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Post by quincannon on Mar 9, 2015 17:50:38 GMT -6
Mac I get myself in a lot of trouble with the words break out. The defenders in great number did break out, but it was a break out from the walls in a direction where there was no enemy presence, so in this instance the breaking out from the confines of the walls was actually, a run for your bloody life retreat, in a direction there was no enemy presence.
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Post by mac on Mar 9, 2015 20:08:23 GMT -6
I wonder if defender numbers were that important at the Alamo in that SA had numbers, time and determination and so could probably take the position eventually one way or another. There was no relief force coming as far as I recall. Cheers
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Post by dave on Mar 9, 2015 21:04:13 GMT -6
QC Great post full of goodies for me to study and look into tomorrow. Spring break week here so I have at least 2 and maybe all 3 grand kids. So it will be later in the day to study. Mac Very interesting post. I have never looked at the Alamo from your viewpoint before. Just go Timothy Smith's latest book on Shiloh. That is my real kryptonite. Regards Dave
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Post by quincannon on Mar 9, 2015 21:12:40 GMT -6
Santa Anna was actually hoping that a relief force would show up I think from the direction of Gonzalez which was a rather useful gathering point for what passed for the Texian Army. Recall that the Gonzalez Mounted Ranging Company had little difficulty in breaking in. It would be to Santa Anna's advantage to have the decisive battle of the revolution fought in the San Antonio area. Goliad was already taken out of play. It was really a non factor since anything that garrison would do would be pounced upon by a force of nearly equal strength to Santa Anna's own vanguard. After 3 March when his main body showed up, Santa Anna had everything required for an assault, and he concluded he was wasting his time and Houston was not coming. Houston would have been a fool to do so. Thus the stage was set for an assault in the very early morning hours of Sunday 6 March. Odd how both the Alamo and LBH came to their conclusions on Sunday.
Santa Anna kept a very loose ring around the Alamo until the main body showed up, and they started positioning themselves on 4 March and after.
Santa Anna's plan for the assault I am sure will be gotten into later, but it was very good, and as we discuss what I shall now term exodus rather than break out, I think you will see what a masterful tactician he was, which has been lost on most since he became the premiere Mexican bad guy. Really quite talented.
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Post by mac on Mar 9, 2015 21:45:26 GMT -6
Waiting/ hoping for a relief force is very clever. I don't really see why the Alamo was defended. My understanding is that Bowie went there to recover the artillery pieces to stop the Mexicans getting them. If this was not possible would they not be best destroyed/ disabled then get out of there? Cheers
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Post by Colt45 on Mar 10, 2015 7:52:35 GMT -6
When I was in grade school (centuries ago) the Texas history teacher posed the question to us about why was the Alamo defended. What sense did it make? His answer was the choice was fight the Mexicans there or in the settlements. Not wanting to fight in the actual settlements (women and children present, etc.), the Alamo was the choice for a defense. He didn't delve into that statement quite enough to allow for a military explanation of why that was important, and at my age back then, all I knew about military things was what I saw on John Wayne movies. So I wonder, was that the reason the Alamo was chosen as the location for a stand? Hopefully QC or someone can help out with that.
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Post by quincannon on Mar 10, 2015 8:02:35 GMT -6
Answers are usually a little more complicated than questions Mac, and this is no exception.
Texas was actually divided into two parts. TexMex Texas was from the San Antonio River line, south to the Rio Bravo del Norte (Rio Grande). Colonial Texas was north of the San Antonio and that river line went from San Antonio past Goliad to the Gulf.
As stated it was to Santa Anna's advantage to fight along the river line, destroy the Texian Army then move north into the colonies to punish them and drive them out The advantage for the Texians was to fight on the river line and defeat Santa Anna before he could ravage the colonies and destroy the farms, rancheros, and small towns like Gonzalez.
Santa Anna was not expected until April. No one expected him to make a mid-winter march over the very hostile country that is south Texas. The Texians had largely gone home after the fight in San Antonio in December, but it was likely they would return come spring to confront Santa Anna along the river line, saving the colonies from disruption or destruction,
It was San Antonio they wished to defend, not the Alamo. When Santa Anna showed up on the Medina on 22 February, and moved against San Antonio on the 23, the Texians were caught as our UK friends say, on the back foot. There is a fellow in Scotland named Stuart, who calls the Alamo a lifeboat, and I think him correct. Cos had built defenses there. Probably some had been built earlier. The Texians improved upon them and the post engineer Benito Jameson had rather complicated plans to even better fortify the place (a copy is in Hansen). I think that normal, and the place contained the largest park of artillery west of the Mississippi.
So I can see why anyone would be reluctant to give up or destroy those guns, but other than using the structure as a base I do not believe there was much intention of defending the Alamo itself but rather using it as part of the defenses of San Antonio. The Texians had not even provided it with food prior to 23 February and the water supply was always questionable.
