hold this door fast, though death comes against us."

The flood of the foemen flowed up to Bexar,
Beat on the dam braced there to contain it.
But Wyrd has no fosterlngs, favors no clients;
Bowie, the war-wise winner of battles,
Laid out by fever, lost his first combat,
Melting with death. Yet the might of his spirit
Kept a tight grip on the trust he'd been given.
"Buy time, my bucks," he told his companions.
"Be proud of the price; our prince is the gainer."
Bold thanes were with him, thirsty for honor,
Schooled well in battle and skilled with all weapons;
Avid for slaughter there, each against thirty,
They stood to the walls and struck for their chieftains,
Houston and Bowie, the bearcat of heroes.

Twelve days they ravaged the ranks of the foemen.
Tens, though, can't harrow the hundreds forever;
That tide had to turn. Tiredly the thanes
Blocked two wild stormings and bled them to death.
The third had the drive of Thor's mighty hammer,
Roared at the walls and rose to spill over,
Winning the fort. But the foemen must pay.
Heroes were waiting them, hardy at killing,
Shaken no whit, though sure they were lost.
Ten lives for one was the tariff for entry;
And no man got credit. Crushed and split skulls,
Blasted off limbs and lathers of blood
Were the money they soughted and minted themselves --
Worth every ounce of the weregild they asked.

Of every eleven, though, one was a hero
Turned to a corpse there. Cornered and hopeless,
They strove while they yet stood, stabbing and throttling,
Meeting the bear's death, dying while fighting.
Chieftains of prowess, not chary of slaying,
Led and fell with them. Alone by the wall,
Travis, the red-maned, the truest of warriors,
Pierced through the pate and pouring out blood,
Kept death marking time, defied it until
His sword again sank, sucking blood from a foeman.
Content then, he ended. So also died Crockett,
Who shaved with a star and stamped to make earthquakes.
Kimball, the leader of loyal riders,
Bonham whose vow was valor's own hallmark.

Crazed by their losses, the conquerors offered
No truce to cadavers; the corpses were stabbed
In hopes that life's spark would be spared to afford them
Seconds on killing. Then some, taking count,
Bawled out that Bowie was balking them still;
Like weasels in warrens they wound through the fort,
Hunting the hero they hated the most.
Least of the lucky, at last some found him,
Fettered to bed by the fever and dying,
Burnt up and shrunken, a shred of himself.
Gladly they rushed him, but glee became panic.
Up from the grip of the grave, gripping weapons,
Gizzardsbane rose to wreak his last slaughter,
Killing, though killed. Conquered, he won.
In brief is the death lay of Bowie, the leader
Who laid down his life for his lord and ring giver,
Holding the doorway for Houston the Raven,
Pearl among princes, who paid in the sequel;
Never was vassal avenged with more slayings!

Events at the Alamo this morning. link

Agree on the Huffines book. It's the right combination of history, analysis, and eye-candy. This is followed imo by Todd Hansen's The Alamo Reader. For pure eye candy, and great research, I like The Illustrated Alamo by Mark Lemon:
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TSR or SPI had a small version of the Alamo board game.

TSR's version (which I have):

link

I may have to break that out this evening for a quick game.

I also designed an Alamo game. $15 USD from Victory Point Games: link Sorry about the gigantor sized picture. That's all they had:

Looks interesting, Rich! I like that you took a very original approach to the overall design. I also like that it's solitaire.

Well… the design is mine, but someone else designed the system. Here are all the games using the same system, covering a range of topics from the ACW to zombie outbreaks: link

Did someone miss the best Alamo song..Marty Robbin's Ballad of the Alamo??

"I've just received a copy of Exodus from the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth"

Not read it but it attracts a lot of negative critique.

I have Hardin's TEXIAN ILIAD on Kindle. I also have his Osprey on the campaign which gives me the same illustrations & maps in a viewable format. The texts of the 2 books covers quite different stuff though, it's worth getting both.

Wow… someone wrote a long Anglo-Saxon style poem on the Alamo. Who'd'Ve thunk it?

