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at the Alamo started on this day.

“I shall never surrender or retreat.”

“VICTORY or DEATH.”

184 years ago?

I'm bettin' Birdwatcher is there riding his bicycle around the place and shooting off a roman candle,....dressed like Davey Crockett and sipping box wine out of a basket mounted on the handlebars.

Iwo Jima flag raising was also today. Lots more casualties.....significance maybe undetermined.

Had a friend now deceased that made that party as a Marine in the first wave. He wasn't one of the 12 in his unit (forgot what it was, but large) that walked off the beach afterward. He claimed he stuck his finger out of his fox hole to check the wind and the Japs aimed a mortar at it......

No such luck, was wearing a scratchy wool French-type uniform, carrying a British musket and wearing a fancy leather bucket on my head, marching along, mostly looking at the back of the head of the guy in front, trying not to confuse Spanish fore “right face”, “left face”, “about face”, “present arms”, “order arms” etc etc....

I’ll go over to the Dark Side when they need warm bodies, like at the Dawn Volley in front of the Alamo in two weeks, but other than that I’ll take Texian every time, they were just a motley crew of guys hanging out, mostly doing whatever they felt like doing at any given time

stx;
Good evening to you sir, I hope all is well in your world tonight.

Thanks for the timely reminder, I appreciate it.

As a lifelong student of history, a visit to the Alamo was on my bucket list since I was a kid listening to the Davy Crockett record my parents gave me.

We ended up being there during the last week of February in 2018 and stayed in the Gibbs Hotel which is just across the street more or less.

While we enjoyed San Antonio's River Walk immensely and had an overall positive experience there, I've got to say that the Alamo was one of the more moving places for me personally that I've been in years. Please understand, I am not "that guy" who feels "things" usually and have been to a lot of battle and massacre sights in my life.

The Alamo was different in a most sobering and meaningful way - that's about the best I can articulate how I felt there Roger.

Anyway, someday I'll try to get down there once more perhaps. For sure it's a nice break from the February weather we usually have up here.

All the best to you and yours Roger.

Dwayne

Thanks for the reminder Roger!

Remember the Alamo!!!

Some minor inaccuracies there. Far and away the BEST single source on the battle is Steven Hardin’s “Texian Iliad”, far and away the best single book on the events of that Second Texas Revolution.

https://www.amazon.com/Texian-Iliad-Military-History-Revolution/dp/0292731027

Dr Hardin sure PO’d a lot of folks when he published that, but if you don’t mind accepting that even flawed human beings can perform prodigies, and that dumb luck can trump all else, this is the book.

I'll always miss Hipp's Bubble Room and their Hot Berger Steak. The Alamo is good to visit but we must get rid of The latest Bush infestation that has emerged to destroy it's legacy.

Dwayne, if you were there on a Saturday afternoon you might have seen me, expounding at length in front of a simple cotton tarp, camping gear arranged in front. For the practical reason that I don’t want to make repeat trips to my car, I pack as a guy would back then when traveling across Texas. A great many people, possibly most, actually walked to San Antonio, including those approximately 200 souls who took cover inside the old Alamo compound that fateful morning when that Mexican cavalry detail surprised everyone.

Actually we got lucky, Santa Ana himself was only 20 miles away at the time, and the Medina River at present day Castroville. Late in the day on February 22 Santa Anna had gotten word that the Americans in San Antonio we’re planning a big party that night, so he dispatched a large force of cavalry to go crash that party. They of course did not get here in time not arriving until the following morning.

Santa Anna himself does not arrive on the scene until Day three, any advantages to defending the Alamo were not immediately apparent. The Alamo Was at best a really bad fort that had no strategic value, there was no ready communication with Sam Houston and Sam Houston was not a popular guy anyway, nor was he in command of anybody when the siege began.

Houston himself, ever the opportunist, had recently jumped ship from the we are not about independence government that had sent Travis and Bowie l, to the crystallizing we are about independence movement at Washington on the Brazos.

If anyone could have possibly got those 200 or so defenders out of the predicament they found themselves and it was Jim Bowie, who had already fought and won against the very same guys he went out to talk to.

Nobody was psychic, at the time it was not obvious to the defenders what the outcome of events would be. Bowie went out under a white flag of parlay to find out what exactly was going on, Travis open fire with that enormous 18 pounder cannon over Bowie’s head over a flag of truce and sent an 18 pound cannon ball bouncing through the town and the Mexican army, the opening shot of the siege.

In subsequent communications to the Mexican army that same day Travis tries to backtrack that shot, perhaps in response to Bowie’s and prob’ly a lot of other guys’ outrage, stating he had not realized a truce was in effect when he did it.