Houston wanted the place blown up. He knew early on how to defeat Santa Anna by refusing battle until he could bring him to battle at a time, and place of his own choosing, which gets back to the discussion of a few days ago about how irregular forces confront regular armies. Houston might have commanded, but he had no real authority, for Texas was a mess politically. There were those who wish to maintain the 1824 Constitution, and those who wanted complete independence and they fought like cats and dogs. Neill was the guy calling the shots in San Antonio anyway, and the Die in these ditches letter was signed by both Neill and Bowie.
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Post by quincannon on Mar 10, 2015 8:16:43 GMT -6
Question of the day. Who is largely responsible for preserving the portion of the Alamo we have today, and why?
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Post by tubman13 on Mar 10, 2015 8:18:36 GMT -6
I have, so far, kept my yap shut. While Crocket gets a great deal of play in these stories, if I am not mistaking his only real experience in making war was with Jackson against the Creek Indians and such. Also I have often wondered why this force of freedom fighters didn't just hit and run attack against Santa Anna. I would think mobility would have been tougher for the Mexicans than a siege.
Regards, Tom
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Post by tubman13 on Mar 10, 2015 8:31:06 GMT -6
Regarding question, Texas Legislature and The Daughters of The Republic.
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Post by dave on Mar 10, 2015 8:47:06 GMT -6
QC You have mentioned Hansen a few times. Is this Todd Hansen and his book "Alamo Reader?" If so it is a tad bit pricey at $140.00 for a used copy. Regards Dave
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Post by quincannon on Mar 10, 2015 9:04:45 GMT -6
Tom:
1) Freedom fighter is in the eye of the beholder. To the Mexicans, actually the centrist Mexican government led by Santa Anna, they were pirates.
2) That would seem logical to use irregular warfare against the Mexicans. Truth is they did not have the mobility that would require. There were very few horses with the garrison of San Antonio, and many they did have were out grazing on the 23rd of February when they were surprised, and not recovered.
3) Crockett had little military experience, and it was about 20 years old. Despite all the hoopla about David he was nothing more than a private in Harrison's Company of Tennessee Volunteers.
Dave: Yes Todd Hansen and the book is Alamo Reader. I picked my copy up on a remainder table in Fairfax, Virginia when I was visiting my mother. I had seen it the year before on a similar visit, and passed it by. It was still on the same table a year late, and I paid five bucks for it. I suggest inter library loan if your interest is passing. If you are at all a serious student, or wish to be, the price is worth it. I wish there was a similar volume on LBH.
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Post by quincannon on Mar 10, 2015 9:12:08 GMT -6
Tom: BZZZZZ wrong. The Texas legislature, and the Daughters had a lot to do with turning the place into the shrine it is today, but had absolutely nothing to do with preventing it from being demolished and preserving what remained, so that it could become a shrine many, many, years later.
Sam Maverick wished to turn the place into Levittown, and would have done so had he had his way. Sam Maverick was an Alamo defender, and many of his friends died there while he was one of the Alamo garrisons delegation to the convention at Washington on the Brazos. The prospect of money making is the antithesis of preserving all some consider holy and sacred.
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Post by dave on Mar 10, 2015 9:35:29 GMT -6
QC The same thing that happened to the battle ground of the Alamo has occurred at Bull Run, Franklin, Gettysburg, Stone's River, Tupelo, Antietam and Vicksburg to mention a few. Very difficult to preserve a battlefield right after a conflict when people just want to move on with their lives. Valuable crop land could not be wasted marking the area of recent blood conflicts and continually turning up bodies while planting. Shiloh and Pea Ridge were saved only because they occurred in rural areas with poor farm land. Regards Dave
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Post by quincannon on Mar 10, 2015 9:49:49 GMT -6
Actually Manassas is on the up swing. A lot of that land is deeded over to the Park Service upon the demise of the current owners. This is especially true in the railroad cut area. Vicksburg is a special case in that the town and the defenses were integrated with each other even at the time of the battle. The Stuart Hill area has been transformed back to park land since I have been in Colorado.
Antietam and Gettysburg are not as bad as they could be, and unlike others I have no particular heartburn with how Gettysburg has developed. Everything important is still there, and it is also at Antietam.
One of the reasons what is surviving as Gettysburg is still surviving is that in WWI the area of Pickett's charge was transformed into a Tank Corps training area called Camp Colt, commanded by Dwight D. Eisenhower.
I don't know a thing about Franklin and Stone's River.
The Alamo was a very tempting site for development. Most picture it in some open field somewhere, when actually it was on the edge of town, and development had already started around it at the time of the siege.
This question is harder than I anticipated, and the answer may surprise some. I will tell you this that the use it was put to, was replaced by another structure post ACW. That may help.
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