Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville

by Stephen Jay Gould

  Nations need heroes, and Jim Bowie did die in action at the Alamo, along with Davy Crockett and about 180 fighters for Texian independence (using the “i” then included in the name), under the command of William B. Travis, an articulate twenty-six-year-old lawyer with a lust for martyrdom combined with a fearlessness that should not be disparaged, whatever one may think of his judgment. In fact, I have no desire to question Bowie’s legitimate status as a hero at the Alamo at all. But I do wish to explicate his virtues by debunking the legend portrayed in Charlie Croker’s painting, and by suggesting that our admiration should flow for quite different reasons that have never been hidden, but that the legend leads us to disregard.

  The debunking of canonical legends ranks as a favorite intellectual sport for all the usual and ever-so-human reasons of one-upmanship, aggressivity within a community that denies itself the old-fashioned expression of genuine fisticuffs, and the simple pleasure of getting details right. But such debunking also serves a vital scholarly purpose at the highest level of identifying and correcting some of the most serious pitfalls in human reasoning. I make this somewhat grandiose claim for the following reason:

  The vertebrate brain works primarily as a device tuned to the recognition of patterns. When evolution grafted consciousness in human form upon this organ in a single species, the old inherent search for patterns developed into a propensity for organizing these patterns as stories, and then for explaining the surrounding world in terms of the narratives expressed in these tales. For universal reasons that probably transcend the cultural particulars of individual groups, humans tend to construct their stories along a limited number of themes and pathways, favored because they grant both useful sense and satisfying meaning to the confusion (and often to the tragedy) of life in our complex surrounding world.

  Stories, in other words, only “go” in a limited number of strongly preferred ways, with the two deepest requirements invoking, first, a theme of directionality (linked events proceeding in an ordered sequence for definable reasons, and not as an aimless wandering—back, forth, and sideways—to nowhere); and second, a sense of motivation, or definite reasons propelling the sequence (whether we judge the outcomes good or bad). These motivations will be rooted directly in human purposes for stories involving our own species. But tales about nonconscious creatures or inanimate objects must also provide a surrogate for valor (or dishonorable intent for dystopian tales)—as in the virtue of evolutionary principles that dictate the increasing general complexity of life, or the lamentable inexorability of thermodynamics in guaranteeing the eventual burnout and explosion of the sun. In summary, and at the risk of oversimplification, we like to explain pattern in terms of directionality, and causation in terms of valor. The two central and essential components of any narrative—pattern and cause—therefore fall under the biasing rubric of our mental preferences.

  I will refer to the small set of primal tales based upon these deep requirements as “canonical stories.” Our strong propensity for expressing all histories, be they human, organic, or cosmic, in terms of canonical stories would not entail such enormous problems for science—but might be viewed, instead, as simply humorous in exposing the foibles of Homo sapiens—if two properties of mind and matter didn’t promote a potentially harmless idiosyncrasy into a pervasive bias actively derailing our hopes for understanding events that unfold in time. (The explanation of temporal sequences defines the primary task of a large subset among our scientific disciplines—the so-called historical sciences of geology, anthropology, evolutionary biology, cosmology, and many others. Thus, if the lure of “canonical stories” blights our general understanding of historical sequences, much of what we call “science” labors under a mighty impediment.)

  As for matter, many patterns and sequences in our complex world owe their apparent order to the luck of the draw within random systems. We flip five heads in a row once every thirty-two sequences on average. Stars clump into patterns in the sky because they are distributed effectively at random (within contraints imposed by the general shape of our Milky Way galaxy) with respect to the earth’s position in space. An absolutely even spacing of stars, yielding no perceivable clumps at all, would require some fairly fancy, and obviously nonexistent, rules of deterministic order. Thus, if our minds obey an almost irresistible urge to detect patterns, and then to explain these patterns in the causal terms of a few canonical stories, our quest to understand the sources (often random) of order will be stymied.

  As for mind, even when we can attribute a pattern to conventional nonrandom reasons, we often fail to apprehend both the richness and the nature of these causes because the lure of canonical stories leads us to entertain only a small subset among legitimate hypotheses for explaining the recorded events. Even worse, since we cannot observe everything in the blooming and buzzing confusion of the world’s surrounding richness, the organizing power of canonical stories leads us to ignore important facts readily within our potential sight, and to twist or misread the information that we do manage to record. In other words, and to summarize my principal theme in a phrase, canonical stories predictably “drive” facts into definite and distorted pathways that validate the outlines and necessary components of these archetypal tales. We therefore fail to note important items in plain sight, while we misread other facts by forcing them into preset mental channels, even when we retain a buried memory of actual events.

  This essay illustrates how canonical stories have predictably relegated crucial information to misconstruction or invisibility in two great folk tales of American history: Bowie’s letter and Buckner’s legs, as oddly (if euphoniously) combined in my title. I will then extend the general message to argue that the allure of canonical stories acts as the greatest impediment to better understanding throughout the realm of historical science—one of the largest and most important domains of human intellectual activity.

