The dawn volley, fired at 6am, commemorating the 181st anniversary of the Fall of the Alamo.

It was the possibility of doing this that got me into reenacting the in the first place. After 5 years still a high point of my year.

A short pre-dawn remembrance ceremony for the men on both sides who fell, 800 killed or mortally wounded within a space of ninety minutes.









Couple of interesting points about this last photo.

First off, me (the guy in the straw top hat) and the guy next to me on my left were shooting rifles with double set triggers, when the command to "aim" was given both of us set the triggers on our rifles such that a mere touch would set the front trigger off. Both these rifles have very fast lock times such that when the front trigger was barely touched upon the command to "fire" ours were the first to go off by likely hundredths of a second.

The guy in the near end of the line with the brilliant flash in the pan was using my smoothbore, it has a big clunky lock with a long arc plus a heavy trigger. A microsecond later fire would come out the barrel.

Down the far end of the line are the guys playing the Mexican Soldados, their clunky Brown Bess muskets are barely starting to fire even though the actual command was given in Spanish from their end of the line.

Next thing to notice is the apparent airburst in front that other rifleman to my immediate left. I head that go off, it was loud. His powder had gotten damp this rainy weekend, musta been a little chunk of powder that cleared the barrel before detonating.



Birdwatcher

Well done Birdy!

That is great! I had no idea that y'all had re-enactments of the Battle of the Alamo.
I would love to see that.
Glad to see that y'all are keeping history alive there in San Antonio.
I will drive through San Antonio once again on Wednesday in the big truck. Would love to go by and see the Alamo but no way in the big truck.

How do you go about getting involved in this ? I'd like to participate if possible.

So now that Trump is President, does that mean the Texicans win the re-enactments...

Thanks, Mike. I really hope that someday I'll be there to attend the ceremony, and pay my respects.
7mm

Awesome man!

Thank you for keeping history alive.

Well done.

Very nicely done, Birdwatcher!

Was down that way visiting my nephew and niece Christmas before last. Couldn't miss seeing the Alamo for anything. Would have loved to have see a reenactment or remembrance of any sort. Mayhaps next year...

Tip-o'-the-hat to ya, Mike. Remember The Alamo!!

Thanks for posting those pictures, Mike! And whom ever took the photos did a great job also! One of these days, I'm going to make it down on another March 6th to see the ceremony.

its cool

For twenty years they had a reenactment of sorts on the Alamo Plaza, scroll through the 55 images on this link...

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Story-of-Alamo-still-changing-10978968.php

...the last one was 2015. What happened was the city got worried about liability, and I'll agree it was pretty crowded and close although great fun for us reenactors (we used to die heroically at 11:00am and again at 2:00 pm, the hard part being pratfalls onto concrete while protecting the expensive firearm, and if ya gotta be massacred it might as well be by some of your buddies in fancy uniforms :grin).

The BIG problem though was every time the cannons went off, little bits would fall from the roof of the Alamo church itself on the inside. They used sophisticated equipment on the walls and found they were riddled with voids, the soft limestone blocks having crumbled and dissolved in places over about the last 280 years since its construction. So now they are all injected with silicon but the structure remains intrinsically fragile.

Anyhoo... our big annual reenactment shindig is at Goliad in two weeks where everyone camps out inside the walls of the old Spanish fort. There'll be cannons and cavalry...



The other big one is San Jacinto in Houston in April....





Compared to Goliad though that one runs hot, muddy and with a lot of bugs.

Birdwatcher

Excellent!

Typing this near Fannin.

Thanks Bird Man!!

The most expensive part is the firearm, the hardest part is the footwear. "Jurying" (passing inspection that your gun, clothes and gear are really pre-1840) is pretty lax, although the hard core that show up every year are pretty serious about their stuff. That being said, the Second Texas Revolution is about the easiest reenacting outside of buckskinning there is because everything from 18th Century flintlocks to Paterson Colt revolvers were present in Texas, and at least a few of just about every group of people under the sun.

My own interest is the settlement of a few hundred Irish Catholics around San Patricio just south of present day Mathis near Corpus.

