"Did Davy Crockett save New Orleans?" Topic

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Argues that Santa Anna might have captured NO and closed the Mississippi.

What ifs are inherently problematical, and this one seems a stretch. But NO WAS indeed the base for the Texan revolt, steamboats running troops and supplies. And the US Army in LA seems to have been, shall we say, RELAXED about US Army soldiers "deserting" to join Sam Houston.

Worth a read, but I make it on par with what if Rommel had taken Egypt and moved on to India.

My take is that Santa Anna was the most over-rated, hyped-up and fundamentally incompetent general of the age, and couldn't have taken or held New Orleans if he could even find it on a map.

I agree that this is a huge stretch – Santa Anna had lots to deal with back home (he had just crushed a rebellion in Zacatecas in May 1835 and had active rebellions in varioius stages on-going in Alta California, Nuevo México, Tabasco, Sonora, Coahuila y Tejas, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro, Durango, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Yucatán, Jalisco, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas not to mention Texas) but also was as noted by Parzival hugely over-rated; if you look at how he advanced the Army of Operations into Texas it was a logistical nightmare

As well if he had been the least little bit competent he should have crushed the Texians at San Jacinto – one wonders if Santa Anna had, say, been wounded or died (not an impossible thing) and Jose de Urrea had taken over (also not impossible) the Texas Rebellion likely would have had a very different outcome

That being said, even if Texas had remained in the Mexican fold I can't see New Orleans being in any danger – for example, no matter how small the US Navy was then (I think 4 ships of the line and 4 big frigates) it dwarfed anything the Mexicans could float

He was trying to put down a rebellion inside of Mexico. Exactly why would then attack the United States and take New Orleans?

For the record, I'm a big Davy Crockett fan— have been since I was old enough to read. I had a coonskin cap (actually probably rabbit fur, but it did have the raccoon tail). But staying at the Alamo was a bad military decision. Did it help in the long run? I don't know. Sure made the Texians mad at Santa Anna, so that's something.

The Yellow Rose of Texas would have distracted him.

This all seems nuts. For one, Crockett had very little to do with any of these things. For another, Santa Anna was a doofus as a military general ("Napoleon of the West", bah!! Did he ever win a real battle?) and was in no position to invade the US (at that time, 1836), he wasn't even able to chase the rebel Texians across the border let along face an American military -- altho' American units were placed there to lend aid to the Texian rebels. Santa Anna was a numbskull but not enough of one to give reason for the US to enter a war over Texas, at that time. Or was he?