How Did Davy Die?

Three days ago marked the 184th anniversary of the fall of the Alamo in San Antonio.  This is a reworking of a post from several years ago . . .

James Bowie, William Travis and David Crockett ascended into legend with their deaths at the Alamo on March 6, 1836. We have a pretty good idea how the first two perished. Bowie, immobilized and delirious, likely with typhoid fever, was killed in his bed while Travis was shot in the head early in the fight while directing fire from a cannon on the north wall. But what about Crockett, who in 1836 was the only nationally known figure at the Alamo?
(David Crockett; Wikipedia)
David Crockett (he called himself David, not Davy) rode into San Antonio on February 8 as a former three term U.S. Congressman from Tennessee, who after being defeated in the last election declared “You can all go to Hell, I’m going to Texas” and set out to establish a new life. On his ride he was joined by about 30 friends and adventurers. Arriving after the revolution began, and finding land grants available for those joining the rebel forces, he and his compatriots quickly signed up.

Crockett though, was more than just a former Congressman. He was the first popular folk character from America’s west, and its most nationally known figure, other than Andrew Jackson.  David Crockett, born poor, a frontiersman, hunter and scout went into politics, initially as an ally of Jackson, and later as his fierce opponent over the distribution of federal lands and removal of the “civilized” Indian tribes from the southeast, a policy Crockett opposed, being the only Congressman in the southeast to vote against the funding measure (an opposition shown in the Disney series), and about which he wrote, “I believe it was a wicked, unjust measure“.

The character Davy Crockett, arriving in Washington in 1827, quickly became known for his entertaining storytelling and anecdotes and was converted into a figure of popular entertainment around whom myths and legends grew. Many plays were staged with Davy or a thinly disguised version of him as the centerpiece, the most popular of which, Lion Of The West, premiered in New York City. From 1835 through 1841 Davy Crockett’s Almanack was published and in 1834 Crockett added to his renown with the publication of A Narrative Of The Life Of David Crockett, Written By Himself which became a best seller and sparked a nationwide speaking tour (Crockett was particularly popular in New England).(From NY Historical Society)

Of Crockett’s actions during the siege, which began on February 23, we have little information; on the 25th Travis noted in a message to Sam Houston “The Hon. David Crockett was seen at all points, animating the men to do their duty“, and Susannah Dickinson remembered Crockett playing his fiddle to entertain the garrison. Did Crockett, by rank only a private, play a significant role in planning the defense and leading the men during the siege? It is impossible to know but the very limited evidence is suggestive since after the first two days Bowie was incapacitated with fever and Crockett a famous and popular figure two decades older than Travis.

Our best information, from early in the siege, is Crockett and his men were stationed behind a hastily erected wooden palisade fence that ran at an angle from the southwest corner of the Alamo mission church to the start of the south wall, making it a particularly vulnerable spot if attacked. In the darkness of early morning on March 6 the Mexican assault breached the north and south walls first and then swept across the open plaza as some of the surviving Texians retreated into the Long Barracks. The last rebels left out in the open would likely have been Crockett and his men near the church. Did they die fighting by the palisade? Did some try to seek refuge in the church? Had they moved their post by then? Or were Crockett and some of his men among the up to 60 Texians who may have tried to escape by going over the walls near the palisade only to be cut down on the open prairie by the mounted Mexican lancers waiting for them?

(The palisade at which Crockett and his men were stationed started at the right side – from the viewer perspective – of the Alamo mission church)

What are our sources for the end of the Alamo? There are several Mexican ones, of which more below. We also have accounts of various riders sent out with messages from the Alamo before March 3 and the stories of the few civilian survivors spared by Santa Ana, the most prominent of which were Joe, William Travis’ slave, and Susannah Dickinson, wife of one of the defenders. Joe was with Travis until he was killed then going into the church, joining Dickinson. Both Joe and Dickinson reported seeing Crockett’s body near the church, surrounded by dead Mexican soldiers, as they were being escorted out after the fighting ended. It remains unclear how long after the fighting ended this occurred, but their observations are consistent both with Crockett dying in combat or being executed at the end of the battle.

After that it gets murkier. The best account I’ve found is Sleuthing The Alamo by James E Crisp, a professor of history at North Carolina State University (and Texas native). Sleuthing The Alamo is an outstanding way to learn about how historians do their job. Crisp takes the controversy around Crockett’s death along with an alleged racist speech (which turned out not to be) by Sam Houston and brings you along for the ride as he traces the origins of various stories and documents, going back to the primary sources to get as near to the truth as possible. It’s a short, very illuminating book, written in an engaging personal and non-academic style.

After the fall of the Alamo various stories were quickly in circulation about the fate of Crockett, with some newspapers reporting he went down fighting, others claiming Davy was captured and executed, and a couple even reporting his escape!

There were two other events giving these reports some context.

• On March 27 the Mexican army massacred about 350 Texians at the coastal town of Goliad. These soldiers had surrendered a few days earlier under a promise of clemency. The local Mexican commander, General Urrea, protested vigorously against the execution order from Santa Anna, who sent an officer from San Antonio to oversee the killing.

• At San Jacinto on April 21, 1836 Sam Houston defeated a detachment of the Mexican army capturing several hundred men, including Santa Anna and other senior commanders, most of whom were imprisoned on Galveston Island until their return to Mexico.

As early as March 11 news reached the Texian army in Gonzales about the end at the Alamo. On that same day Sam Houston wrote a letter stating “After the fort was carried, seven men surrendered and called for Santa Anna and quarter. They were murdered by his order.“

The June 9, 1836 edition of the New York Courier and Enquirer carried a letter from a correspondent in Galveston Bay who purported to convey an account from an eye witness:

After the Mexicans had got possession of the Alamo, the fighting had ceased, and it was clear day light, six Americans were discovered near the wall yet unconquered, and who were instantly surrounded and ordered by General Castrillon [a senior Mexican commander] to surrender, and who did so under a promise of his protection, finding resistance any longer in vain – indeed, perfect madness – Castrillon was brave and not cruel, and disposed to save them. He marched them up to that part of the fort where stood “his Excellency” [Santa Anna] . . . David Crockett was one of the six. The steady fearless step and undaunted tread, together with the bold demeanor of this hardy veteran -“his firmness and noble bearing“, to give the words of the narrator, had a most powerful effect on himself and Castrillon . . . Castrillon addressed “his Excellency” – “Sir, here are six prisoners I have taken alive; how shall I dispose of them?” Santa Anna looked at Castrillon fiercely, flew into a most violent rage, and replied “Have I not told you before how to dispose of them? Why do you bring them to me?” At the same time his brave officers drew and plunged their swords into the bosoms of their defenceless prisoners!!

