In answer to Wallace L. Mckeehan's reply to Robert Durham's question about the loyalties of the Irish colonists at San Patricio, there is evidence to suggest that some of the San Patricio Irish might have taken the Mexican side during the revolt.

Captain Ira Westover, the leader of the expedition sent from La Bahía to destroy the tiny garrison at Lipantítlan, mentions five Irishmen and an Englishman from San Patricio in his report, who were in the garrison "some by choice and others from compulsion".

The Irish colonists, including Empressario McGloin, were very disturbed by the death of the commander at Lipantítlan Lieutenant Garcia, who after the battle at  was taken to McGloin's home and where he died a lingering death from wounds suffered in the fight. Garcia had been a well liked member of the community, and a friend of the McGloin family.

This might not be considered evidence of disloyalty to the Texian cause, but it does suggest that the Irish of the San Patricio colony were possibly neutral in this early stage of the revolt.

David Vickers
Sinton, Tx

Subject: Alamo's Significance
Date: 05/10/99
From: Robert E. Carrier

Another significance to the Alamo experience is that it was not a struggle between races or cultures as much as it was a struggle primaily based on economics and the popular political idealogies of the period. Many American Colonists adopted the Spanish culture as did Jim Bowie. It is an easy and fun culture to adopt. Much like the H.M.S. Bounty's crew who were easily assimilated into to the Tahitian way of life.

It was a struggle about control of assets, namely land. It was a struggle between a single tyrant would had an army like Molosovic and people who beleved in natural and God-given rights... that no man should have the authority to take them.

The Texans were armed enough to resist any act of ethnic cleansing by Santa Ana. Crockett joined in the war for a new political opportunity. Others came to Texas to start a new life in a land of new opportunity.

Everyone involved in the conflict had a motivation or an agenda. What makes one individual's motivation more righteous than the next? Perhaps all sides were right in ther own minds for their own reasons.

The Norte-Americanos who settled in Texas worked hard, fought the Indians and felt they should enjoy the fruits of their labors, without the interference of government.

The Alamo is significant because it divides people's character's, their sense of honor, duty and devotion to principal.

Robert E. Carrier
San Antonio de Bejar

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Subject: Military Training Part 2
Date: 05/16/99
From: Simon Haines

Now as it appears that some members of the garrison were U.S. volunteers. Is it likely that some where there as advisors? Rather than directly supporting the Texicans [sic], did any of the states send men as advisors either with or without the U.S. governmentâs support?.

Simon Haines
Manchester, England

Subject: General Antonio Gaona
Date: 05/20/99
From: Katherine Gaona

I was just wondering if Antonio Gaona had any kids?  I so, what were their names and if he had a wife?

Katherine Gaona
California

GAONA, ANTONIO (?-?). Antonio Gaona was a general in the Mexican army at the time of the Texas Revolution. He reached the Alamo shortly after the siege had been completed and on March 24, 1836, was ordered by Antonio López de Santa Anna to march with 725 men to Nacogdoches by way of Bastrop and the Old San Antonio Road. On April 15 the orders were hanged, and Gaona was directed to proceed from Bastrop to San Felipe to join Santa Anna's forces.

He got lost between Bastrop and San Felipe, so his forces did not participate in the battle of San Jacinto. Gaona returned to Bexar and then to Mexico, where he was appointed commander of the fortress of San Juan de Ulloa, which he surrendered to the French fleet on November 28, 1838, during the so-called Pastry War.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of the North Mexican States and Texas (2 vols., San Francisco: History Company, 1886, 1889). John Henry Brown, History of Texas from 1685 to 1892 (2 vols., St. Louis: Daniell, 1893).

There are two Alamos: the [Alamo of the] historical event and the Alamo of popular culture. The significance of the historical event is often overshadowed by the popular culture event; inasmuch as the social, political and emotion concerns of each passing generation have often outweighed the historical documentation.

The historical Alamo is a dramatic example of time and place. In a short span of time, several key personalities came together thanks to a series of events to interact in what we remember as the Alamo siege and baffle. It is also a fine example of human courage (on both sides) when it comes down to individual participants. The dramatic forces of a small band of colonists, some native Texans, and American volunteers fighting for what they consider their "higher rights" against an nationalized Army attempting to quell a revolt and protect their nation, with a largely neutral local population caught in the middle is compelling enough. But then add the strong personalities of William Travis and Santa Anna as opposing commanders and the siege of the Alamo takes on its own importance.

It is remarkable that a Mexican civil war turned into a war of independence taking place on the frontier borderlands, lasting less than six months, with less than 9,000 military participants, has become such a pivotal event in the 19th century development of the United States and Mexico. Even more remarkable that it out weighs in the public imagination, the larger more important conflict between the United States and Mexico in 1846-1848. What also stands out that one battle stand out larger than the rest and actually dominates the period.

Was it because, as Frank Laumier in his excellent book, "Massacre" suggests because the Alamo was essentially the archetype American citizen-soldier conflict against a professional army? Or is it because the Alamo became part of the creation myth story of Texas, especially after the Southern defeat in 1865. While many Southern States fell back on their heroes of the Revolutionary War, Texas fell back on its own revolutionary experience. The Alamo became much like Masada did to the emerging Zion nationalists in the early part of the 20th Century, Blood River to the Boers of South Africa and Wilson's Last Stand to the Cecil Rhodes' Rhodesia.

That is when the Alamo of historical documentation moved into the Alamo of popular culture. When the story did become one of "right and wrong" and "good and evil." Having worked with Alamo visitors for many years, I found that many Alamo visitors do not come to the Alamo so much to learn about the historical details, but to have their own morals reinforced. The Alamo to some visitors can be either the finest example of American courage or an outstanding example of American imperialism in the 19th century. Texans of course have their own unique view.

In many ways, the significance of the Alamo is not what happened their historically but how the passing and future generations tend to remember it.

Kevin R. Young

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