Subject: Looking for Resources
Date: 11/25/98
From: Wallace McKeehan
I need advice on where I can find the Company Commanders (and more personnel
if possible) of the following centralist units at Bexar, fall 1835. Also
to which units the following were associated who were mentioned in the
Cos Capitulation: José Juan Sánchez, Adjutant-Inspector; Don Ramon
Musquiz, and Lieutenant Francisco Rada and Juan Cortina, J. Francisco de
Rada, and Francisco Herrera.
Agua Verde
Álamo de Parras
Second Alamo
Bavia: Capt. Jesus de la Garza
Béxar
Lampazos
Morelos: Capt Apolinario Morales
First Nuevo León
Second Nuevo León
Pueblo Río Grande
First Tamaulipas: Capt. Pedro Quintero
Second Tamaulipas
Wallace L. McKeehan
Guide to the microfilm edition of the BEXAR ARCHIVES, 1822-1836,
by Chester V. Kielman. A University of Texas Archives Microfilm Publication
sponsored by the National Historical Publications Commission, Austin, Texas,
1971. [I feel sure that Texas A&M University Library has the microfilm
for this. This is an 83 page publication complete with index.]
And See:
THE BEXAR ARCHIVES (1717-1836), A Name Guide, compiled
and edited by Adan Benavides, Jr., Published by the University of Texas
Press, Austin, for the University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures
at San Antonio, 1989.[This book weighs in at 1171 pages.] The indexes in
both of these are very complete and should take you to new material, assuming
that you may not have mined both of these already.
Dr. Malcolm D. McLean, Ph.D.
Subject: Crockett's Contributions
From: Christopher J. Sokol falconpa@clearnet.net
Date: 11/25/98
Has any body attempted to make an educated guess as to the number of
Mexican soldiers Davy Crockett personally killed? A history professor at
WVU said that some historians claim that the number could be as high as
forty. Any comments?
Christopher J. Sokol
Clearfield, Pa.
There is no way anyone could know how many Soldados were killed
by Crockett or anyone else in the Alamo for that matter. There are numerous
stories of Crocketts marksmanship and many of the early day "Chroniclers"
told of Crockett's body being found surrounded with 10, 20 or add your
own number here Mexican bodies, and thats what most of them are, just stories.
While legend and myth make for good reading and exciting storytelling the
reality is each man in the compound did his best and does it really matter
how many men Crockett killed.
John Bryant, Staff Writer
Alamo de Parras
Subject: De La Peña Doubts
From: Ron D'Ambrosi
When I first heard of the De La Peña diary and the extensive
information it contained, I became a firm believer in its accuracy, without
ever reading it- if historians agreed with it, I reasoned, it's accurate.
However when I bought With Santa Anna In Texas, I began to have doubts.
Travis's description of being blond haired and death of stopping and turning
around to shoot is historically inaccurate. Why have historians believed
Crockett's execution as fact if Travis's description and death are historically
inaccurate? Why haven't historians questioned the authenticity of this
document because of this description? If De La Peña's description
of Travis is inaccurate, isn't there a possibility of De La Peña's
description of Crockett's execution inaccurate?
Ron D'Ambrosi
Brooklyn, New York
My personal belief is that "With Santa Anna in Texas" by Enrique
de la Peña is authentic -- this is not the same as saying that it
does not contain historical inaccuracies. Anyone who has done much research
using first person accounts soon finds that virtually every one of them
contains errors. The errors can be caused by personal biases of the author,
memory failings, or just plain mistakes. Another thing that has to be taken
into consideration is that most personal narratives are not exclusively
tellings of what the writer has personally seen or heard. They almost always
include things they've heard from others, that the writers use to expand
upon and flesh out their own personal experiences. This does not invalidate
their authenticity or their value.
I think that de la Peña probably saw or heard of the heroic
death of the blond haired soldier, and was impressed enough to remember
and describe it in much detail. In an attempt to attach some meaning and
significance to his death, de la Peña assumed that he was not just
one of many other anonymous Texians,
but the commander of the garrison, LTC Travis himself. This type
of thing happens quite frequently. I know a veteran of the World War II
Normandy invasion who has a vivid recollection of General Patton standing
on the beach directing traffic, even though Patton was not present during
the invasion. In fact, Patton was back in England, pretending to be preparing
a landing on another part of the coast.
I tend to agree with you that de la Peña's erroneous identification
and description of the death of Travis invalidates his description of Crockett.