Sergeant George Dolson served as an interpreter with the Texian army on Galveston Island. On July 18, his superior officer asked him to attend the deposition of an unnamed Mexican officer. The next day he wrote a letter to his brother in Michigan in which he described what happened, published by the Detroit Democratic Free Press in September (though no written record of the deposition has been found). Dolson wrote of the Mexican officer:

He states that on the morning the Alamo was captured, between the hours of five and six o’clock, General Castrillon, who fell at the battle of San Jacinto, entered the back room of the Alamo, and there found Crockett and five other Americans, who had defended it until defence was useless. They appeared very much agitated when the Mexican soldiers undertook to rush in after their General, but the humane General ordered his men to keep out, and, placing his hand on one breast, said “here is a hand and a heart to protect you; come with me to the General-in-Chief, and you shall be saved.” . . . The brave but unfortunate men were marched to the tent of Santa Anna. Colonel Crockett was in the rear, had his arms folded, and appeared bold as the lion as he passed my informant. Santa Anna’s interpreter knew Colonel Crockett, and said to my informant, “the one behind is the famous Crockett“. When brought in the presence of Santa Anna, Castrillon said to him, “Santa Anna, the august, I deliver up to you six brave prisoners of war.” Santa Anna replied, “who has given you orders to take prisoners, I do not want to see those men living – shoot them.” As the monster uttered these words each officer turned his face the other way, and the hellhounds of the tyrant dispatched the six in his presence, and within six feet of his person.

These stories of survivors being executed after the battle are also consistent with an account published in Mexico City in 1837 by Ramon Martinez Caro, Santa Anna’s personal secretary during the Texas campaign (though it does not mention Crockett):

Among the 183 killed there were five who were discovered by General Castrillon hiding after the assault. He took them immediately to the presence of His Excellency who had come up by this time. When he presented the prisoners he was severely reprimanded for not having killed them on the spot, after which [Santa Anna] turned his back upon Castrillon while the soldiers stepped out of their ranks and set upon the prisoners until they were killed . . . We all witnessed this outrage which humanity condemns but which was committed as described. This is a cruel truth, but I cannot omit it.

Caro had been imprisoned at Galveston. Could he have been the source for the Dolson letter?
Throughout the rest of the century and into the middle of the 20th there continued to be parallel stories of Crockett going down fighting, alongside those those of his being executed. The giant 1905 painting in the Texas Capital shows him swinging a musket as the Mexican soldiers closed in. At nearly the same time Teddy Roosevelt described Crockett’s last minutes in his 1895 book, Hero Tales From American History (as quoted in Crisp’s book):

. . . the last man stood at bay. It was old Davy Crockett. Wounded in a dozen places, he faced his foes with his back to the wall, ringed around by the bodies of the men he had slain. So desperate was the fight he waged, that the Mexicans who thronged round him were beaten back for the moment, and no one dared to run in upon him. Accordingly . . . the musketeers loaded their carbines and shot him down. Santa Anna declined to give him mercy. Some say that when Crockett fell from his wounds, he was taken alive, and was then shot by Santa Anna’s order; but his fate cannot be told with certainty, for not a single American was left alive.

And, as late as 1934 the frontispiece of the popular book The Adventures of Davy Crockett was a painting of a bound Crockett being brought to Santa Anna (below).

In 1955 two events happened that transformed the Crockett story. One had an immediate impact; the other was a time bomb that would detonate two decades later.

The first was the broadcast of Walt Disney’s three part series, Davy Crockett: King Of The Wild Frontier which transfixed the American public, including 4-year old Gumby Mark. The series ended with Davy fighting to the end against the Mexican attackers. Disney established an indelible image in our minds of an heroic Davy who would never surrender, and it was an image we liked.

The second was the publication in Mexico City of the diary of Jose Enrique de la Pena by Jesus Sanchez Garza. De la Pena (1807-40), a Colonel in the Mexican army, was present at the Alamo. How the diary (or more properly an account based upon diary entries) came into Garza’s hands has never been determined. The publication received little notice in the United States at the time, but controversy about it exploded in 1975 when an English translation by Carmen Perry was published. I’ve read the 1997 edition of the translation with an introduction by Professor Crisp, published as With Santa Anna In Texas.

Before discussing de la Pena, there was another Mexican memoir first published in 1966. Lieutenant Colonel Jose Juan Sanchez Navarro briefly mentions the attack: “by six-thirty in the morning not a single enemy existed . . . some cruelties horrified me among them the death of an oldster whom they called Cocran“. While there was a Texian defender named Robert Cochran he was only twenty six years old. Could Navarro have been referring to Crockett who would have turned 50 that year and was one of the oldest Texians in the Alamo?

And what does de la Pena have to say?

Some seven men had survived the general carnage and, under the protection of General Castrillon, they were brought before Santa Ana. Among them was one of great stature, well proportioned, with regular features, in whose face there was the imprint of adversity, but in whom one also noticed a degree of resignation and nobility that did him honor. He was the naturalist David Croket, well known in North America for his unusual adventures, who had undertaken to explore the country and who finding himself in Bejar at the very moment of surprise, had taken refuge in the Alamo, fearing that his status as a foreigner might not be respected. Santa Anna answered Castrillon’s intervention with a gesture of indignation and, addressing himself to the sappers, the troops closest to him, ordered that they shoot them. The commanders and officers were outraged at this action and did not support the order, hoping that once the fury of the moment had blown over these men would be spared; but several officers who were around the president and who, perhaps, had not been present during the moment of danger, became noteworthy by an infamous deed, surpassing the soldiers in cruelty.They thrust themselves forward, in order to flatter their commander, and with swords in hand, fell upon these unfortunate, defenseless men just as a tiger leaps upon his prey. Though tortured before they were killed, these unfortunates died without complaining and without humiliating themselves before their torturers. It was rumored that General Sesma was one of them; I will not bear witness to this, for though present, I turned away horrified in order not to witness such a barbarous scene. . . I confess that the very memory of it makes me tremble and that my ear can still hear the penetrating, doleful sound of the victims.

(Section of the de la Pena manuscript mentioning “Croket” in fifth line)

The 1975 publication found fertile ground in the turmoil of that decade, setting off heated debate between revisionist historians, who delightedly took it as proof the beloved hero was a sniveling coward and used the diary’s claims as part of a more general attack on American values and traditions, and those who insisted that an American hero like Crockett would have fought to the death rather than surrender and de la Pena’s claims must therefore be fraudulent. The debate over the legitimacy of the diary and of de la Pena’s writings about Crockett continues to this day, though it probably peaked in the 1990s.

Taking the account on its face, why would de la Pena, who by 1837 was in prison, write it? The edition I read is about 190 pages of which less than one page contains the Crockett account and the entire siege and attack is covered in just twelve pages. It was intended as a denunciation of Santa Anna and some of his senior commanders who, in de la Pena’s view, neglected the welfare of their soldiers and conducted a strategically foolish campaign resulting in the loss of Texas. The very reason he was in jail was for participating in a failed rebellion against Santa Anna’s government.

His introduction reveals to us an angry and anguished young man:

. . . the accumulation of lies told to falsify the events, . . . the ignorance, stupidity, and cruelty displayed by the ministry and the commander in chief in this war . . . the honor and self-esteem of every military man who participated, so deeply hurt by the great inaccuracies in official records as to dates, deeds and places; and above all the honor of the country, deeply compromised by its leaders and no less by the truth and the atrocity of its crimes – these are the principal causes which compelled me to publish the diary . . .
The infamies that have occurred in this campaign, infamies that must have horrified the civilized world and whose memory will continue to provoke pain for many years hence, should not remain hidden. In referring to them, I shall thrust aside my personal feelings, and my friends will cease to be friends from the moment that I publish the evils committed against my country and the deeps perpetrated against humanity.