  Jim Bowie’s Letter

  How the canonical story of “all the brothers were valiant, and all the sisters virtuous,” has hidden a vital document in plain sight. (This familiar quotation first appears on the tomb of the Duchess of Newcastle, who died in 1673 and now lies in Westminster Abbey.)

  The Alamo of San Antonio, Texas, was not designed as a fortress, but as a mission built by eighteenth-century Spaniards. Today, the Alamo houses exhibits and artifacts, most recalling the death of all Texian defenders in General Santa Anna’s assault, with a tenfold advantage in troops and after nearly two weeks of siege, on March 6, 1836. This defeat and martyrdom electrified the Texian cause, which triumphed less than two months later when Sam Houston’s men captured Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, and then forced the Mexican general to barter Texas for his life, his liberty, and the return of his opium bottle.

  The Alamo’s exhibits, established and maintained by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, and therefore no doubt more partisan than the usual (and, to my mind, generally admirable) fare that the National Park Service provides in such venues, tells the traditional tale, as I shall do here. (Mexican sources, no doubt, purvey a different but equally traditional account from another perspective.) I shall focus on the relationship of Bowie and Travis, for my skepticism about the canonical story focuses on a fascinating letter, written by Bowie and prominently displayed in the Alamo, but strangely disregarded to the point of invisibility in the official presentation.

  In December 1835, San Antonio had been captured by Texian forces in fierce fighting with Mexican troops under General Cos. On January 17, 1836, Sam Houston ordered Jim Bowie and some thirty men to enter San Antonio, destroy the Alamo, and withdraw the Texian forces to more defendable ground. But Bowie, after surveying the situation, disagreed for both strategic and symbolic reasons, and decided to fortify the Alamo instead. The arrival, on February 3, of thirty additional men under the command of William B. Travis strengthened Bowie’s decision.

  But tension inevitably developed between two such different leaders, the forty-year-old, har
d-drinking, fearlessly independent, but eminently practical and experienced Bowie, and the twenty-six-year-old troubled and vainglorious Travis, who had left wife and fortune in Alabama to seek fame and adventure on the Texian frontier. (Mexico had encouraged settlement of the Texian wilderness by all who would work the land and swear allegiance to the liberal constitution of 1824, but the growing Anglo majority had risen in revolt, spurred by the usual contradictory motives of lust for control and love of freedom, as expressed in anger at Santa Anna’s gradual abrogation of constitutional guarantees.)

  Bowie commanded the volunteers, while Travis led the “official” army troops. A vote among the volunteers overwhelmingly favored Bowie’s continued leadership, so the two men agreed upon an uneasy sharing of authority, with all orders to be signed by both. This arrangement became irrelevant, and Travis assumed full command, when Bowie fell ill with clearly terminal pneumonia and a slew of other ailments just after the siege began on February 23. In fact, Charlie Croker’s painting notwithstanding, Bowie may have been comatose, or even already dead, when Mexican forces broke through on March 6. He may have made his legendary last “stand” (in supine position), propped up in his bed with pistols in hand, but he could not have mounted more than a symbolic final defense, and his legendary knife could not have reached past the Mexican bayonets in any case.

  The canonical story of valor at the Alamo features two incidents, both centered upon Travis, with one admitted as legendary by all serious historians, and the other based upon a stirring letter, committed to memory by nearly all Texas schoolchildren ever since. As for the legend, when Travis realized that no reinforcements would arrive, and that all his men would surely die if they defended the Alamo by force of arms (for Santa Anna had clearly stated his terms of no mercy or sparing of life without unconditional surrender), he called a meeting, drew a line in the sand, and then invited all willing defenders of the Alamo to cross the line to his side, while permitting cowards and doubters to scale the wall and make their inglorious exit (as one man did). In this stirring legend, Jim Bowie, now too weak to stand, asks his men to carry his bed across the line.

  Well, Travis may have made a speech at the relevant time, but no witness and survivor (several women and one slave) ever reported the story. (The tale apparently originated about forty years later, supposedly told by the single man who had accepted Travis’s option to escape.)

  As for the familiar letter, few can read Travis’s missive with a dry eye, while even the most skeptical of Alamo historians heaps honor upon this document of February 24, carried by a courier (who broke through the Mexican lines) to potential reinforcements, but addressed to “The People of Texas and All Americans in the World.” (For example, Ben H. Proctor describes Travis as “egotistical, proud, vain, with strong feelings about his own destiny, about glory and personal mission…trouble in every sense of the word,” but judges this missive as “one of the truly remarkable letters of history, treasured by lovers of liberty everywhere.” See Proctor’s pamphlet, The Battle of the Alamo [Texas State Historical Association, 1986].)

  I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna—I have sustained a continual bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man—The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken—I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls—I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch—The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & and that of his country—VICTORY OR DEATH.