Most guys were still using flintlocks out here in Texas although percussion weapons were present, but if ya ran out of caps back then it was a long walk to get more.

Half-stock percussion plains rifles like TC Hawkens are doable even though they were mostly 1840's - 1860's as long as you remove the factory rear sight for a simple notch or buckhorn.

Hard part about the shoes is finding ones that fit since you buy 'em sight unseen for the most part over the 'net. Most guys in the 1830's were wearing straight-last shoes (ie. both identical no right or left) but these are expensive and the one company that has 'em (CD Jarnigans) don't offer them in my size.

Most of us use plain 'ol Civil War brogans which, other than being right and left, look pretty much the way shoes looked for the fifty years prior to that war. I get mine from Fall Creek Sutlers....

https://fcsutler.com/fcshoes.asp

The BIG plus of Fall Creek is that if they say they are size 10EEE they really are that size.

And a word of advice: if you go for historically-correct hobnails on your boots or shoes be aware that they can chew up floors and offer little traction on concrete or asphalt.

So if you show up with a correct gun and clothes you're in, that's all there is to it.

'Nother plus about 1830's Texian is they were all a bunch of individuals rather than soldiers, consequently no wool uniforms, marching, drills, command structures etc etc....

Its about the most laid-back form of reenacting there is outside of Mountain Man rondys.

Birdwatcher

Mike- Really appreciate your your Texas history posts and pix like these. I've only made it to Texas once....never as far as the Alamo. Both of my (older) boys have lived down there. I would like to go down and spend some time. It's a special place.

Remember the Alamo!!

Remember Goliad

As always, it's hard to read your post without learning something! Though I doubt I'll move to Texas, I was wondering about the clothes and guns as well. Running into Civil War are-enactors, I've heard some units won't even accept uniforms if the stitching is not period correct! Thanks Mike.
7mm

I used to live in central Georgia. One day in 1985 I was driving through Gray, Georgia. I saw a bunch of guys dressed in Civil War attire!
I pulled over to check them out. Turned out they were going to re entact a Civil War battle. I had lived around there for 10 years, but had no idea anybody was doing Civil War re enactments there. They were re enacting the Battle of Griswoldville. In that battle, 800 cadets from Macon Georgia had come down to fight against Sherman's Army. Didn't turn out well for the Rebel cadets.

It turned out I was in the Rebel camp. In those days, for some reason, I had gotten into wearing Mennonite clothing.
To the Mennonites zippers are from Satan. They wear only clothes with buttons.
So I was wearing a button down cotton shirt, long sleeved, and Mennonite button pants with suspenders. Also leather boots. I looked like a guy out of 1840 or something.

I got talking to about six of these Rebs, all geared up with their caps and Springfield rifles etc.
Suddenly their Lieutenant showed up. He said "Boys what have y'all got here?" referring to me.
They said "Don't know, Lieutenant, he won't give his regiment."

The Lieutenant cried out "Yankee spy! String him up!"
And sure enough, here came a guy with a hemp rope in a hangman's noose. A couple of the guys grabbed me.

I must say that was really weird, for me, lights started flashing. I thought I was in a time warp.
Did y'all see that Twilight Zone episode where three National Guard guys on maneuvers with their tank in Montana, got into a time warp and wound up fighting for Custer's Last Stand?

For a minute that was what it felt like for me, I thought they were going to hang me.
Then, the Lieutenant began laughing. It was all a joke!

Well I got talking to them and they said I could fight in the re enactment. At that time I didn't have a Civil War rifle but I had a TC Hawken.
They decided that my clothing was period correct, and that it was possible, and likely, that a Percussion Hawken rifle had been used in the Civil War.
So I went home and got my rifle.

An hour later I was back in time for the battle. I wanted to be a Rebel but they told me I had to be a Yankee.

It was great! I was in the Yankee line, I loaded and put in a paper wad and fired at the Rebs, 80 yards away. They said to aim 10 feet high but I aimed right at the Rebs, hard to hurt someone with a newspaper wad at 80 yards.