De la Pena is scathing about the lack of preparation for the march into Texas and Santa Anna’s strategy of dividing his army instead of concentrating it for an advance up the coast, but his anger reaches a fever pitch when writing of what he, and other officers, believed was a completely unnecessary attack on the Alamo (he claims Mexican commanders had information that Travis would have surrendered if no relief came from Houston’s army within the next two days), leaving many soldiers dead and hundreds wounded and suffering terribly without any medical treatment because of Santa Anna’s failure to bring doctors and medical supplies with the army.

Above all, he was horrified by the killing of the Alamo survivors and the massacre at Goliad, a horror shared by many other officers. De la Pena believed it a criminal act dishonoring the army and also counterproductive, inciting even more resistance by Texian rebels who knew their only alternatives were to win or die. A Mexican patriot who condemned the Texas rebellion and believed it could have been defeated, de la Pena also refers frequently to the bravery of the rebels and their fair and honorable treatment of Mexican prisoners. From his perspective the purpose of telling the tale of the death of Crockett and his fellow survivors was to show the despicable Santa Anna, and his description of their deaths is followed with this lament:

To whom was this sacrifice useful and what advantage was derived by increasing the number of victims? It was paid for dearly, though it could have been otherwise had these men been required to walk across the floor carpeted with the bodies over which we stepped, had they been rehabilitated generously and required to communicate to their comrades the fate that awaited them if they did not desist from their unjust cause. They could have informed their comrades of the force and resources that the enemy had.

Jose Enrique de la Pena died in 1840 at the age of 33 before he could publish his broadside about the loss of Texas. Santa Anna (1794-1876) was president of Mexico eleven different times from 1833 through 1855 during which he lost not only Texas, but the entire northern territory of his country to the United States during the Mexican War (1846-8) and living, during one of his many periods of exile on Staten Island in New York.

Some of those who contesting the authenticity of the de la Pena papers have raised valid points (you can get a sense of the back and forth by reading this). One of the most instructive lessons for me has been about the limitations of relying on translations of materials originally written in other languages. It turns out that several points of apparent contradiction in the English version of de la Pena’s work disappear when one goes back to the original Spanish, and that a previously unknown document written by de la Pena and located at Yale University in 1994 provides additional corroboration for his story. While I do not think the question has been, or ever will be, completely resolved (for instance, de la Pena’s account of the death of Travis is inconsistent with other evidence) my judgement is that, on balance, the evidence favors the authenticity of the diary and of de la Pena’s account of the Alamo. While we will never know for certain the exact circumstances it is likely that David Crockett was among those executed at the end of the battle, though Davy Crockett still lives on.

As for me, I like to think of Crockett’s end being as portrayed in the underrated 2004 movie, The Alamo. That’s my version of Davy.

Juan Seguin Returns To The Alamo

 February 25, 1837, San Antonio, Republic of Texas

Precisely a year earlier, on February 25, 1836, Captain Juan Seguin left the besieged Alamo at the order of Colonel William Travis.  He carried with him a request for help from the army gathering under the command of Sam Houston at Washington-on-the-Brazos.  Making his way without detection through General Santa Ana's forces, which had arrived in San Antonio on the 23rd, Sequin made his way to Houston, but the general was determined not to allow his small and unready army to encounter the well-trained Mexican force.
(Juan Seguin, San Jacinto museum)

In a predawn assault on March 6, the Alamo fell and all its defenders killed ((for more on the myths and controversies surrounding the Alamo read Remember (My Visit To) The Alamo)).  The victorious Santa Ana resumed his march eastward, seeming on the verge of extinguishing the rebellion, when six weeks later at San Jacinto, near present day Houston, his force was destroyed by the Texian army led by Sam Houston.  Juan Seguin led his men bravely in the fight and was subsequently promoted to Lieutenant Colonel.

Seguin was born in 1807 at Bexar (later San Antonio), the largest town in Texas, then part of a province within the Spanish Empire of the Americas.  His family was one of the most prominent in Texas and of tejano (Texians of hispanic descent) origin.  In the 1820s, after Mexico obtained its independence from Spain, Juan's father, Erasmo worked with Moses Austin and his son, Stephen, on facilitating the settlement of thousands of Anglo settlers from the United States.  In 1829, Juan was elected Judge of San Antonio and became Alcade (Mayor) of the town in 1834.  Jim Bowie, the Louisiana adventurer who'd settled in Texas and married the daughter of another prominent local family. became a close friend.

When the Texas Revolution began in the fall of 1835, the Juan sided with the revolutionaries as did most Texas tejanos.  At the time the divisions were not between anglos and tejanos but rather about whether Mexico should operate on a federal or centralized basis.  Santa Ana had sought power pledging to be a federalist, but upon attaining the presidency quickly became a centralizer.  Along with Texas, several other Mexican provinces also rebelled at the same time.

Juan Seguin participated in the storming of San Antonio on December 5, 1835 and then worked with Bowie in preparing the defense of the Alamo.
(1837 letter from James Robinson, VP of the Texas Provisional Government to Sam Houston, recommending Juan Seguin for an appointment)

Following San Jacinto and the capture of Santa Ana, the Mexico army retreated south of the Rio Grande but refused to recognize the independence of Texas.  In November 1836, Lt Col Seguin took over command of the Texian garrison at San Antonio.  In late February, he organized a  ceremony to bury the remains of the defenders from the 1836 battle.

After Santa Ana captured the Alamo he ordered the bodies of the defenders collected in three locations inside and just outside the walls and had them burned.  It is unclear what happened to the remains over the next year, but in February 1837, Seguin ordered the remaining ashes and bone fragments collected and had a Bexar carpenter make a coffin.  Juan caused the lid to be inscribed with the names of Crockett, Travis and Bowie (though it was impossible to identify the remains).

Seguin ordered church bells to peal throughout the day and led a procession through the street of the town to the Alamo.  Three volleys were fired over the casket.  Addressing the crowd in Spanish, he proclaimed (according to an account published several weeks later in the Columbia (later Houston) Telegraph & Register):

Companions in Arms!! These remains which we have the honor of carrying on our shoulders are those of the valiant heroes who died in the Alamo. Yes, my friends, they preferred to die a thousand times rather than submit themselves to the tyrant's yoke. What a brilliant example! Deserving of being noted in the pages of history. The spirit of liberty appears to be looking out from its elevated throne with its pleasing mien and point to us saying: "There are your brothers, Travis, Bowie, Crockett, and others whose valor places them in the rank of my heroes." Yes soldiers and fellow citizens, these are the worthy beings who, by the twists of fate, during the present campaign delivered their bodies to the ferocity of their enemies; who, barbarously treated as beasts, were bound by their feet and dragged to this spot, where they were reduced to ashes. The venerable remains of our worth companions as witnesses, I invite you to declare to the entire world, "Texas shall be free and independent or we shall perish in glorious combat."

Later that year Juan Seguin was elected to the Texas Senate, serving until 1840, but the alliance between tejanos and anglos was beginning to weaken.  Two factors were at play.  The first was the flood of American settlers moving to Texas in the wake of obtaining independence, many of whom brought with them prejudices against tejanos and catholics.  Second, the continuing threat of further attacks on the new republic by Mexico.  Caught in the middle were tejanos, increasing mistrusted by their fellow citizens of the Texas republic.

