With New Numbers
By David McLemore
© 1996, Ft. Worth Star Telegram
SAN ANTONIO -- To some historians, it's simply a quest for truth. To others, it's the academic version of counting angels dancing on the head of a pin.
Getting an accurate count of just who died at the Alamo on March 6, 1836, is this year's hot debate over what is truth and what is myth about that battle. Even the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, guardians of the Alamo shrine, welcome efforts to correct the record.
Current research may increase the accepted number of Alamo defenders -- 189 -- by 68, adding a few names while subtracting others in the process.
Historians and modern Alamo defenders agree that the new math won't dilute the power of the Alamo story of honor, duty and sacrifice that grew up around the old mission's walls almost as soon as the gunsmoke cleared 160 years ago.
Once fully documented, however, it will sink the claims of some who have long cherished a belief that great-great-granddaddy died at the Shrine of Texas Liberty.
For much of this century, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas maintained a roster of "Heroes of the Battle of the Alamo" that contained 183 names, mainly white Americans who flocked to the Texan cause.
In the early 1930s, University of Texas historian Amelia Williams created a definitive list of defenders as part of her doctoral thesis. Her subsequent article, "Critical Study of the Siege of the Alamo and of the Personnel of its Defenders," in the 1933-1934 "Southwestern Historical Quarterly," set the standard for identifying Alamo heroes.
Research over the years has added a smattering of Spanish-surnamed defenders, increasing the Daughters of the Republic of Texas list to 189.
Now, the newly revised "Handbook of Texas," to be published this spring by the Texas State Historical Association, cites current research suggesting that the actual number of defenders may reach at least 257.
"The Alamo problem, as in all of history, is that we think what happened in the past is static," said Stephen L. Hardin, a historian at Victoria College, who wrote about the Alamo battle in the revised handbook. "When evidence to the contrary pops up, it shakes up things and we deny the new because it challenges long-held beliefs."
The difference between the official version of Alamo heroes and what later was eked out from historical record is substantial, said Hardin.
"We keep coming up with a number of bodies at 250 to 257 from what appears to be reliable accounts by Mexican soldiers from the time of the battle," he said.
The only written records from the Alamo defenders were the messages that Commander William Barrett Travis sent out before the cataclysmic end of the siege. Later testimony from the 15 to 25 surviving women and children and from members of the Mexican army was so contradictory or fogged by time that facts of the Alamo became hopelessly ensnared in clouds of myth.
Joining Hardin in shaking the foundations of Alamo history is Tom Lindley of Austin, a former military criminal investigator turned amateur historian.
Digging through the state archives, he found a Spanish translation of a letter from Texas Revolutionary Maj. R.M. "Three-Legged Willy" Williamson, taken from Travis' body and sent to Mexico. The dispatch said that re-enforcements for the Alamo were on their way.
Lindley said he has also found evidence that Texian settlers from the Austin region had tried to reach the Alamo, but were turned away by Mexican soldiers on the outskirts of the old mission.
"Almost all things written about the Alamo have been from the inside looking out," Lindley said. "But my research shows what was going on outside, that people were trying to reinforce the Alamo garrison. They just didn't have time."
There is no immediate threat of a mass rewrite of Texas history books. Both Lindsey and Hardin acknowledge their research is speculative and far from definitive, given the incompleteness of historical documents.
However, it has the ring of truth, Hardin said.
"Likely, when Travis says he has 150 troops in one of his last letters from the Alamo, he's referring to effectives, those present, counted for and able-bodied," Hardin said. "Yet accounts by one of the survivors speak of a number of ill and those suffering injuries among the defenders. That would increase the numbers."
Lindley found one fellow on the Alamo dead list -- first published only weeks after the battle -- who also was listed on Col. James W. Fannin's list of soldiers at Goliad, 70 miles away, Hardin said. "The only way he could have gotten on the Alamo list is if he went there."