We ran forward and I jumped down onto the ground with my Yankee squad mates.
The guy ten feet away said "You better move, friend. That is a cannonball site."
I looked down and I could see two little wires buried in the ground right next to me.
I moved 20 feet away. Seconds later, that spot exploded and there was a crater 2 feet deep!
These guys had placed sticks of dynamite all over the battle field, with blasting caps.

They coordinated that their buddies would fire a cannon, and just then a guy would flip a switch, and blow a buried stick of dynamite. Very realistic looking.

I was having a great time and had shot about 15 Rebs, though, none of them dropped.
Just then my Yankee captain came up to me and said, "You have to cry Scairdy Cat and desert! Run back towards the camp."
I said "Screw you I am no coward."
One of the other privates said "You have to obey Captain's orders."

So I did it. I jumped up, threw my rifle into the air, and yelled "I can't take it any more."
I turned around and ran towards the rear.
The Captain drew his Colt .44 and shot me right between the shoulder blades.
I dropped like I had been pole axed.
Must have looked pretty good because that episode made the Macon tv news that night.

I really loved being in that battle, all except the part where I had to desert.
I believe in past lives and I did fight in the Civil War, on the Rebel side.

Ya, stitch nazis.

Again the beauty of doing Second Texas Rev. is ya don't gotta join an outfit with all the rules and petty tyrants that can involve.

OTOH, last time I did San Jacinto a couple of years back the guy next to me on the line was using an 1863 Springfield musket

Anyhoo, with flinters, first shot is never a problem, but if yer in an extended "fire at will" scenario and twenty rounds later yer flint quits sparking, that's when you suddenly get hit and fall down dead.

One time at Goliad we agreed amongst ourselves on the field that when the next Mexican cannon went off about fifteen of us on the line would go down all at once, "victims" of the same Mex cannonball. Next cannon goes off and there we went, tumbling down dead, it was pretty dramatic

Birdwatcher

cool stuff Mike, tks

Front page of today's paper Mike.

Remembering The Alamo

By Chuck Baldwin
March 9, 2017



This past Monday, March 6, marked the anniversary of the fall of the Alamo outside of San Antonio, Texas, back in 1836. This event is so significant in my mind that I always try to devote a column that honors the heroism of these men on or around the anniversary of the occasion.

For 13 days, 189 brave and determined patriots withstood Santa Anna’s seasoned army of over 4,000 troops. To a man, the defenders of that mission fort knew that they would never leave those ramparts alive. They had several opportunities to leave and live. Yet they chose to fight and die. How foolish they must look to this generation of spoiled Americans.

It is difficult to recall that stouthearted men such as Davy Crockett (a nationally renowned frontiersman and former congressman), Will Travis (only 26 years old with two small children at home), Jim Bowie (a wealthy landowner with properties on both sides of the Rio Grande), and Almaron Dickinson (a 36-year-old blacksmith and artillery captain who was one of the very last men to die at the Alamo and whose young wife and daughter were two of only three Alamo survivors) really existed. These were real men with real dreams and real desires. Real blood flowed through their veins. They loved their families and enjoyed life as much as any of us do. However, there was something different about them. They possessed a commitment to liberty that transcended personal safety and comfort.

Liberty is an easy word to say, but it is a hard word to live up to. Freedom involves much more than financial gain or personal pleasure. Accompanying Freedom is her constant and unattractive companion, Responsibility. Neither is she an only child. Courage and Honesty are her sisters. They are inseparable: destroy one and all will die.

Early in the siege, Travis wrote these words to the people of Texas: “Fellow Citizens & Compatriots: I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna. . . . The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword. . . . I have answered the demand with a cannon shot & our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat. . . . VICTORY OR DEATH! P.S. The Lord is on our side.”

As you read those words, remember that Travis and the others did not have the National Education Association (NEA) telling them how intolerant and narrow-minded their notions of honor and patriotism were. They didn’t have the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) telling them they were a hate group. A hostile media did not constantly castigate them as a bunch of wild-eyed extremists. As schoolchildren, they were not taught that their forefathers were nothing more than racist jerks. The TSA didn’t have them on a terrorist watch list. Neither did they have 501c3 pastors constantly filling their hearts and minds with this imbecilic “obey-the-government-no-matter-what” misinterpretation of Romans chapter 13.