(from fine art america)

Sequin was once again serving as mayor of San Antonio when matters came to a head in 1842.  In January, Mexico announced its planned invasion of Texas (in part in retaliation for a failed Texian invasion of New Mexico the prior year), offering amnesty to anyone who did not resist.  In early March, the Mexican army seized Goliad, Refugio and Victoria and, on March 5, captured San Antonio, which it held until March 9 before retreating (Mexican forces would again occupy the town from September 11 through 20 of that year).  Juan Seguin and his family were among those who fled the invasion.  However, there was a growing clamor among the anglo settlers that unfairly portrayed Juan as a collaborator with the invading forces (to which the Mexican commander contributed by claiming Seguin was still a loyal Mexican citizen).  He was forced to resign in April and to protect himself and his family, fled to Mexico.

When Santa Ana learned of Seguin's presence he offered him a choice - prison or joining the army.  Seguin joined and served for the next six years until the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848, after which he returned to Texas.  Seguin remained politically active in the 1850s and 60s, but conditions continued to worsen for tejanos.  Eventually (at some point between the late 1860s and 1883 according to various sources), Juan moved to Nuevo Laredo, in Mexico just south of the Rio Grande where his son was mayor, where we live until his death in 1890.

In recent decades his role in helping Texas obtain its independence has been increasingly recognized and Juan Seguin is now celebrated as a Texas hero.  On July 4, 1976 his ashes were returned from Mexico to be reburied in the Texas town of Seguin, named in his honor in 1837.

(Status of Juan Seguin, Seguin, Texas, from andrew butler photo)

Texas Rising

 
THC likes early Texas history (see Sam Houston: The Raven & The Alamo Series) so on Monday evening he got suckered into watching the first night of the three-part History Channel series Texas Rising covering events from the fall of the Alamo (March 6, 1836) to the aftermath of the Battle of San Jacinto (April 21, 1836) a time also known as the Runaway Scrape because of the retreat of the Texian army and the panicked flight of many Anglo families in its wake.

What a mess is Texas Rising!  Horrible dialogue, bizarrely misplaced geography, odd characterizations and historically unreliable. THC knows better than to expect complete historic fidelity in any work of popular entertainment but it's almost as though Texas Rising set out to deliberately mangle the saga of the Texas Revolution.  Here, have a look.  And carefully take in that first scene set on a cliff towering over the landscape, quite unlike anything you'll find in coastal Texas where these events took place.

In just the first few minutes last night we saw (1) the wrong date given for the fall of the Alamo; (2) the Alamo pictured as a formidable fortress rather than the rundown mission it was; (3) a miraculous "lone survivor" from the garrison's defenders and (4) a "freed" black man executed as one of the remaining six defenders captured at the end of the battle, even though no freed blacks fought with the garrison and the Mexican army took care not to kill the few slaves they found at the Alamo after their owners had been killed.  And further to that last point, later in the show we learn from Sam Houston himself that "Texas is slave free" which would have come as a surprise to the several thousand slaves owned by Anglo settlers.

It's too bad because they recruited quite a good group of actors including Bill Paxton (though he is terribly miscast as Houston), Brendan Fraser, Ray Liotta, Christopher McDonald (who achieved screen immortality as Shooter McGavin in Happy Gilmore), Jeremy Davies and Kris Kristofferson as President Andrew Jackson!  (Fraser, Liotta, McDonald, Davies below)
(Kristofferson)
If you're interested in that era of Texas just go read THC's posts.

Remember (My Visit To) The Alamo! (Part 3)

For Parts 1 & 2 see here and here.

The Alamo In TV And Movies

THC watched the Disney series on Davy Crockett as a four year old in late 1954 and early 1955.  He still remembers the details of a few scenes, including the last one at the Alamo.

In 1954 Walt Disney signed a deal with ABC to deliver an hour long TV show every week and get the funds he desperately needed to complete the construction of his revolutionary amusement park Disneyland.  The new show, also called Disneyland, premiered on October 27, 1954.  Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter debuted on December 15.  A second episode, Davy Crockett Goes To Congress was broadcast on January 26, 1955 and a third, Davy Crockett At The Alamo aired on February 23, 1955.  The response exceeded Disney's expectations, setting off a nationwide Crockett craze and marketing bonanza which last for most of 1955.  Even the theme song from the show, The Ballad Of Davy Crockett, went to #1 on the charts. And yes, THC proudly wore a coonskin cap.

In May 1955 Disney released an edited version of the three episodes as a full length movie, Davy Crockett: King Of The Wild Frontier and late in the year broadcast two more TV episodes, Davy Crockett's Keelboat Race (Nov 16) and Davy Crockett And The River Pirates (Dec 14).  These last two also featured another legendary figure, Mike Fink (1770?-1823), the "King of the Keelboaters".

Disney made a star out of Fess Parker who played Crockett (and a decade later portrayed Daniel Boone in a hit TV series).  His co-star was Buddy Ebsen, who after escaping the Alamo returned to Tennessee, changed his name to Jed Clampett and while out hunting discovered oil, became rich and moved to Beverly - Hills that is.

Some of the series is available on YouTube.  One portion that THC did not remember portrays Crockett speaking in Congress in opposition to Andrew Jackson's request that Congress provide him funds for the removal of the Cherokees and four other southeastern Indian tribes; you can watch the segment below.  David Crockett really did speak in Congress in opposition though the Disney speech is just a mite different.  The measure passed by only five votes (102-97).  Crockett is portrayed as wearing a buckskin outfit which is not what he wore in Washington.  The picture of him in Part 2 shows the type of clothing he normally wore.
And here is the climax of Davy Crockett At The Alamo which shows Davy atop the north wall with the screen fading out as he's swinging his musket.  He's wearing a coonskin cap but as far as we know David Crockett did not wear coonskin caps at all, though it appears Davy Crockett did.   It also shows Bowie's death, though being debilitated by illness it's an open question whether he was conscious of what was going on around him by that time. The Alamo you see is much smaller than the real thing which had a three-acre open plaza in the middle.
As far as historical accuracy some of the basic framework of the Crockett story is right and the series pays attention to the self-awareness of Crockett and his friend about the propagation of the myth of Davy Crockett but overall it's not very accurate, though not nearly as awful as They Died With Their Boots On, the 1941 George Armstrong Custer biopic starring Errol Flynn.

In 1960 came The Alamo, directed by John Wayne, who also starred as Davy Crockett.  Co-starring Richard Widmark as Jim Bowie and Laurence Harvey as William Travis the film was a commercial failure and deservedly so.   While Wayne made many classic movies this is definitely not one of them.  Both as history and movie it is terrible.

The scene below shows the end of the battle and Crockett's death.  Like the Disney series, The Alamo shows the attack taking place in full daylight while in reality it started in pitch darkness at 5am and ended as the sun was rising.  Once again Crockett is inaccurately shown wearing buckskins and a coonskin cap.  Unlike the Disney series it does show Crockett in the area of the Alamo we think most likely to have been his post but it also has him blowing himself up by putting a torch to the powder magazine which is completely fanciful.  Jim Bowie is seen dying on a bed that is placed outside while he was actually confined to his room, dying and delirious.  Pretty much everything that happens earlier in the movie is also wrong. [NOTE: The sound doesn't work quite right on this clip but it doesn't make any difference!] 


