Birdy, what have your Heros done for Mexico?
What? You don't find the whole truth invariably more interesting than cherry-picked parts of it?
My heroes are all those who chose to flip the bird in the face of overwhelming force and go down fighting at the Alamo, even tho' no one had gone into the Alamo intending to die there.
And I would be selling Fannin's men short if I didn't point out they only agreed to surrender under terms, and would doubtless have gone down fighting too if they had been presented with the same limited choice as the Alamo guys.
Of the crowd, who stands out for me?
Sam Houston, for having the wits (or cunning) not to hang Santa Anna out of hand, Santa Anna being the executioner of hundreds of Americans and Texians over just the prior two months. I dunno enough to judge Houston otherwise.
Deaf Smith, a plain-spoken and self-effacing cattleman and buffalo hunter,long married to a local, didn't want no part of it until he was crossed. Then in his fifties he becomes absolutely indispensable to the Texian victory.
Travis, if nothing else for his writing abilities.
Davy Crockett, the guy who weren't afraid to cross Jackson and vote his conscience over Indian Removal, even though he knew it was the end of his political career. There's some evidence/accounts too that Crockett actually left the Alamo during the siege to recruit volunteers. Anyone who returned to that fortress even after having witnessed the odds against them has my vote.
Noah Smithwick, for leaving us such a vivid insider's account of those times and proving that folks back then weren't necessarily as one-dimensional as yerself for example
http://www.lsjunction.com/olbooks/smithwic/otd.htmOn the Mexican side maybe the principled soldier Jose Enriquez Dela Pena, who came to despise Santa Anna during the course of the campaign and who left us such a well-written account, details about even the actions of our side we would never have otherwise known.
..and here's an unlikely one, General Edmund P. Gaines, the brilliant and capable hero of the War of 1812 and the Seminole War, and since then known for his quiet and ethical service to the United States across our Old Frontier, and his ability to find solutions that avoided bloodshed to both sides. Not an easy trick to be respected by your own men AND the Indians, but he was. Mostly forgotten in pop history now unfortunately, but has cities and counties named after him by grateful citizens in a few states.
During this Second Texas War of Independence he had American forces massed just across the Louisiana border from Nacodoches with orders to intervene if necessary to preserve stability. Seems like retreating clear to Nacodoches for this to happen was Houston's original game plan.
The normally by-the-book Gaines looked the other way when many of his regulars slipped away with their arms to join the Texian Army just prior to San Jacinto and it seem probable that his presence just across the Sabine was one of the deciding factors tipping Urrea and Filosoa to withdraw rather than advance on Houston's little army.
YMMV,
Birdwatcher
