Subject:The Alamo Flag?
Date: 06/07/2000
From: Jack O'Connor

This is the best site on The Battle of the Alamo I have ever seen. Congratulations!

My question is about the flag or flags that flew during the battle. The more research I do, the more confused I get. How many flags did the defenders have and does anyone know what they were? Thank You in advance for your help.

Jack O'Connor
Boston

There were two documented flags during the Alamo siege of 1836. The first is the organizational color of the New Orleans Grays. This was not a garrison emblem and only represented one or both of the two companies. Think of it as a regimental color of sorts. Eyewitness testimony details a second flag. A Mexican tricolor bearing two gold stars in the white, center, portion, presumably representing Texas and Coahuila as separate states. It is unknown if these stars were sewn or painted over a Mexican National Coat of Arms. This flag is shown flying over the church building in a sketch by Navarro, a Mexican officer. There is no evidence of the "1824" or the fanciful American derivative flag having flown over the Alamo.

Alan C. Huffines

See Also:

• Which flag flew over the Alamo?
• The Flags of the Texas Revolution
• Mexican Battle Flags
  

While working on the recent article concerning the Alamo statues, I noticed that the early drawings that showed four statues, also showed a flag flying over the church. The design of the flag resembled the second flag Alan described, three vertical bars, white in the middle, two stars. This practice seems to have stopped about 1841. I wonder who was flying this flag, and why it stopped.

Jake Ivey

Take a look at Almonte's Journal. He notes the twin star flag being raised over the town and then taken down as the Texians removed into the Alamo. Of course, if Almonte is also a fake...

Kevin R. Young

Subject: Situation in Mexico During Texas Revolution
Date: 06/07/2000
From: Robert L. Durham

Looking through some of the Ohio newspapers of the period of the Texas Revolution, I found the following in the Saturday morning, January 2, 1836 edition of the Western Courier and Piqua Enquirer:

FROM MEXICO. -- By private advices, says the New Orleans Bee, of the 19th ult. we learn that Mr. Daniel Pope, the American consul at Mexico, has lately had his house violated by the government troops under command of Martínez, under the pretence [sic] of searching for the collector of customs; although Mr. Pope, strenuously deprecated and opposed this arbitrary act. He has been obliged to return to his country. The Mexicans seems [sic] resolved to have a rupture with the government or the peo [sic -- people?] of the U.S.

We learn also that the ships sailing from Vera Cruz to Tampico are not permitted to carry letters or journals -- which is very prejudicial to the merchants. This order is now rendered general. Editors are forbidden to treat on current circumstances and all intercourse is prohibited as far as possible, to give information of the real state of things in the Mexican struggles. The state of Tamaulipas is under the ban of centralism; and intercourse strictly prohibited with it -- so that it is in a state of blockade. The Americans resident throughout Mexico are subjected to daily vexations and dangers; and many of them have been shamefully assassinated by the agents of Santa Anna, who has his fiendlike myrimidons in all quarters.

The Mexican journal [sic] intimate directly that several of the inferior [sic -- interior?] chief towns have boldly against centralism, and resolved to support Federalism. Pueblo and Moralia have joined the Federal standard.

This same issue of the paper contains a pretty accurate account of the Battle of Concepción, so I assume its talking about basically that same time period in Mexico. Has anyone done any studies on the foreign relations between Mexico and the U.S. during the Texas Revolution, or can I be pointed toward any books that might address this issue?

Thanks,
Bob Durham
Dayton, OH

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Subject:Re: Mexico during the Revolution
Date: 06/08/2000
From: Tom Kailbourn

For US-Mexican diplomacy in the early-to-mid-nineteenth century, the old standby is George Lockhart Rives, The United States and Mexico, 1821-1848, 2 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1913). Though not exactly a history of US-Mexican foreign relations, a good place to start is Gene M. Brack, Mexico Views Manifest Destiny: 1821-1846, An Essay on the Origins of the Mexican War (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1975). Brack's focus is on how Mexican newspapers shaped public opinion as concerned its northern neighbor.

Tom Kailbourn
Wellsville, NY

Subject: Alamo Tunnel
Date: 06/11/2000
From: María G. Tenerias

I read some years ago that the Alamo had a tunnel that went to every mission here. My husband says no that it was impossible and I know I read about that some years ago but I cannot [find] any books [that] say anything about that. I bought some books at San José mission but [they] have nothing about the tunnel.

María G. Tenerias
San Antonio, Texas

I have been chasing tunnels at the missions for the past 20 years and have yet to find any proof of their existence. Yes, I know "a friend of your grandmother's great aunt" once went from the Alamo to Concepción through the tunnel, but I can't find it.

I did find a tunnel once while monitoring for Tri-Party "improvements" in Alamo Plaza. The construction crew called me at home to inform me that they had found a tunnel in an excavation at the Federal Building on the corner of Alamo and Houston. I went down, looked, and informed them that it was merely a solution cavity in the caliche subbase. The next day they informed me that I had better look at my "solution cavity" again, since it had shoring in it. I returned and it did in fact have cedar poles shoring a dig structure headed from the southwest corner of the Post Office toward the east side of the cenotaph. A worker crawled inside (of course not me) and said that it went about 100 feet toward the Alamo and then had collapsed. The opening was about 15' below the present street level. I was a bit perplexed, but could see why they would dig a tunnel inside the compound. I had them excavate about 18" deeper and exposed a 12" cast iron sewer pipe. It appears when they installed the "new" sewer system next to the old federal building circa 1890; they trenched along the plaza until they encountered Houston Street. There, they found an 18" thick layer of concrete that supported the trolley lines that departed from the north side of the plaza. So, rather than break through that, they tunneled under, not 100' but the 60' street width.

That seemed to answer the tunnel question, but the next day a well-known photographer in town called me up to talk about the other tunnel: the one that started in the "flag room" inside the chapel. Supposedly, you could ride your horse all the way, except for two places where you had to dismount and walk the horse. You emerged under the gazebo in San Pedro Park — the Old Bear Grotto that is one of the dry spring outlets. He also informed me that the mossy grotto to the south of the main spring — another spring outlet — led to San Fernando Cathedral. No amount of reasoning that such a tunnel would have carried them well under the river and into solid blue shale would change his mind.

I also spent an enjoyable day at the Alamo with a Dr. Hertzburg from Colorado walking the streets from where the Hampton Inn now stands in relation to the Menger Hotel tracing the route of the tunnel that he remembered.

All of these people are sincere and are convinced that their tunnel stories are true, but I don't have any proof yet. It is my opinion that these stories arose from instances when a stone lined acequia was exposed and observers mistook it for the bottom half of a stone lined tunnel. These stories were combined with tales carried from Mexico of escape tunnels that one hears were at every major public building.

Next time you find a tunnel, please call me, I love being proved wrong.

Wayne "Curmudgeon" Cox,
the tunnel debunker and archaeological consultant to ADP.

Learn More About It!
One source for the spread of the tunnel myth was early newspapers. Notice in the following examples that there is never any solid evidence provided but merely the recitation of oral legends and rumor.