There is not much doubt that several defenders surrendered or were captured
alive after the battle, only to be executed upon the direct order of Santa
Anna. However, my personal opinion is that de la Peña's identification
of Crockett is not reliable because of his misidentification of Travis.
If I was on a jury and had to give a verdict based only on de la Peña's
account, I would not vote that Crockett was among those captured. Another
identification that I think is unreliable, for the same reason (he erroneously
identified Travis as being among those executed), is SGT Francisco Becerra's.
All of this is not to say that I dismiss the possibility of Crockett's surrender; my vote is not in yet. If you follow the Lindley-Crisp debates, I think you'll see other evidence presented by both sides, in addition to the de la Peña account. Let us know what you think.
Bob Durham, Contributing Editor
Alamo de Parras
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Subject: Alamo Lake?
Date: 11/26/98
From: Larry W. Ricketts ricketts@mail.hsonline.net
In looking at several drawings and the Dioramas at the Imax theateras well as the Alamo gift shop, I notice that there was a rather large
lake just north east of the chapel. This looks to be in about the same
area as where the restrooms are now currently located. However, no where
in the accounts of battle that I have read are movies that I have watched
have I seen or read any mention of this rather large body of water. It
seems to me that if there was this rather large body of water at this location
that it would have come in to play during the battle of the Alamo. Does
anyone have any comments on this?
Also, I would like to add that I throughly enjoy your web site and hope
that you keep up the good work.
Larry W. Ricketts
Edinburgh, Indiana
From Bob Durham, Contributing Editor, Alamo de Parras:
I have also been puzzled why no accounts of the Battle of the Alamo have made mention of the lake and the effect on the battle. Actually, I think there were two lakes, and the maps seem to show them directly east of the convent walls. The lakes are described as being shallow, but troops would never have been ordered to charge across them, especially during the predawn darkness when the assault took place. Gary Zaboly's drawing of the first phase of the assault takes the lakes into consideration, showing Romero's column attacking between the lakes, and against the east wall of the convent yards. This is a possibility, but it would have left the lakes at their backs, making retreat difficult if the attack failed. Look at what happened at San Jacinto (the Mexican Army had a body of water at their back there, and many were killed because they had nowhere to retreat).
I think that Romero's east assault column attacked either south
of the lakes, which meant against the east wall of the chapel, or north
of the lakes. An attack to the north would have been against the northeast
corner and north wall of the convent yard (the cattle corral, and the area
where the Alamo
privies were located), and/or against the northern portion of the
east wall north of the Long Barracks.
Since the Romero's east assault column eventually joined with Duque's
north column, I believe they probably attacked north of the lakes. Also,
an attack north of the lakes would have avoided the artillery battery mounted
on the east wall of the chapel.
From UTSA Archaeologist and Consultant to Alamo de Parras, I.
Waynne Cox:
I'm afraid I have no first hand knowledge on any significent bodies
of water to the northeast of the Alamo, but we haven't done much work in
that area, especially any with any depth. I have often wondered what they
might have been. I suspect that they may not be as close as La Bastida
might have led us to believe. He has enlarged the Alamo out of proportion
in order to show detail. (For example, look at the relationship of the
Garita to the Alamo.)
The Green Jameson map is hard to believe, but he seems to place the lake beyond the branching of the Acequia Madre, which would place it somewhere near Austin Street and Ninth Avenue under Interstate 35. Gentilz's "Fall of the Alamo" [1885] gives no indication that he had ever heard of a body of water in that direction. I have always suspected that it might have been an overflowing of the Acequia Madre, since they frequently had trouble with that area, and the acequia would certainly not have been well maintained during that period.
From Historian / Illustrator, Gary Zaboly:
The La Bastida map clearly shows what are not really lakes but two
ponds connected by a common stream or acequia, and with several other streams
flowing into them. Obviously they must sit in a depression of some depth
in order to exist, but chances are they were not deep, and one could probably
have waded across them with little problem.
The "Jameson" plan also indicates this "reservoir" of sorts-though
he stylizes it as one body of water-and suggests that the fort be supplied
from it by digging an auxiliary ditch from the main acequia that connected
to the "lake".
Chances are the ponds existed at the time of the beginning of de
Valero, but the monks might have directed their digging-or expansion-in
order to provide a sizable body of drinking water for livestock.
Part of one of these ponds can be seen in at least one post-battle sketch, a watercolor by Captain Arthur T. Lee done in 1848. This shows two youths fishing at its curved edge, while some distance beyond flows an extension of the main Alamo acequia. At the time of the siege, Mexican engineers, by blocking the ditch in the north, might have considerably lessened the depth of the ponds, and at the same time entirely cut off the water running into the ditches alongside the Alamo. Texian sallies might have been aimed at these ponds, which no doubt still held the precious water.