John Myers Myers in SILVERLOCK -- which is a great read. the bard sings it to Beowulf's men at Heorot.

There's a bunch of other great poems in the book.

THE SONG OF GOLIAS
-John Meyers Meyers

I have known both joy and grief, neat, and mixed together
Cold and Heat I've known, and found both good drinking weather
Light and Darkness I have known, seldom doubting whether
Tammuz would return again, when he'd slipped his tether!

I remember gaudy days when the Year was springing
Tammuz, Gilgamesh and I, clinking Cups and singing
Till Ininni sauntered by, skimpy garments clinging
To her hips, and things like that: Tammuz left us, winging!

So we welcomed Enkidu when he came to Erech
He was rough as hickory bark, nothing of the Cleric!
But his taste in Wine and Ale, THAT was Esoteric!
And he used a drinking cup that would strain a derrick!

Khumbaba then felt our strength 'neath the magic Cedars
And we wrestled Anu's Bull, pride of Heaven's Breeders!
Thrice we struck, and once he fell, drawing wolves for feeders
while we strode where drinking men called for expert leaders.

Tammuz must have joined us there, but he'd just got wedded
And Ininni (blast the Wench!) hacked him as they bedded
Such a honeymoon as that, I have always dreaded….
For a drinking man is…spoiled…once he's been beheaded!

So we waked him with a will, ale and teardrops pooling
Then we drank to him for months, while the year was cooling.
But he came back with the grass! Death was only fooling!
Tammuz told us: "Fill my Cup! I'm both dry…and drooling!"

"I've just received a copy of Exodus from the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth"

Not read it but it attracts a lot of negative critique

That's a given!

The negative attention is not because it emphasizes an "exodus" -- though what a loaded term! It just isn't all that new. Huffines makes it clear, several years earlier, that 50 or so of the garrison went over the wall near the chapel after resistence collapsed, possibly covered by the guns in the chapel battery. The Mex lancers waited until they got well away from the wal and then rode down on them. And one of the garrison killed a lancer noncom; Huffines' book even has an ILLUSTRATION of that. EXODUS is just sort of breathless and pot-stirring about something that was already known and not that big a deal.

I love "Texas Illiad". It captures the Alamo in a way that mere prose can't touch.

Maybe our ancestors knew something, after all.

doc mcb,

Thanks for your last. Remind me never to sit next to you and watch a movie.

Anyone like to buy a second-hand, unread book?

As aye,

D'Ewell

When I teach the Alamo, if there's time, I like to show pieces of the Disney Fess Parker DAVY CROCKETT, and of Wayne's ALAMO, and then all of the new one. Each has something good to offer the others lack -- though Disney's and Wayne's are of course flawed in many ways.

Tuckers book is poorly written and despite several editorial delays by Casemate could not be improved. It's the only book on the Alamo I've actually thrown away. The author needlessly insults many of the settlers that went to Texas and applies a 21st century revisionist outlook on many matters with little to no effort to place motives and actions within their proper historical context.

If the pickets would have not fallen asleep that night, and knew that the mexicans were massing in the North, they could have done something more, but then again. They had plenty of cannon balls for bombardment. But that is me, having wishful thinking.

But it sure did take alot of them to take the Alamo…tells you something about TEXANS

Battle of the Alamo Diorama

link

darclegion, is that the Blue Moon 18mm model and figures? FANTASTIC job! I really love the north wall repairs.

Yes it is! And thanks, I used schikabog (spell) sticks to make it with, and it turned out better than I expected. The figures are 18mm Blue Moon, with some Musket Miniatures casualties. I painted the Alamo, with some help from a few friends, but the figures were painted by ECA Minis. I can paint, but I was overwhelmed with painting about 550 28mm Romans at the time, and had to recruit some help on the paint jobs. There will be an article about the Diorama in Wargames Illustrated isseu 310.

I am finally finished painting minis for a very long time. I have been painting for a few years strait without gaming…and I am burnt out. Now its time to enjoy my diorama in the living room, and game in my game room,….and no more painting….

Tom

link