The next attempt to show the battle in a movie was The Alamo (2004).  Originally intended as a $200 million budget blockbuster, with Ron Howard directing, it was scaled back to a $100 million budget and directed by John Lee Hancock, a Texas native and one of the screenwriters.  Starring Billy Bob Thornton as Crockett, Jason Patric as Bowie, Patrick Wilson as Travis, Dennis Quaid as Houston and Emilio Echevarria as Santa Anna it was another box office disaster.

THC has a soft spot for the 2004 movie.  Unlike Wayne's version it is somber, not stirring. It's uneven, some scenes sit there inert amidst clumps of clumsy dialogue, Quaid is lousy as Houston (the movie ends with the battle of San Jacinto) and Santa Anna is treated as a cardboard clown, but at the same time there are some very moving and subtle scenes, sparkling passages of dialogue (Travis and Bowie talking near the end, Crockett telling of his Indian fighting days around the campfire), Patric and Wilson are well-cast, the Mexican attack starts in the darkness and as history it is pretty well done; the sets and costumes are accurate and some of the ethnic complexities of the times are captured, particularly in the portrayal of Juan Seguin, a tejano who supported the revolution (though several years later he fled to Mexico as Anglo intolerance increased).  Most of all Thornton is just wonderful as Crockett, capturing David's awareness that he's also Davy Crockett and his ambivalence about it, at times reveling in playing the role and at other times feeling trapped by Davy.  At one point he tells Bowie:

If it was just me, simple old David from Tennessee, I might drop over that wall and take my chances but that Davy Crockett fella, they're all watching him.

This is the somewhat overwrought trailer:
This clip shows events on February 23 when Bowie's attempt to parley was interrupted by Travis' cannon shot.  In the scene you can see that Bowie seems familiar with General Castrillon which is an accurate portrayal.  When he came to Texas, Bowie married into one of the oldest and wealthiest Tejano families in San Antonio and he knew many senior Mexican officials.  His wife and most of her family died of fever leaving Bowie devastated.  The movie portrays him as a fatalistic and morose figure.
The most controversial scene in the movie is Crockett's death.  At the end of the prior scene we've seen Crockett and a few of his surviving men retreat into the church as Mexican soldiers overwhelm their position; the Mexicans charge and David and his men brace themselves.  The screen goes black and then suddenly we are in daylight.  This is the first time a version resembling the de la Pena account has been shown on screen.  The filmmakers do a good job meshing the David and Davy aspects together (you can hear Crockett muttering to himself "Davy Crockett" as he realizes he must play the role one last time).   It still wasn't enough for some folks who were outraged that Davy was not seen going down fighting but for THC, who admires Crockett and thinks that something along the lines of de la Pena account is likely true, it's a thumbs up.

Remember (My Visit To) The Alamo! (Part 2)

For Part 1 go here.

Part 2:  What About Davy Crockett?

Sam Houston didn't want a battle, believing San Antonio de Bexar was too isolated from the other Texian settlements and the Alamo indefensible with the small force at hand; the strategy of the commander of the Texian army was to lure Santa Anna deep into Texas, away from his supply lines buying him time to train and create a disciplined Texian army.  In January 1836 he sent James Bowie (b. 1796) to remove the cannon from the Alamo and bring them back to his growing army though he gave Bowie some discretion to act as he saw fit.
(Santa Anna from San Jacinto Museum)

With the exception of Santa Anna, none of the senior Mexican officers wanted a battle at the Alamo, believing that their advance should be along the Gulf coast of Texas and that the inland town of San Antonio was a strategic dead end.  Unfortunately, only Santa Anna's opinion counted.  And then having arrived in San Antonio, they believed Santa Anna's decision to attack an isolated position held by a small number of rebels instead of either leaving it under siege with a small force and proceeding with the bulk of the army deeper into Texas or, in the alternative, waiting a couple of days until their heavy artillery reached San Antonio, artillery which could knock down the walls of the Alamo and force the garrison to surrender, was an unjustified waste of the lives of their soldiers.

Bowie was returning to the town he'd first settled in when he came to Texas in 1830 having left Louisiana in the wake of a huge land fraud in which he played a leading role in, a fraud which triggered decades of property disputes in what became the state of Arkansas.  Bowie had achieved regional notoriety in 1827, after the bloody Sandbar Fight outside of Natchez, Mississippi in which he'd been badly wounded while killing another man with his famed Bowie knife.
(Bowie; Wikipedia)
On February 3, Bowie was joi,ned in San Antonio by William Barret Travis (b. 1809), a lieutenant colonel in the new Texas army who brought eighteen soldiers with him.  Travis arrived in Texas in 1831, abandoning a wife, young child and failing law practice back in Alabama.  Unlike Bowie, he was an early and fervent advocate for Texas independence and his impetuous actions at the coastal town of Anhuac nearly triggered the revolution in 1832 before cooler heads prevailed.
(Travis; Wikipedia)
Travis and Bowie agreed they should defend the Alamo, but quarreled over command eventually arriving at a tenuous agreement to share it.  The delicate nature of the arrangement was demonstrated when Bowie tried to parley with the Mexicans upon their arrival in San Antonio, a meeting disrupted by a cannon shot ordered by Travis.

Bowie, Travis and David Crockett (b. 1786) ascended into legend with their deaths at the Alamo (for a good combined biography of the three read Three Roads To The Alamo by William C Davis).  We have a pretty good idea how the first two perished.  Bowie, immobilized and delirious, likely with typhoid fever, was killed in his bed while Travis was shot in the head early in the fight while directing fire from the cannon on the north wall.  But what about Crockett, who in 1836 was the only nationally known figure at the Alamo?
(David Crockett; Wikipedia)

When David Crockett (he called himself David, not Davy) rode into San Antonio on February 8, he was a former three term U.S. Congressman from Tennessee, who after being defeated in the last election declared "You can all go to Hell, I'm going to Texas" and set out to establish a new life.  On his ride to Texas he was joined by about 30 friends and adventurers.  Arriving after the revolution  started he found that land grants were available for those joining the rebel forces.  He and his compatriots quickly signed up.

Crockett though, was more than just a former Congressman.  He was the first popular folk character from America's west, and its most nationally known figure, other than Andrew Jackson.  David Crockett, born poor, a frontiersman, hunter and scout went into politics, initially as an ally of Andrew Jackson, and later as his fierce opponent over the issues of the distribution of federal lands and on the removal of the Indian tribes from the southeast, a policy Crockett opposed, being the only Congressman in the southeast to vote against the removal, about which he wrote, "I believe it was a wicked, unjust measure".