Probably didn’t matter anyway, the red flag of no mercy had already gone up on the church steeple, and unlike General Jose Urrea, (who would go on to capture the entire Texian army at Goliad, very possibly winning the war for Mexico until Santa Anna would kick the war back to life again by shooting everybody), Santa Anna was out for blood.

Birdwatcher;
Good morning to you sir, thanks for the reply and further information.

While I'd have to look back to be sure, I want to say it was a Monday that we'd have been at the Alamo, though it may have been Tuesday, I can't be sure.

We did see some folks who were dressed in period attire talking to the people who came to view the building and grounds and I thought it added to the experience to see them there.

As a wee bit of a student of history myself, I'll second your recommendation for Steven Hardin't "Texian Iliad" as being about the best researched and logically laid out book on the Texas Revolution that I've personally read.

Thanks again sir and all the best to you as we head into spring - though as I recall from our visit your weather now was quite tolerable indeed!

Dwayne

I've been there numerous times since 1969. While I have always felt humbled and solemn there, I have noted with disgust the downward trend of outright crassness displayed by younger generations visiting there. My last visit there a few years ago, I had to go so far as to confront one braying ponytail "fellow" that he was standing in a place of heroes who died so he could be an absolute [bleep], and to please act respectfully or leave.

Some of the most respectful visitors are from overseas, especially the Brits, in fact IIRC far and away the largest number of Second Texas Rev reenactors are English, where the largest Alamo re-enactments are staged.

Damn! Late again! That happens when you stay up all night sipping Taos lightening with Señors St. Vrain and Bent!!! Mebbe next time. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Thank you for bringing this up.

Birdy,

Headed to Washington on the Brazos, Friday morning for the Independence day festivities. Dudley and I will be set up with a couple of other surveyors across the lane from Lott’s Tavern (go figure).

The FIRST Texas revolution nobody talks much about, 1812/13.

Tejas requests help from President Madison in winning independence from Spain, which is a puzzle since there were only about 5,000 Mexican Citizens at that time in all of Texas, musta been bigger plans afoot. Secretary of State James Monroe takes charge, 1,000 guys resign from the US Army and enter Texas, allied with 500 Tejanos.

Whupped the Spanish forces twice in quick succession, 400 Spanish (well, Mexican) dead on Alazan Creek just west of present downtown, 300 Spanish dead on Salado Creek, about five miles southeast of the Alamo, minimal losses to the Texians. August 1813, Spain responds with an army of 1,800 men under a Spanish General Arredondo, about 1,000 Americans and 500 Tejanos and Indians meet him 20 miles south of town on the Medina River.

Catastrophe, less than 100 Spanish dead, hardly anyone on our side escapes the battlefield alive. Hundreds dead, hundreds of prisoners, Tejanos and Americans both, tortured with fire and killed on the battlefield, their bodies left hanging from trees. Arredondo storms into San Antonio, jams men and boys so densely into houses some suffocate, hands over all the women and girls to the soldiers. One woman refuses so she is placed naked in a hanging cage in the town square. Arredondo executes ten men a day for a month, 300 prisoners, their heads placed on pikes around the town square.

All in all, Arredondo executed hundreds of American prisoners, prob'ly more than any single individual in our history. I figure only in Texas would all of this be excluded from popular history. They certainly did remember in 1836, which accounts for the frantic Runaway Scrape by the Texians in advance of Santa Anna's army, this also accounting for why the Tejanos, for the most part, were initially neutral.

A force goes to East Texas, Nacodoches, executes around 100 Tejano men and boys.

It worked, 15,000 Americans fled to Lousiana, Texas is set back 20 years, burned out.

There was an enthusiastic 19yo Lieutenant in Arredondo's force; Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna y Lebron. 23 year years later that same guy is gonna come back as President of Mexico and read from Arredondo's playbook.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/ne...-hundreds-died-but-we-don-t-13074084.php


Eight years after Arredondo's reign of terror, Mexico is Independent, the butcher Arredondo now military governor of Coahulia y Tejas. Arreondo more'n anybody else oughtta know you cant kill enough Americans to keep 'em out. So he is influential in the decision to give wealthy Americans most of Texas in exchange for becoming loyal Mexican Citizens, these American-Mexicans would then create a Mexican buffer state against America proper. The cotton economy was taking over the South, and East Texas had the potential to become a wealthy cotton-producing area, why not bring in Americans who had the knowledge to grow it?

And that cotton was at the root of what the Second Texas Revolution was all about.