Three Roads to the Alamo

by William C. Davis

  This book was a long time in coming. Its origins go back to a youth in the 1950s, an introduction to the Alamo story in the celebrated Disney Davy Crockett films, and a teenage reading of Walter Lord's still wonderful A Time to Stand. When I first began writing professionally, while still in college in 1968, my second published article was an outline of the Alamo story. There it rested until 1993, when a chance conversation there in San Antonio with Texan historian Kevin Young led to brief thoughts of doing a life of James Bowie, a notion soon abandoned because of a presumption that there would be insufficient source material to write a true biography. Yet the idea fermented awhile, and two years later resulted in the concept of this combined biography of all three of the major Alamo icons: Bowie, David Crockett, and William Barret Travis. Now, thirty years after that initial article appeared, my involvement with these men comes full circle, and ironically the result reveals among other things that my fear about insufficient Bowie sources was quite unfounded.

  Not surprisingly the effort to produce this book has led to involvement with innumerable friends, archivists, and fellow historians, and at least one rather remarkable—and somewhat pioneering—adventure in the course of my research. Archivists at sources of institutions gave the kind of aid that these unsung heroes and heroines—too numerous to mention individually—always offer. The services of a few do require some special mention, however, especially old friends Rickie Brunner at the Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Alabama; Anne Lipscomb-Webster at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in Jackson; Warren Stricker at the Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library in San Antonio; Ken Nelson of the Family History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah; Richard Shrader at the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina; Sally K. Reeves of the New Orleans Notarial Archives, and Aaron Marr at the Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Site, Brownsville, Texas. The skilled staff at the Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin—especially Kate Adams, Ralph Elder, Trudy Croes, and John Wheat—offered unstinting help in the face of repeated demands on their time. And at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., Michael Musick, Rick Peuser, Richard Fusick, and John K. Vandereedt gave invaluable aid with the splendid treasures in the still largely unplumbed depths of its holdings.

  County and parish court clerks throughout Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, and Texas—again too may to thank by name—also proved most helpful, though Keith Fontenot of the St. Landry Parish Courthouse in Opelousas, himself a fine historian, was especially helpful. James Leslie of Little Rock lent valuable assistance with material from the Arkansas History Commission. Robert Bowie of Little Rock also provided some helpful information, and Dr. Ralph Caldroney of Lexington, Kentucky, offered some very useful insights on James Bowie's last illness. Mrs. Richard Rod, a descendant of Rezin Bowie, and her husband were most gracious and cooperative on questions relating to surviving family relics. Numerous historians—and old friends—sent sources and tracked down references for me, especially Dale K. Phillips, Glenn LaFantasie, Robert K. Krick, Richard J. Sommers, James I. Robertson, and Joseph Glatthaar. Margaret Henson offered a lot of sound counsel from her intimate acaquaintance with Samuel May Williams and Juan Davis Bradburn; and Texas and Alamo historians Williams R. Chemerka, J. R. Edmonson, Joan Headley, Alan Huffines, and Gray Zaboly proved nothing but generous in sharing their insights and sources. Meanwhile a number of friends scattered around the nation took time out from their own activities to visit an archive or library for me in search of an elusive source or two, especially Jennifer Davis, Melissa M. Delcour, Sylvia Frank, Bobby Horton, Steven Stedman, and Meredith Swentor. Deborah Hardin Provided me with a marvelous historical map of early Texas that proved to be one of the most useful references in the whole project. Randy Roberts, embarking on his own detailed study of the Alamo and its role in American culture, gave the finished manuscript a careful reading. Hearty thanks are due all of them.

  In a special category are four friends and distinguished historians in Texas, without whose encouragement and aid I could not have attempted such a book. In addition to playing a role in its inception, Kevin Young offered unlimited help with sources and references to other scholars throughout the research for this work. Stephen L. Hardin of Victoria College did the same, helping provide an outsider a guide through the intricacies of early Texas history. Thomas R. Lindley, an indefatigable researcher, shared a wealth of material from his pioneering work on Travis and obscure sources in the state archives. Lindley, Hardin, and Young have also read the manuscript of this work and prevented many an error or omission from slipping through. And my old friend Michael Parrish of Austin sent a constant stream of source documents from old manuscript catalogs, as well as providing accommodation and delightful company on my several visits to Texas.