The character Davy Crockett, after arriving in Washington in 1827, quickly became known for his entertaining storytelling and anecdotes and was converted into a figure of popular entertainment around whom myths and legends grew.  Many plays were staged with Davy or a thinly disguised version of him as the centerpiece, the most popular of which, Lion Of The West, premiered in New York City.  From 1835 through 1841 Davy Crockett's Almanack was published and in 1834 Crockett added to his renown with the publication of A Narrative Of The Life Of David Crockett, Written By Himself which became a best seller and sparked a nationwide speaking tour (Crockett was particularly popular in New England).(From NY Historical Society)
Of Crockett's actions during the siege, which began on February 23, we have little information; on the 25th Travis wrote in a message carried to Houston "The Hon. David Crockett was seen at all points,
animating the men to do their duty", and Susannah Dickinson (of whom, more below) remembered  Crockett playing his fiddle to entertain the garrison.  Did Crockett, who by rank was only a private, play a significant role in planning the defense and leading the men during the siege?  It is impossible to know but the very limited evidence is suggestive, given that after the first two days Bowie was incapacitated with fever and Crockett was a famous and popular figure two decades older than Travis.

Our best information, from early in the siege, is that Crockett and his men were stationed behind a hastily erected wooden palisade fence that ran at an angle from the southwest corner of the Alamo mission church to the start of the south wall, making it a particularly vulnerable spot if attacked.  In the darkness of early morning on March 6, the Mexican assault breached the north and south walls first and then swept across the open plaza as some of the surviving Texians retreated into the Long Barracks.  The last  rebels left out in the open would likely have been Crockett and his men near the church.  Did they die fighting by the palisade?  Did some try to seek refuge in the church?  Had they moved their post by then?  Did Crockett move from the palisade and towards the north wall when Travis was killed early in the fight? Or were Crockett and some of his men among the up to 60 Texians who may have tried to escape by going over the walls near the palisade only to be cut down on the open prairie by the mounted Mexican lancers waiting for them?

(The palisade at which Crockett and his men were stationed started at the right side of the front of the Alamo mission church)
(Mark Churms painting giving good idea of relative placement of wooden palisade and Alamo church)

What are our sources for the end of the Alamo?  There are several Mexican ones, of which more below.  We also have accounts of various riders sent out with messages from the Alamo before March 3 and the stories of the few civilian survivors spared by Santa Ana, the most prominent of which were Joe, William Travis' slave, and Susannah Dickinson, wife of one of the defenders.  Joe's account was that he was with Travis until he was killed at which time he went into the church, joining Dickinson.  Both Joe and Dickinson reported that as they were being escorted out after the fighting ended they saw Crockett's body near the church, surrounded by dead Mexican soldiers.  It remains unclear how long after the fighting ended they left the church and observed the carnage outside, but their observations are consistent both with Crockett dying in combat or being executed at the end of the battle.

After that it gets murkier.  The best account THC found is Sleuthing The Alamo by James E Crisp, a professor of history at North Carolina State University, from which the summary below is drawn except as noted otherwise.  As a side note, Sleuthing The Alamo is an outstanding way to learn about how historians do their job.  Crisp takes the controversy around Crockett's death along with an alleged racist speech by Sam Houston and brings you along for the ride as he traces the origins of various stories and documents, going back to the primary sources to get to the truth.  It's a short, but very illuminating book written in an engaging personal and non-academic style.

Within a short time of the fall of the Alamo various stories were in circulation about the fate of Crockett with some newspapers reporting he went down fighting, others that he was captured and executed and a couple even reporting his escape!

Before we review those accounts there are two other events to give some context.

• On March 27 the Mexican army massacred about 350 Texians at the coastal town of Goliad.  These soldiers had surrendered a few days earlier under a promise of clemency.  The local Mexican commander, General Urrea, protested vigorously against the execution order from Santa Anna, who sent an officer from Bexar to oversee the killing.

• At San Jacinto on April 21, 1836 Sam Houston defeated a detachment of the Mexican army capturing several hundred men, including Santa Anna and other senior commanders, most of whom were imprisoned on Galveston Island until their return to Mexico.

As early as March 11 news reached the Texian army in Gonzales about the end at the Alamo.  On that same day Sam Houston wrote a letter stating "After the fort was carried, seven men surrendered and called for Santa Anna and quarter.  They were murdered by his order."

The June 9, 1836 edition of the New York Courier and Enquirer carried a letter from a correspondent in Galveston Bay who purported to convey an account from an eye witness:

After the Mexicans had got possession of the Alamo, the fighting had ceased, and it was clear day light, six Americans were discovered near the wall yet unconquered, and who were instantly surrounded and ordered by General Castrillon [a senior Mexican commander] to surrender, and who did so under a promise of his protection, finding resistance any longer in vain - indeed, perfect madness - Castrillon was brave and not cruel, and disposed to save them.  He marched them up to that part of the fort where stood "his Excellency" [Santa Anna] . . . David Crockett was one of the six. The steady fearless step and undaunted tread, together with the bold demeanor of this hardy veteran -"his firmness and noble bearing", to give the words of the narrator, had a most powerful effect on himself and Castrillon . . . Castrillon addressed "his Excellency" - "Sir, here are six prisoners I have taken alive; how shall I dispose of them?"  Santa Anna looked at Castrillon fiercely, flew into a most violent rage, and replied "Have I not told you before how to dispose of them?  Why do you bring them to me?"  At the same time his brave officers drew and plunged their swords into the bosoms of their defenceless prisoners!! 

Sergeant George Dolson served as an interpreter with the Texian army on Galveston Island.  On July 18, his superior officer asked him to attend the deposition of an unnamed Mexican officer.  The next day he wrote a letter to his brother in Michigan in which he described what happened; a letter published by the Detroit Democratic Free Press in September (though no written record of the deposition has been found).  Dolson wrote of the Mexican officer:

He states that on the morning the Alamo was captured, between the hours of five and six o'clock, General Castrillon, who fell at the battle of San Jacinto, entered the back room of the Alamo, and there found Crockett and five other Americans, who had defended it until defence was useless. They appeared very much agitated when the Mexican soldiers undertook to rush in after their General, but the humane General ordered his men to keep out, and, placing his hand on one breast, said "here is a hand and a heart to protect you; come with me to the General-in-Chief, and you shall be saved." . . . The brave but unfortunate men were marched to the tent of Santa Anna.  Colonel Crockett was in the rear, had his arms folded, and appeared bold as the lion as he passed my informant.  Santa Anna's interpreter knew Colonel Crockett, and said to my informant, "the one behind is the famous Crockett".  When brought in the presence of Santa Anna, Castrillon said to him, "Santa Anna, the august, I deliver up to you six brave prisoners of war."  Santa Anna replied, "who has given you orders to take prisoners, I do not want to see those men living - shoot them."  As the monster uttered these words each officer turned his face the other way, and the hellhounds of the tyrant dispatched the six in his presence, and within six feet of his person.

These stories of survivors being executed after the battle are also consistent with an account published in Mexico City in 1837 by Ramon Martinez Caro, Santa Anna's personal secretary during the Texas campaign (though it does not mention Crockett):

Among the 183 killed there were five who were discovered by General Castrillon hiding after the assault. He took them immediately to the presence of His Excellency who had come up by this time.  When he presented the prisoners he was severely reprimanded for not having killed them on the spot, after which [Santa Anna] turned his back upon Castrillon while the soldiers stepped out of their ranks and set upon the prisoners until they were killed . . . We all witnessed this outrage which humanity condemns but which was committed as described.  This is a cruel truth, but I cannot omit it.

Caro had been imprisoned at Galveston.  Could he have been the source for the Dolson letter?