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Subject:Re:
De La Pena Doubts
Date: 11/28/98
From: Ed Dubravsky
Too many people judge the authenticity of the De La Peña manuscript
based on whether or not they believe his account of the death of David
Crockett. Bob Durham makes an excellent point when he states that it is
entirely possible to believe that the manuscript is authentic and that
the Crockett death story is simply something the author did not witness,
but instead something he had heard and threw in for effect.
Ed Dubravsky
So. Berwick, Maine
Subject: Re: De la Peña doubts
Date: 11/30/98
From: James E. Crisp
Dear Mr. D'Ambrosi:
Almost five years of work with the de la Peña manuscripts have
left me with no doubts as to their authenticity. That is, they are what
they say they are: a clean copy, made in Matamoros in July of 1836, of
the diary kept during the Texas campaign by de la Peña; and an almost
complete memoir (based on the diary, on de la Peña's recollections,
and on the reports of several other officers and soldiers with whom de
la Peña consulted as he worked on his memoir between 1836 and 1840).
The recent authentication of the age and availability of the paper used
in the manuscript by the auction house of Butterfield and Butterfield has
confirmed my own finding of paper bearing the same watermark, by the same
manufacturer, being used by the Mexican army in Matamoros for printed broadsides
in 1838, about the same time that de la Peña would have been securing
the paper for his handwritten memoir.
Obviously, none of this speaks to de la Peña's total accuracy,
as opposed to the authenticity of the manuscripts. In fact, total accuracy
in a war memoir of this kind would be highly unusual, to say the least.
Although many people who have evaluated de la Peña's descriptions
of both places and events have found him to be a competant and useful observer,
whose descriptions, for instance, of the Mexican retreat have been confirmed
by archeological evidence, let me speak directly to your question about
the death of Davy Crockett.
For a number of reasons, if all we knew of Crockett's death had come
from de la Peña, historians would be hard pressed to make a persuasive
argument for Crockett's execution. After all, de la Peña's description
of the executions at the Alamo are found only in his rewritten memoir,
and not in the much shorter "diary" itself. Moreover, de la Peña
gives us no indication of who told him that Crockett was among the executed
prisoners, or even how he knew what Crockett had told his captives. (There
is no indication that de la Peña understood English.)
De la Peña says that he witnessed the executions, and there is
no sufficient reason to disbelieve him, but as the misidentification of
Travis indicates, an eyewitness is not the same as an expert witness in
a case like this one.
That is why the corroborating evidence is so important in the Crockett
case. If the argument for Crockett's execution rested on de la Peña
alone, it would be a very weak one. However, as I have noted in the pages
of The Alamo Journal, a strong case for Crockett's execution can be made,
independent of the de la Peña diary.
The critical pieces of evidence are: 1) the newspaper report of Crockett's
execution first published in the New York Courier and Enquirer in the summer
of 1836, and reprinted in a number of papers subsequently; 2) the memoir
of Ramon Martínez Caro, Santa Anna's personal secretary during the Texas
campaign, published in Mexico City in 1837; and the "Dolson letter," written
from the prisoner of war camp on Galveston Island by Texan Sergeant George
M. Dolson to his brother in Michigan, and published in Sept., 1836, in
a Detroit newspaper.
The New York newspaper account is a letter by an anonymous reporter,
quoting an anonymous informant (also from the prisoner of war camp on Galveston
Island), who gives the details of Crockett's execution. (Details that are
very similar to the ones recounted by de la Peña.) The Dolson letter,
written a few weeks later, gives both these and a few more details, and
identifies Col. Juan Almonte as the Mexican officer who recognized Crockett
and told the anonymous Mexican officer (for whom Dolson was translating
in a debriefing session) that one of the prisoners was Crockett.
It is, for me, very significant that many of the details of these two
stories of Crockett's execution (which likely came from the same prisoner
in the Galveston camp), were confirmed by the memoir of Martínez Caro,
who was NOT kept at this camp at any time.
In other words, when back in Mexico and free of any need to please the
Texans, and free of any reason to repeat stories which would contradict
the eyewitness recollections of other Mexican soldiers who were at the
Alamo, Martínez Caro described the same scene (although he mentioned the
names of no prisoners) as did the Galveston prisoner(s). Almost all historians÷including
Bill Groneman and Tom Lindley÷accept Caro's account as that of a legitimate
eyewitness--and yet the details of his description largely match those
given a full year earlier by the two letters from Texas which identified
Crockett as one of the captives.
