I’ve been to that Fort, at Menard, Mike, but it was years ago.
Wasn’t Bowie’s lost mine supposed to be somewhere in that vicinity?
Did not know the history of the canon that Travis fired at the Mexican Army.
Better watch out. Our resident Jew haters will now blame the Battle of the Alamo on the Jews. 😜
The front men for all this well-financed outside logistical support we’re McKinney and Williams, a trading company located on Galveston Island who suddenly had unlimited credit and would go on to print the money for the new Republic of Texas.
The 18 pounder Travis commenced hostilities with was a naval cannon, scaled to punch holes in ships. IIRC it weighed 2,000 lbs. It’s intended purpose in the revolution was to breach the walls of the Alamo while the Mexican Army still held it. Fifty-five men of the New Orleans Greys, the uniformed militia funded by Adolphus Stern, we assigned to move the cannon from Velasco on the Brazos Estuary about 25 miles west of Galveston Island.
The way I heard it the cannon arrived on time, but due to a logistics screw-up the 18 pound cannonballs did not. Some irony here, if the cannonballs HAD arrived on time it is conceivable there wouldn’t have been enough of the Alamo left to defend.
The only other thing out there remotely big enough to justify an 18 pound cannonball was the town of San Antonio itself. Hence the cannon was mounted on the roof of a room on the southwest corner of the mission. I’m wondering if they completely filled in that room to support the weight. Most of the church for example was occupied by an earthen ramp, to allow three cannons to be placed at the top of the back wall of the roofless church.
When hostilities commenced, that 18 pounder, an obvious target, was taken out on Day 2 of the siege by Mexican cannonades that broke the carriage and dismounted the cannon.
When the retreating Mexican Army tore down the Alamo in June of 1836, presumably it suffered the same fate as the other cannons; the round trunnions on the sides of the cannons that provided the points of contact to the carriage were knocked off, rendering the cannons nearly useless.
By the turn of the twentieth century the old cannon was on display in San Pedro Park, perhaps a mile from the Alamo. It eventually became a rusted eyesore filled with trash and its special significance as Travis’ cannon not recognized.
When we entered WWI the old Alamo cannon was shipped off to be melted down and recycled as part of the war effort.