  Although a small group of thirty men did arrive to reinforce the Alamo, their heroic presence as cannon and bayonet fodder could not alter the course of events, while a genuine force that could have made a difference, several hundred men stationed at nearby Goliad, never came to Travis’s aid, for complex reasons still under intense historical debate. Every Texian fighter died in Santa Anna’s attack on March 6. According to the usual legend, all the men fell in action. But substantial, if inconclusive, evidence indicates that six men may have surrendered at the hopeless end, only to be summarily executed by Santa Anna’s direct order. The probable presence of Davy Crockett among this group accounts for the disturbing effect and emotional weight of this persistent tale.

  As something of an Alamo buff, and a frequent visitor to the site in San Antonio, I have long been bothered and intrigued by a crucial document, a letter by the Alamo’s other leader, Jim Bowie, that seems to provide quite a different perspective upon the siege, but doesn’t fit within the canonical legend and hardly receives a mention in any official account at the shrine itself. Bowie’s letter thus remains “hidden in plain sight”—sitting in its own prominent glass case, right in the main hall of the on-site exhibition. This curious feature of “prominently displayed but utterly passed over” has fascinated me for twenty years. I have, in three visits to the Alamo, bought every popular account of the battle for sale at the extensive gift shop. I have read these obsessively and can assert that Bowie’s letter, while usually acknowledged, receives short shrift in most conventional descriptions.

  Let us return to a phrase in Travis’s celebrated letter and fill in some surrounding events: “the enemy has demanded a surrender…I have answered the demand with a cannon shot.” The basic outline has not been disputed: When Santa Anna entered San Antonio with his army and began his siege on February 23, he unfurled a blood-red flag—the traditional demand for immediate surrender, with extermination as the consequence of refusal—from the tower of the Church of San Fernando. Travis, without consulting his co-commander, fired the Alamo’s largest cannon, an eighteen-pounder, in defiant response—just as he boasted in his famous letter, written the next day.

  The complexities that threaten the canonical story now intrude. Although Santa Anna had issued his uncompromising and blustering demand in a public display, many accounts, filled with different details but all pointing in the same credible direction, indicate that he also proposed a parley for negotiation with the Alamo defenders. (Even if Santa Anna didn’t issue this call, the canonical story takes its strong hit just from the undisputed fact that Bowie, for whatever reason, thought the Mexicans had suggested a parley. Among the various versions, Santa Anna’s forces also raised a white flag—the equally traditional signal for a parley—either accidentally or purposefully, and either before or after Travis’s cannon shot; or else that a Mexican soldier sounded the standard bugle call for an official invitation to negotiations.)

  In any case, Bowie, who by most accounts was furious at Travis for the impetuous bravado and clearly counterproductive nature of his purely symbolic cannon shot, grabbed a piece of paper and wrote, in Spanish signed with a faltering hand (for Bowie was already ill, but not yet prostrate and still capable of leadership), the “invisible” letter that just won’t mesh with the canonical story, and therefore remains hidden on prominent display at the Alamo (I cite the full text of Bowie’s letter, in the translation given in C. Hopewell’s biography, James Bowie [Eakin Press, 1994]):

  Because a shot was fired from a cannon of this fort at the time a red flag was raised over the tower, and soon afterward having been informed that your forces would parley, the same not having been understood before the mentioned discharge of cannon, I wish to know if, in effect, you have called for a parley, and with this object dispatch my second aide, Benito James, under the protection of a white flag, which I trust will be respected by you and your forces. God and Texas.

  I don’t want to exaggerate the meaning of this letter. I cannot assert a high probability for a different outcome if Bowie had remained strong enough to lead, and if Santa Anna had agreed to negotiations. Some fact
s dim the force of any speculation about a happier outcome that would have avoided a strategically senseless slaughter with an inevitable military result, and would thus have spared the lives of 180 Texians (and probably twice as many Mexicans). For example, Bowie did not display optimal diplomacy in his note, if only because he had originally written “God and the Mexican Federation” in his signatory phrase (indicating his support for the constitution of 1824, and his continued loyalty to this earlier Mexican government), but, in a gesture that can only be termed defiant, crossed out “The Mexican Federation” and wrote “Texas” above.

  More important, Santa Anna officially refused the offer of Bowie’s courier, and sent back a formal response promising extermination without mercy unless the Texians surrendered unconditionally. Moreover, we cannot be confident that Texian lives would have been spared even if the Alamo’s defenders had surrendered without a fight. After all, less than a month after the fall of the Alamo, Santa Anna executed several hundred prisoners—the very men who might have come to Travis’s aid—after their surrender at Goliad.

  In the confusion and recrimination between the two commands, Travis then sent out his own courier and received the same response, but, according to some sources, with the crucial addition of an “informal” statement that, if the Texians laid down their arms within an hour, their lives and property would be spared, even though the surrender must be technically and officially “unconditional.” Such, after all, has always been the way of war, as good officers balance the need for inspirational manifestos with their even more important moral and strategic responsibility to avoid a “glory trap” of certain death. Competent leaders have always understood the crucial difference between public proclamations and private bargains.