Reference
- AlamoDuring the winter of 1835-1836, the people of Texas decided to sever their relations with Mexico because of dissatisfaction with the Mexican government. To prevent the success of this independence movement, General Antonio López de Santa Anna, in command of the Mexican Army, approached San Antonio with his troops. Lieutenant Colonel William Barret Travis and a force of about 150 Texans sought to defend the city. The company included the famous frontiersmen James Bowie and Davy Crockett. The quick arrival of the Mexicans surprised the Texans, who retreated to the Alamo. Over the following days, about 5,000 Mexican troops arrived in San Antonio. Travis sent out a plea for help, declaring, "I shall never surrender or retreat." A relief party from Gonzales, Texas, passed through the Mexican lines and entered the Alamo, increasing the Alamo forces to 189 men. Colonel J. W. Fannin left Goliad, Texas, with most of his 400 men to relieve the Alamo, but he had equipment trouble on the way and returned to Goliad.
The siege of the Alamo lasted 13 days. By March 5, the garrison could not return Mexican fire because ammunition was low. This convinced Santa Anna that the fort could be assaulted. Early the next morning, a Mexican force of about 1,500 soldiers stormed the Alamo and succeeded in scaling the walls. At the end, the Texans fought using their rifles as clubs. Some historians believe that a few defenders, perhaps including Crockett, survived the battle only to be executed at Santa Anna's orders. Other historians accept the more familiar story that all the Texans who fought died in the battle. At 8 a.m., the Mexican general reported his victory to his government. Survivors of the battle included Susanna Dickinson, the wife of an officer; her baby; her Mexican nurse; and Colonel Travis's black slave Joe.
"Remember the Alamo" became a battle cry. The determined defense of the Alamo gave General Sam Houston time to gather the forces he needed to save the independence movement of Texas. He retreated eastward, pursued by Santa Anna. At San Jacinto, Texas, he turned on the Mexicans, surprised them during an afternoon siesta, and on April 21, in just 18 minutes, captured or killed most of the Mexican army of over 1,200 men. Houston's army captured Santa Anna the following day and forced him to sign a treaty granting Texas its independence.
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Perspectives
With Santa Anna in Texas
The discovery of an additional week's worth of entries in the diary of José Enrique de la Peña has opened another chapter in the longstanding controversy over the authenticity of the Mexican officer's account of the Battle of the Alamo. In this expanded edition of With Santa Anna in Texas, Texas Revolution scholar James E. Crisp, who discovered the new diary entries in an untranslated manuscript version of the journal, discusses the history of the de la Peña diary controversy and presents new evidence in the matter. With the "missing week" and the perspective Crisp provides, the diary should prompt a new round of debate over what really happened at the Alamo. When it was first translated and published in English in 1975 by Carmen Perry, With Santa Anna in Texas unleashed a fury of emotion and an enduring chasm between some scholars and Texans. The journal of de la Peña, an officer on Santa Anna's staff, reported the capture and execution of Davy Crockett and several others and also stated the reason behind Santa Anna's order to make the final assault on Travis and his men. Whether or not scholars agree with de la Peña's assertions, his journal remains one of the most revealing accounts of the Texas Revolution ever to come to light.
Sleuthing the Alamo
In Sleuthing the Alamo, historian James E. Crisp draws back the curtain on years of mythmaking to reveal some surprising truths about the Texas Revolution--truths often obscured by both racism and "political correctness," as history has been hijacked by combatants in the culture wars of thepast two centuries.Beginning with a very personal prologue recalling both the pride and the prejudices that he encountered in the Texas of his youth, Crisp traces his path to the discovery of documents distorted, censored, and ignored--documents which reveal long-silenced voices from the Texan past. In each offour chapters focusing on specific documentary "finds," Crisp uncovers the clues that led to these archival discoveries. Along the way, the cast of characters expands to include: a prominent historian who tried to walk away from his first book; an unlikely teenaged "speechwriter" for General SamHouston; three eyewitnesses to the death of Davy Crockett at the Alamo; a desperate inmate of Mexico City's Inquisition Prison, whose scribbled memoir of the war in Texas is now listed in the Guiness Book of World Records; and the stealthy slasher of the most famous historical painting in Texas. Inhis afterword, Crisp explores the evidence behind the mythic "Yellow Rose of Texas" and examines some of the powerful forces at work in silencing the very voices from the past that we most need to hear today.Here then is an engaging first-person account of historical detective work, illuminating the methods of the serious historian--and the motives of those who prefer glorious myth to unflattering truth.