In other words, these two letters were not just idle rumors. They were
given by someone who had seen the same event as Caro, and who, in the case
of Dolson's informant, also had the advantage of Juan Almonte's identification
of Crockett.
Even in this long answer, I have omitted a host of details, especially
concerning the Dolson letter, that have been argued over at great length
by me, Groneman, Lindley, and others. This web page is in the process of
republishing the six "back-and-forth" articles done by Tom Lindley and
me over this very subject in 1995 and 1996 for The Alamo Journal. I stand
by every point that I made in those essays.
One new wrinkle in the story is William C. Davis's argument in The Journal
of the Alamo Battlefield Association (Fall, 1997) that Caro was just repeating
a story that he read that had been copied from an American newspaper. The
problems with this argument is that it lacks both evidence and logic. Davis
simply assumes that Caro could have read the Galveston accounts, and that
he then would have repeated this story in his memoir, even though he was
himself an eyewitness to Santa Anna's entry into the Alamo.
I prefer using the actual evidence we have. These documents show that
Santa Anna, without knowing the identity of the prisoners brought before
him, ordered their immediate execution, and that that order was carried
out on the spot. There are NO credible eyewitnesses to Crockett's death
in combat; there are three (or four) eyewitnesses to the executions at
the Alamo, and two (or three, depending on whether you count the letters
from Galveston as coming from one person or two) of these identify Crockett
as one of the captives who were executed.
There are all kinds of "coulda, woulda, shoulda" arguments that people
can make about Davy and how he died. I prefer to evaluate, as dispassionately
as possible, the evidence that we have, and to draw a logical and probable
conclusion. I believe that the evidence supports the argument that Crockett
was among the executed prisoners.
James E. Crisp, Department of History
North Carolina State University
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Subject: Re: Re: De la Peña
doubts
Date: 12/10/98
From: Jake Ivey jake_ivey@nps.gov
Dr. Crisp:
Sorry, but I think you're on the wrong track. You're fighting over tactics
when the problem is strategic: There can be no anti-surrender and pro-surrender
argument about Davy Crockett, because there is no anti-surrender. There
is no evidence for Crockett's fighting to the death. None. Zip. To argue
over whether his execution occurred before 6 a.m. or after and whether
this proves that the stories about his surrender are wrong is silly, because
those stories are the only stories. Nobody who was present at the Alamo
during its last
moments and lived to write about it has told any story of Davy going
down swinging; only one or another version of how he surrendered and was
executed. The anti-surrender position is based on nothing but wishful thinking.
Jake Ivey
Santa Fe, NM
Hmm. No evidence of Crockett fighting to death. None. zip. Hmm.What
about all those dead Alamo defenders. How did they end up in that
terminal state? A mass surrender?
William R.Chemerka, Editor
Alamo Journal
Subject: Re: De la Peña doubts
Date: 12/16/98
From: Jake Ivey jake_ivey@nps.gov
Actually, though, you have a point. It's reasonable to suppose
that, since the majority of the defenders died fighting, this would be
the automatic assumption for Crockett, if it could be shown that he
didn't do the surrender/execution thing. Although such an assumption
isn't certain (he could have gone over the wall with the others of
the handful of surviving escapees, for example), it's reasonable.
However, we have here a case where everyone who claimed to recognize
Crockett told the same general story about what happened, and nobody
who claimed to recognize him told a story of his fighting to the
death. The pro-surrender scenario has documentary support, in the
usual jumbled-impression, multiple-viewpoint form, while the anti-surrender
scenario has no documents to support it. Since we're at this point,
I'd like to bring up a further consideration. If Crockett was an
officer, he had a responsibility to the men under his command; in
essence, he surrendered them, in order to save their lives, as a
commander in a hopeless situation should do -- he wasn't simply surrendering
himself to save his, and they happened to be there.
Jake.
Subject: Other lost documents?
Date: 11/28/98
From: Roger Borroel
If Mr. de la Peña wrote such a complete account of the Texan
war; shouldn't there be others not uncovered yet, laying in the Mexican
Archives in Mexico City? Shift your research to the intelligent officers
of the Zapadores battalions, or any other officer of the other battalions.
In those days diaries were common, esp. to a soldier. If de la Peña
wrote in his military records about himself, it stands to reason that other
Mexican officers did so too. The accounts of the Alamo Battle, and other
battle actions are waiting quietly to be discovered by some unique man.
Roger Borroel