The brave men at the Alamo labored under the belief that America (and Texas) really was “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” They believed in God and that their cause was just. They also believed that the freedom of future generations depended on their courage and resolve. They further believed their posterity would remember their sacrifice as an act of love and devotion. It all looks pale now.

By today’s standards, the gallant men of the Alamo appear rather foolish. After all, they had no chance of winning--none. Yet the call for pragmatism and compromise was never sounded. Instead, they answered the clarion call, “Victory or death!”

Please try to remember the heroes of the Alamo as you watch our spineless political, religious, and business leaders surrender to globalism, corporatism, socialism, and political correctness. Try to remember the heroes of the Alamo as you watch the Republicans and Democrats in Washington, D.C., create a more draconian Police State than Santa Anna could have even dreamed of creating.

One thing is certain: those courageous champions at the Alamo did not fight and die for a political party or for some “lesser of two evils” mantra. They fought and died for a cause--and that cause was liberty and independence.

In 1836, those 189 defenders of the Alamo joined the ranks of the world’s greatest freedom fighters. Patriots such as the 70 Christian men (most of whom were from Pastor Jonas Clark’s Church of Lexington) who stood against 800 British troops on April 19, 1775, at Lexington Green and the hundreds more who joined them at the Concord Bridge a little while later. Men such as the great freedom fighter, William Wallace, and his band of 7,000 Scots who stood against an English force of 18,000 trained British soldiers at the Battle of Stirling Bridge on September 11, 1297--and again on July 22, 1298, when Wallace and 5,000 Scots went up against an English force of over 15,000 soldiers at the Battle of Falkirk. And let’s not forget the single greatest example of men who chose to fight for liberty against the greatest of odds: the 300 Spartans who squared off against more than 100,000 Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae in August or September of 480 B.C. These stories--and hundreds like them--are the heritage of free men everywhere. And the willingness to stand against overwhelming odds for the cause of liberty is certainly America’s heritage.

At the same time, it is extremely important to note that the Alamo defenders (and the rest of the honorable men mentioned in the above paragraph) did NOT act as a mob. It is truly stated that no one has a right to take the law into his or her own hands. These men acted in accordance with the Natural Law of God, and thus their resistance was just and righteous.

I heard that a pastor recently said, “I can find no justification for America’s War for Independence in the scriptures.” (I hope many of his congregants found no justification for staying under his spiritual leadership after hearing that egregiously erroneous comment.) The only reason a pastor could say such a thing is because he is totally ignorant of Biblical Natural Law. Either that or he is a monarchical statist. Sadly, I would guess that a huge percentage of America’s pastors today actually share this pastor’s sentiment. (Why don’t you ask YOUR pastor what he thinks next Sunday?)

The heroes of the Alamo, as well as the heroes of America’s fight for independence, acted bravely and in good conscience under the moral law of God and the just laws of Nature. They did not act on their own authority but on the Natural authority of a Body Politic.

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.”

John Locke (The Father of America’s Founding Fathers) said, “If a long train of abuses, prevarications and artifices, all tending the same way, make the design visible to the people, and they cannot but feel what they lie under, and see whither they are going; it is not to be wondered, that they should then rouze themselves, and endeavour to put the rule into such hands which may secure to them the ends for which government was at first erected.”

Locke continued: “Whosoever uses force without right, as every one does in society, who does it without law, puts himself into a state of war with those against whom he so uses it; and in that state all former ties are cancelled, all other rights cease, and every one has a right to defend himself, and to resist the aggressor.”

In line with the law of conscience, for those who advance that civil society’s rules must be abandoned and armed resistance taken (thus putting society in a state of war), there is a standard of proof that must be met, so as to convince The People that the actions taken outside the rules of established law are justified. This is what our founders did when they penned a Declaration of Independence. The founders of the Republic of Texas did likewise.

This is why it is absolutely obligatory that:

1. People are thoroughly informed and educated regarding the Natural Law--including the divine principles regarding lawful resistance to government.