Lindley's research tentatively adds 10 new defenders to the Alamo roster: I.L.K. Harrison, Conrad Eigenauer, A. Anderson, James Holloway, T.P. Hutchinson, John Morman, William Spratt, George Washington, William George and Jacob Roth.
In addition, he lists 11 "possibles:" John Kelly, Francis H. Gray, William Harrel, J.H. Sanders, Alexander E. Patton, James R. Munson, Moses Buttler, Phillip Roaches, B.F. Shaw, Charles C. Haskiel and H.H. Kirk.
Lindley would have six names crossed off the traditional list. Johnny Kellogg, for one, died at Harrisburg months after the Alamo battle. Jose Maria Guerrero fought at the Siege of Bexar in 1835 and lived to an old age.
Isaac Robinson was killed by Indians in Bastrop County in 1838, while Jerry Day lived long past March 6, 1836, according to Lindley. Reports of Alamo martyrdom for Jesse Bowman and Jesse Thompson were simply in error, he said.
"We'll never probably know everyone who fought at the Alamo," Lindley said. "The record is too incomplete."
Additions and subtractions to the list of Alamo heroes is welcome, said Lee Spencer, president of the 18-month-old Alamo Defenders Descendants Association, with about 150 members.
"We're pretty excited about this, and we are working closely with the historians to see what new names can be added to the Alamo list," Mrs. Spencer said. "Our own research doesn't lead us to anticipate any significant number of deletions. It may be painful to some to have their ancestors subtracted, but the truth has to come first."
The blame for apparent misidentification of the Alamo dead falls pretty much on the shoulders of Dr. Williams, according to both Hardin and Lindley.
Her research -- long gospel to historians and the Daughters of the Republic of Texas -- was largely botched, Hardin said.
"We now know much of her research is flawed at the core," Hardin said.
Dr. Williams listed people not at the Alamo among the dead while ignoring those who were there, Lindley said. She altered dates, changed the wording of documents and ignored or manipulated the evidence, he said.
"Why she, a professional historian, would do that, I really can't say," Lindley said.
Doug Bennett, managing editor of the "Handbook of Texas," said details uncovered by historians, such as Hardin and Lindley, once fully documented, will add immeasurably to the mosaic of Texas history.
"We should remember that Dr. Williams also added to that story," he said. "Though some historians feel there were errors in her work, no one can really deny that her work was groundbreaking in opening up Alamo research and adding to our lore of Alamo history."
The Daughters of the Republic of Texas has invited Hardin and Lindley to speak about their research to forums run by the group, said Virginia Nicholas, chairman of the group's Alamo Committee.
"The more research done that gets us to the truth benefits everyone," she said. "If they can prove there are more defenders, we'll be excited to add them. Or take out those who shouldn't be there."
The Daughters of the Republic of Texas is changing the Alamo brochure to indicate that more defenders may have been inside the walls when the shrine fell, Mrs. Nicholas said.
"Nothing that they've come up with affects in any way the lessons learned from the Alamo," she said. "They were fighting for liberty and for Texas and were willing to give up their lives for it. That doesn't change no matter how many people fought there."
The historians don't argue.
"We're not here to take down the myth," Hardin said. "But if we are to run the place as a shrine, it behooves us to identify the dead and to know who they were. If they didn't die at the Alamo, we need to know that, too.
"The myth doesn't overshadow the humanity of those people who, in 1836, assembled in the Alamo and did something rather remarkable that cost them their lives," he said. "They didn't go there to die. But they did die there. They gave up their lives. We don't really need to embellish on that."
Related Documents:
"Casualties of the Alamo Siege"
The Forgotten Sacrifices of Tejanos
Historian Points Out Alamo Heroes' Flaws
José Francisco Ruiz's account of the Fall of the Alamo
The Story of Enrique Esparza - 11/22/1902
Battle of the Alamo from Survivor's Lips
Group Targets Remains of Alamo Heroes
Group wants to determine if bones belong to Alamo martyrs"
Mythologizing The Alamo
Alamo Myths