Throughout the rest of the century and into the middle of the 20th there continued to be parallel stories of Crockett going down fighting, along with those of his being executed.  The giant 1905 painting in the Texas Capital showed him swinging a musket as the Mexican soldiers closed in.  At nearly the same time Teddy Roosevelt described Crockett's last minutes in his 1895 book, Hero Tales From American History (as quoted in Crisp's book):

. . . the last man stood at bay.  It was old Davy Crockett.  Wounded in a dozen places, he faced his foes with his back to the wall, ringed around by the bodies of the men he had slain.  So desperate was the fight he waged, that the Mexicans who thronged round him were beaten back for the moment, and no one dared to run in upon him.  Accordingly . . . the musketeers loaded their carbines and shot him down.  Santa Anna declined to give him mercy.  Some say that when Crockett fell from his wounds, he was taken alive, and was then shot by Santa Anna's order; but his fate cannot be told with certainty, for not a single American was left alive.

And as Crisp points out, as late as 1934 the frontispiece of the popular book The Adventures of Davy Crockett was a painting of a bound Crockett being brought to Santa Anna (below). 

It was in 1955 that two events happened that transformed the Crockett story.  One had an immediate impact; the other was a time bomb that would detonate two decades later.

The first was the broadcast of Walt Disney's three part series, Davy Crockett: King Of The Wild Frontier which transfixed the American public, including 4-year old THC.  The series ended with Davy fighting to the end against the Mexican attackers (we'll have more on the Disney show in Part 3 of this series).  Disney established a contemporary image in our minds of an heroic Davy who would never surrender, and it was an image we liked.

The second was the publication in Mexico City of the diary of Jose Enrique de la Pena by Jesus Sanchez Garza.  De la Pena (1807-40), a Colonel in the Mexican army, was present at the Alamo.  How the diary (or more properly an account based upon diary entries) came into Garza's hands has never been determined.  The publication received little notice in the United States at the time, but controversy about it exploded in 1975 when an English translation by Carmen Perry was published.  THC recently read a 1997 edition of the translation with an introduction by Professor Crisp,  published as With Santa Anna In Texas.

Let's see what de la Pena wrote about Crockett and then we'll talk about the context, which is extremely important in understanding his document. On second thought, let's first note another Mexican memoir that was first published in 1966.  Lieutenant Colonel Jose Juan Sanchez Navarro briefly mentions the attack: "by six-thirty in the morning not a single enemy existed . . . some cruelties horrified me among them the death of an oldster whom they called Cocran".  While there was a defender named Robert Cochran he was only twenty six years old.  Could Navarro have been referring to Crockett who would have turned 50 that year and was one of the oldest Texians in the Alamo?(Briscoe Center for American History, U of Texas)

And what does de la Pena say?

Some seven men had survived the general carnage and, under the protection of General Castrillon, they were brought before Santa Ana.  Among them was one of great stature, well proportioned, with regular features, in whose face there was the imprint of adversity, but in whom one also noticed a degree of resignation and nobility that did him honor.  He was the naturalist David Croket, well known in North America for his unusual adventures, who had undertaken to explore the country and who finding himself in Bejar at the very moment of surprise, had taken refuge in the Alamo, fearing that his status as a foreigner might not be respected.  Santa Anna answered Castrillon's intervention with a gesture of indignation and, addressing himself to the sappers, the troops closest to him, ordered that they shoot them.  The commanders and officers were outraged at this action and did not support the order, hoping that once the fury of the moment had blown over these men would be spared; but several officers who were around the president and who, perhaps, had not been present during the moment of danger, became noteworthy by an infamous deed, surpassing the soldiers in cruelty. They thrust themselves forward, in order to flatter their commander, and with swords in hand, fell upon these unfortunate, defenseless men just as a tiger leaps upon his prey.  Though tortured before they were killed, these unfortunates died without complaining and without humiliating themselves before their torturers.  It was rumored that General Sesma was one of them; I will not bear witness to this, for though present, I turned away horrified in order not to witness such a barbarous scene. . .  I confess that the very memory of it makes me tremble and that my ear can still hear the penetrating, doleful sound of the victims.

(Section of the de la Pena manuscript mentioning "Croket" in fifth line)

The 1975 publication found fertile ground in the turmoil of that decade in America, and set off heated debate between those, including revisionist historians, who delightedly took it as proof that the beloved American hero was a sniveling coward and used the diary's claims as part of a more general attack on American values and traditions, and those who insisted that an American hero like Crockett would have fought to the death rather than surrender and that de la Pena's claims must therefore be fraudulent and his supporters, by definition, anti-American.  In fact, a debate over the legitimacy of the diary and of de la Pena's writings about Crockett continues to this day, though it probably peaked in the 1990s.

Taking the account on its face, why would de la Pena, who by 1837 was in prison, write it?  His purpose was not to write an account of Crockett or even of the Alamo.  The edition THC read is about 190 pages of which less than one page contains the Crockett account and the entire attack is covered in just twelve pages. De la Pena's account is intended as a denunciation of Santa Anna and some of his senior commanders who, in his view, neglected the welfare of their soldiers and conducted a strategically foolish campaign resulting in the loss of Texas.  The very reason he was in jail was for participating in a failed rebellion against Santa Anna's government.

His introduction reveals to us an angry and anguished young man:

. . . the accumulation of lies told to falsify the events, . . . the ignorance, stupidity, and cruelty displayed by the ministry and the commander in chief in this war . . . the honor and self-esteem of every military man who participated, so deeply hurt by the great inaccuracies in official records as to dates, deeds and places; and above all the honor of the country, deeply compromised by its leaders and no less by the truth and the atrocity of its crimes - these are the principal causes which compelled me to publish the diary . . .

The infamies that have occurred in this campaign, infamies that must have horrified the civilized world and whose memory will continue to provoke pain for many years hence, should not remain hidden.  In referring to them, I shall thrust aside my personal feelings, and my friends will cease to be friends from the moment that I publish the evils committed against my country and the deeps perpetrated against humanity.

De la Pena is scathing about the lack of preparation for the march into Texas and Santa Anna's strategy of dividing his army instead of concentrating it for an advance up the coast, but his anger reaches a fever pitch when writing of what he, and other officers, believed was a completely unnecessary attack on the Alamo (he writes of the Mexican commanders having information that Travis would have surrendered if no relief came from Houston's army within the next two days), leaving many soldiers dead and hundreds wounded who suffered terribly without any medical treatment because of Santa Anna's failure to bring doctors and medical supplies with the army.  Above all, he was horrified by the killing of the Alamo survivors and the massacre at Goliad, a horror shared by many other officers.  De la Pena believed it was a criminal act that dishonored the army and was also counterproductive, since it incited even more resistance by the Texian rebels who knew their only alternatives were to win or die.  He was a Mexican patriot who condemned the Texas rebellion and believed it could have been defeated while still referring frequently to the bravery of the rebels and of their fair and honorable treatment of Mexican prisoners. From his perspective the purpose of telling the tale of the death of Crockett and his fellow survivors was to show how despicable Santa Anna was, and his description of their deaths is followed with this lament:

To whom was this sacrifice useful and what advantage was derived by increasing the number of victims? It was paid for dearly, though it could have been otherwise had these men been required to walk across the floor carpeted with the bodies over which we stepped, had they been rehabilitated generously and required to communicate to their comrades the fate that awaited them if they did not desist from their unjust cause. They could have informed their comrades of the force and resources that the enemy had.