America’s founders were well versed in Natural Law. Their resistance to and separation from Great Britain--as well as the form of government that they created in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights--were rightly predicated upon the “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” (Declaration)

2. Clergymen immediately familiarize themselves with the Natural Law of our Creator and quickly begin teaching these principles to their congregations.

Most New England pastors of Colonial America were scholars when it came to the understanding of Natural Law. Sadly, Natural Law has not been taught in America’s churches for over one hundred years--at least to any significant degree. The vast majority of pastors are totally ignorant of Natural Law. As a result, the people of this country have lost all cognizance of the integral relationship between Natural Law and a free society.

3. State legislators, governors, attorney generals, judges, sheriffs, etc., not only become familiar with the Natural Law principles of liberty but also come to a comprehension and conviction of their responsibility and authority to use their office within State government to galvanize the Body Politic, “We The People,” in the defense of liberty.

The Alamo defenders, America’s Founding Fathers, William Wallace and his band of Scots, and King Leonidas and his fellow Spartans all acted in accordance with the Natural Law principles stated above. They did NOT engage in armed resistance as individuals or as a mob, but under the Natural Law authority of man’s Creator.

P.S. Several weeks ago, I informed readers of a fantastic new film that is currently in production. The movie is called “Mainstream: How Hollywood Movies And The New York Media Are Promoting The Globalist Agenda.” I am so committed to the production of this film that I have become an executive producer of the film. This movie is truly a blockbuster movie: there has never been another film like it.

The mainstream media and entertainment industries have done as much to corrupt the soul of American society as anything else--and more than most. And the entire mainstream media and entertainment companies are controlled by a very small handful of people. And this tiny but powerful cabal is controlling most of the information that the American people consume on a daily basis.

MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski (daughter of globalist heavyweight Zbigniew Brzezinski) actually let the cat out of the bag on the “Morning Joe” show recently by saying, “And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he [Donald Trump] could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think. AND THAT, THAT IS OUR JOB.” [Emphasis added]

Brzezinski: 'Our Job' Is To Control 'Exactly What People Think’

The new movie “Mainstream” is a brutally honest exposé of how the mainstream media and entertainment industries have tried to do what Ms. Brzezinksi emphatically stated was their intention to do: “control exactly what people think.”

I have said it for years: the mainstream media is nothing more than a propaganda machine for globalists in and out of the federal government. And now, a major motion picture is preparing to give the American people the details that mainstream media bosses hope you will never learn.

Some of the most notable freedomists alive are featured in this film, including Edwin Vieira, G. Edward Griffin, John McManus, Ron Paul and several more. Yes, I am also featured in the film.

Very cool story! thanks for posting.

Thanks,

For anyone interested in what is probably the most accurate depiction ever committed to video concerning the Second Texas War of Independence and the Fall of the Alamo this is 78 minutes well spent....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oueKEtP1pl8#t=83.84339

Dunno what year it was made, looks to be about 10 years ago. I should see some of the people featured in it today

Birdwatcher

Mike,

Yesterday evening, just about dark I heard several rounds of cannon fire. I've heard this before, and don't know where it's coming from.

Being as I'm not far from Fannin, I was wondering if maybe someone is practicing for the upcoming reenactments?

Do they have cannon fire during that at Goliad or Fannin?

Thanks

As you prob'ly know, the big weekend at Goliad is coming up in just two weeks, the annual high point for Texian/Soldado reenactors.

I know there is some sort of commemoration at the Fannin Battlefield Site itself but not a full-blown reenactment.

There will be five or six assorted cannons at La Bahia in Goliad. I dunno where the guys who own those cannon live. I do know that cannons can go through a pound of black powder pretty quick.

Just getting dressed out like I do is easy, the guys who show up with horses and/or cannon are the ones who are truly committed. Besides the costs of powder, with a cannon you need at least three other guys, all of whom who have to know what they are doing.

http://www.artilleryreserve.org/accident.pdf

I think they fired about 6 times.

One volley was in rapid succession, so I think there were 3 cannons used.

From the sound of it, I'd say they were pretty large bore. One stood out from the others.

It sounded like they all 3 fired a volley, then reloaded and fired once more at their leisure.

Thanks for the info!