Forget the Alamo
A New York Times bestseller! "Lively and absorbing. . ." - The New York Times Book Review "Engrossing." -Wall Street Journal "Entertaining and well-researched . . . " -Houston Chronicle Three noted Texan writers combine forces to tell the real story of the Alamo, dispelling the myths, exploring why they had their day for so long, and explaining why the ugly fight about its meaning is now coming to a head. Every nation needs its creation myth, and since Texas was a nation before it was a state, it's no surprise that its myths bite deep. There's no piece of history more important to Texans than the Battle of the Alamo, when Davy Crockett and a band of rebels went down in a blaze of glory fighting for independence from Mexico, losing the battle but setting Texas up to win the war. However, that version of events, as Forget the Alamo definitively shows, owes more to fantasy than reality. Just as the site of the Alamo was left in ruins for decades, its story was forgotten and twisted over time, with the contributions of Tejanos--Texans of Mexican origin, who fought alongside the Anglo rebels--scrubbed from the record, and the origin of the conflict over Mexico's push to abolish slavery papered over. Forget the Alamo provocatively explains the true story of the battle against the backdrop of Texas's struggle for independence, then shows how the sausage of myth got made in the Jim Crow South of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. As uncomfortable as it may be to hear for some, celebrating the Alamo has long had an echo of celebrating whiteness. In the past forty-some years, waves of revisionists have come at this topic, and at times have made real progress toward a more nuanced and inclusive story that doesn't alienate anyone. But we are not living in one of those times; the fight over the Alamo's meaning has become more pitched than ever in the past few years, even violent, as Texas's future begins to look more and more different from its past. It's the perfect time for a wise and generous-spirited book that shines the bright light of the truth into a place that's gotten awfully dark.
Exodus from the Alamo
A startling new analysis of one of America's most glorious battles . . .Contrary to movie and legend, we now know that the defenders of the Alamo in the war for Texan independence-including Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie and William B. Travis-did not die under brilliant sunlight, defending their positions against hordes of Mexican infantry. Instead the Mexicans launched a predawn attack, surmounting the walls in darkness, forcing a wild melee inside the fort before many of its defenders had even awoken. In this book, Dr. Tucker, after deep research into recently discovered Mexican accounts and the forensic evidence, informs us that the traditional myth of the Alamo is even more off-base: most of the Alamo's defenders died in breakouts from the fort, cut down by Santa Anna's cavalry that had been pre-positioned to intercept the escapees. To be clear, a number of the Alamo's defenders hung on inside the fort, fighting back every way they could. Captain Dickinson, with cannon atop the chapel (in which his wife hid), fired repeatedly into the Mexican throng of enemy cavalry until he was finally cut down. The controversy on Crockett still remains, though the recently authenticated diary of the Mexican de la Pena offers evidence that he surrendered. The most startling aspect of this book is that most of the Texans, in two gallantly led groups, broke out of the fort after the enemy had broken in, and the primary fights took place on the plain outside. Still fighting desperately, the Texans' retreat was halted by cavalry, and afterward Mexican lancers plied their trade with bloodcurdling charges into the midst of the remaining resisters. Notoriously, Santa Anna burned the bodies of the Texans who had dared stand against him. As this book proves in thorough detail, the funeral pyres were well outside the fort-that is, where the two separate groups of escapers fell on the plain, rather than in the Alamo itself. 16 pages of illustrations
Beyond the Alamo
Introducing a new model for the transnational history of the United States, Raul Ramos places Mexican Americans at the center of the Texas creation story. He focuses on Mexican-Texan, or Tejano, society in a period of political transition beginning with the year of Mexican independence. Ramos explores the factors that helped shape the ethnic identity of the Tejano population, including cross-cultural contacts between Bexarenos, indigenous groups, and Anglo-Americans, as they negotiated the contingencies and pressures on the frontier of competing empires.
Live Free or Die
Rebellious Texas and the Alamo
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Get the full story behind the last stand at the Alamo and the story of the Texas republic. What led to tensions between the Mexican government and the growing United States? Why is the idea of rebellion so crucial to the myth of Texas? How did the territory eventually join the United States?
Websites
- Battle of the Alamo-History ChannelThe Battle of the Alamo during Texas’ war for independence from Mexico lasted thirteen days, from February 23, 1836-March 6, 1836. In December of 1835, a group of Texan volunteer soldiers had occupied the Alamo, a former Franciscan mission located near the present-day city of San Antonio...
- The Battle of the Alamo-Texas State Library and Archives Commissionrom October 1835, Texans in the field had succeeded in most of their military campaigns. The cannon at Gonzales remained, smaller military units surrendered and then retired to Mexico, and Bexar finally gave way after a two-month siege. When Martin Perfecto de Cos and his men retreated from Bexar in December 1835, Texas had eliminated the last of the Mexican garrisons.
Most of the volunteers returned to their homes, convinced the war was over. The provisional government, split by internal quarrels over the objectives of the war, failed to supply the men in the field adequately. What little remained of the munitions and supplies were further subject to confiscation by commanders proposing buccaneering expeditions to Matamoros... - Remember the Alamo-Official Website of the AlamoUncover 300 years of history at the Alamo, an awe-inspiring story that’s more intriguing than you might imagine. Established in 1718 as Mission San Antonio de Valero, the former mission now known as the Alamo has been a crossroads of history. Having existed under five flags of independent nations and served as a garrison for five different armies, the Alamo has a rich history and a heritage to inspire. Best known as the site of the 1836 Battle of the Alamo, the rest of the 300 year history is vital to understanding why the Battle happened and its importance...