As just one example of the objections of the Mexican commanders to Santa Anna's death decrees, we have the consistent account of the actions of General Manuel Fernandez Castrillon, who protested not only the killing of the survivors at the Alamo but also the order to massacre the Goliad prisoners.  Castrillon, once a close ally of Santa Anna, grew disenchanted with him and was killed at San Jacinto where many of the Texians remarked on his bravery.  Castrillon was buried nearby at the plantation of his friend Lorenzo de Zavala, the tejano Vice-President of the newly proclaimed Texas Republic,

Jose Enrique de la Pena died in 1840 at the age of 33 before he could publish his broadside about the loss of Texas.  Santa Anna (1794-1876) was president of Mexico eleven different times from 1833 through 1855 during which he lost not only Texas ,but the entire northern territory of his country to the United States during the Mexican War (1846-8).  In one of his many periods of exile from Mexico he lived on Staten Island, New York for several years.
  
Some of those who have contested the authenticity of the de la Pena papers have raised valid points, which have triggered further fascinating research (you can get a sense of the back and forth by reading this).  One of the most instructive lessons for THC has been about the limitations of relying on translations of materials originally written in other languages.  It turns out that several points of apparent contradiction in the English version of de la Pena's work disappear when one goes back to the original Spanish, and that a previously unknown document written by de la Pena and located at Yale University in 1994 provides additional corroboration for his story.  While THC does not think the question has been resolved 100% (for instance, de la Pena's account of the death of Travis is inconsistent with other evidence) his judgement is that, on balance, the evidence favors the authenticity of the diary and of his account of the Alamo. While we will never know for certain the exact circumstances it is likely that David Crockett was among those executed at the end of the battle, though Davy Crockett seems to live on.

NEXT:  PART 3  The Alamo In TV And Movies




 

Remember (My Visit To) The Alamo! (Part 1)

In late October, THC visited the Alamo in San Antonio, where in the early morning hours of March 6, 1836, between 182 and 253 Texians and American volunteers (the most prominent being David Crockett of Tennessee), under the command of William Travis and David Bowie, died in an assault by about 1,600 Mexican soldiers (of whom about 400 were killed or wounded) under the command of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who had laid siege to the Alamo for 13 days.  This was not the first time the Alamo had been captured in the fight for Texas independence which began on October 2, 1835.  The first time was on December 10, 1835 and it was a Mexican army unit which surrendered the Alamo!

The origins of the Texas revolution are still hotly debated, and the controversies deserve a post of their own, so for now THC will stick with a brief and very simplified summary.  Mexicans fought their own long war for independence from Spain from 1810 to 1821.  In 1824, a new Mexican Republic established a federal system in which the individual states had considerable autonomy.  That same year saw Mexico grant rights to Stephen Austin to establish a colony of American settlers in the Tejas section of the state of Coahuila y Tejas which included modern day Texas, as well as the Monclova and Saltillo regions of northern Mexico.  The new settlers had to pledge allegiance to Mexico and declare themselves to be Catholics.  Over the next decade thousands of settlers poured into the sparsely populated Tejas while Mexico underwent governmental turmoil and frequent changes in administration, all centered around disputes between factions supporting a federal republic and advocates of a centralized state, while at the same time the governments in Mexico City became more leery of the influx of Americans banning further immigration into Tejas in 1830, a ban that was mostly ignored. 

In 1834, federalists supported by General Santa Anna came into power but he reneged on his promises and the following year abolished the 1824 Constitution, imposing a centralized regime in its place.  In response, several Mexican states rebelled, including Coahuila y Tejas and indeed over the next several years three attempts were made to set up new independent republics, two of which failed (Republic of the Rio Grande and Republic of Yucatan) and one succeeded, the Republic of Texas.  All of this occurred as many of the Texas settlers were agitating to join the United States whose president, Andrew Jackson, had already tried unsuccessfully to purchase it from Mexico (for more see Sam Houston: The Raven).

By 1835 Texas may have contained 30-40,000 "Anglo" settlers, 7,000 Tejanos (of Mexican/Spanish origin) with the largest concentration in San Antonio de Bexar, and 5,000 slaves.  While the rebels were predominantly Anglo, they were joined by many Tejanos who objected to Santa Anna's dictatorship.

When war broke out in October 1835, a Texian militia force was raised and moved on San Antonio de Bexar, which housed a substantial Mexican army garrison.  After a prolonged siege of the town and then several days of house to house fighting beginning on December 5, the Mexican commander, General Cos and his 400 men took refuge in the Alamo.  Realizing it was indefensible Cos surrendered on December 10 and he and his men were allowed to leave upon pledging they would not fight again against the Texians.  They left behind 15 cannon.

With the Mexican army gone from Texas, the rebels set about trying to establish a regular army to resist the expected attempt by Santa Anna to reconquer the state the following spring, but Santa Anna moved quicker than expected, assembling an army (including Cos and his troops) and advancing in mid-winter.  His troops were poorly prepared for the harsh weather, and it is a tribute to their hardiness and determination that they were able to continue their march through a heavy snow storm and record cold, with many dying in the terrible conditions.  An advance guard marched into San Antonio on February 23, surprising the rebels and forcing them to quickly abandon the town and move into the Alamo without having made adequate provision for a siege.

The Alamo was originally built in 1717 as a Catholic mission to encourage the conversion of the Indians.  By 1800 it had been abandoned and after that was periodically occupied by soldiers during the Mexican War of Independence and thereafter.  Though walled, it was not built for defence against trained military forces and artillery, and much of it had crumbled into disrepair by 1835.

Visiting the Alamo today can be deceptive for the casual visitor.  All that remains of the mission is the church itself and part of what is known as the Long Barracks.  The walls that enclosed the open plaza in front of the church are gone, as well as all of the other structures along and within the walls ,making it difficult to visualize what it looked like in the 1830s.  And even what we see of the church is misleading.  At the time of the battle the church was a wreck without a roof and the distinctive "hump" in the middle of the roof front that most of us still instinctively associated with the battle.

Many visitors see the wall around and behind the current church and assume that it was the wall of the Alamo in 1835-6, but that wall did not exist at the time.  Below are three renderings of the Alamo as it existed back then, superimposed on the San Antonio of today, which give a good idea of the extent of the open plaza inside its walls.  The west wall of the Alamo lies in part under the Ripley's Believe It or Not, much of the north wall beneath a courthouse and post office, while the south wall is under the open plaza.  The extent of the walls and the plaza made defense with a mere 200 men impossible; at least double that number would have been required to successfully hold the Alamo against the well-trained Mexican army.

(from alamo studies)






 (from taliesyn.com)

(from hiddenvalleyrv)

PIX FROM THC VISIT

Taken from position of the South Wall.

From the West Wall.  Gives a sense of the scale of the open plaza between the walls and the Mission Church.

Monument to the Alamo defenders in the plaza

Ripley's on top of where the West Wall stood.

The Long Barracks.  This is where the last defenders held out.  There was hand to hand fighting in the darkness of the rooms in the barracks.

For Part 2:  What Happened To Davy Crockett go here
For Part 3:  The Alamo In TV And Movies go here