Postby OleMissCub » Wed Mar 16, 2016 4:05 pm
Just finished a book called "Exodus from the Alamo". It basically attempts to break down the "last stand" mythology that cropped up almost immediately after the battle. Basically, Western Civilization's love affair with a romantic last stand goes back to Thermopyale and how white people can only comprehend a staggering and total defeat against a supposed racially inferior force through that lens i.e. a noble self-sacrifice while you die at your post, wherein the truth is that these battles were actually chaotic messes with some groups of individuals standing their ground, some groups clumsily mounting a retreating defense, and the majority trying to flee as best they can. The mythology around Little Big Horn is another example of this.
Basically, the only adult Anglo survivor of the Alamo was Susanna Dickinson, whose husband was in charge of artillery. Her account isn't much use at all because she spent the final battle hunkered with her infant daughter inside the basement of the church. The only other account from an adult who survived was Col. Travis' slave Joe, but he's only helpful for the very beginning of the final battle since Travis was one of the first defenders killed. He was immediately shot through the head as soon as he scaled a wall, only getting one shot off before being killed. Travis had told Joe that if they were overrun that he needed to go hide inside his room and to know the phrase "I'm a slave, don't shoot" in Spanish, which almost certainly saved his life given the chaos. So the point is that because there was no first person account of the details of the final battle, Americans just assumed that if the defenders were all wiped out by a bunch of Mexicans, then by god you know they died at their posts to a man taking hordes of Mexicans with them.
So the only accounts of the actual battle comes from the Mexicans; their diaries, memoirs, and officers reports. They are universally in agreement about how it actually went down. Their artillery had kept up a nighttime barrage for the previous week, hoping to deprive the defenders of sleep. On the night before the attack, there was no barrage, so the defenders basically were all asleep. The Mexicans somehow managed to sneak up and get right up next to the walls in the pre-dawn darkness before launching their attack. Roused from their sleep, in the pitch dark, very few defenders even had the chance to get up on the walls and defend them and only 2 or 3 of their 18 cannons were even able to get a shot off. With the Mexicans already over the walls within minutes, the vast majority of defenders, estimates say roughly 100-120 of the total 183 defenders, exited the Alamo and tried to flee through a gap in the Mexican ranks toward the southeast. Santa Anna was no idiot and because his main assaults were coming from the north and west, he had arranged that his cavalry hang back a bit in the southeast, knowing that the Texians would be squeezed out that way. The Mexican sources are almost universally in agreement that this cavalry contingent swooped in and killed the majority of the Texians outside the walls. The entire battle lasted somewhere around 20 minutes.
The Mexicans sources are also in agreement that five or six Texians, Davy Crockett among them, were captured and executed at Santa Anna's orders, though one Mexican general did plead with Santa Anna to spare Crockett, knowing of his importance.
Anyways, it was a pretty interesting read.
I also came across an article recently that said San Antonio was funding a major overhaul of the Alamo site, costing like 65 million, hoping to buy up and bulldoze some of the local eyesore gift shops and restaurants in hopes of partially building a facsimile Alamo. If any of you have ever been there, it's one of the more underwhelming historical sites in the country. It's basically just the front of the actual church itself and that's it. So it'd be pretty cool if they actually spruced it up a bit.
2 x