  Then there was the adventure. It has long been assumed that when the Alamo fell on March 6, 1836, the victorious Mexican army captured whatever official papers remained there, as well as possibly some personal papers in the effects of the dead defenders. This was confirmed a few years ago, when Thomas Lindley found a broadside published in Mexico a few weeks after the battle, containing the text of a March 1 letter to Travis found in the Alamo. The assumption since then has been that any such captured papers—which could include daily muster rolls, copybooks of official correspondence, even personal letters and diaries—would be in the Mexican military archives if they still existed. Unfortunately, access to those archives has been denied to North American researchers—and apparently to many Mexican historians—for generations, for very understandable reasons, given the Mexican view that the Texas rebellion and the later 1846-48 war with the United States were blatant land grabs. The Texas historian Eugene C. Barker got to look at them early in this century, and at least one or two others have since been granted limited permission to do research there, but otherwise all requests have been denied. Even though this present work is not in the main about the Alamo or even the Texan revolution, still the remote possibility that some papers of Travis, Bowie, or Crockett might have found their way to Mexico City suggested making an effort to find them, despite the discouraging prospect of success.

  An old friend and noted Civil War historian, Peter Cozzens is a Latin American specialist currently with the United States Consulate at Tijuana. He put me in touch with Donald R. Hamilton, Minister-Counselor for Public Affairs for the United States Information Service (USIS) at our embassy in Mexico City. Through the generous efforts of Mr. Hamilton and his assistant Bertha Cea, an approach was made to the Mexican military authorities, initiated by Ambassador James R. Jones, and coordinated by Col. Daniel O. Mason, military attaché at the embassy. Happily their approach bore fruit, and Gen. Enrique Cervantes Aguirre, secretario de la defensa nacional, cordially granted permission for me to visit and work in the Archivo Historico Militar Mexicano without restriction.

  Inevitably in any international dealing there are bound to be missteps and misunderstandings, but thanks to the efforts of Colonel Mason and his counterpart at Defensa, Teniente Colonel Gerardo Wolburg, my visit came off almost without a hitch. Once I was in the archives, the staff, headed by General Mendoza and Captain López, was most cordial and cooperative. Mrs. Guadalupe Escalante, who served wonderfully as translator and interpreter, contributed vitally to the success of my visit and proved to be a delightful guide to the charms of Mexico City itself. There is nothing like writing a part of a chapter on early Texas and Mexico on a sultry July evening in a room at the lovely Maria Christina Hotel on the Río Lerma, with the music and fragrance of the historic Zona Rosa in the background.

  I did not find any lost Travis, Crockett, or Bowie papers. It was always a remote possibility in any event. I did find, however, some startling and previously unknown documents relating to the Alamo itself that rewrite significant portions of what we have known, or thought we knew, about the siege and fall of the garrison. Those finding appear in this volume, no doubt dest
ined either to refuel old controversies or else start new ones of their own. Perhaps more important, I became aware of the stunning quality and extent of the military archives held by Defensa. The real story of the Texan revolution, our sad war with Mexico in 1846-48, and much of the early history of what today we call the Southwest cannot be fully understood or written without extensive recourse to those records. And on a personal note, having gone to Mexico City rather apprehensive about the reception I would find, I came away having had perhaps the most enjoyable research experience in a long and wide-ranging career. The cordiality of General Mendoza and his staff, even to the point of providing coffee and cookies every day at noon, was completely disarming, while the introduction that Mrs. Escalante gave me to the rich and hospitable culture of Mexico was in its own way just as eye-opening. To everyone involved in bringing me to Mexico and Defensa, I owe a surfeit of gratitude; in offering it here I want to add the fervent desire that our two neighboring nations, so often at odds through prejudice and misunderstanding, will one day become, as they should be, the best of friends.

  A final word about approach. This is a book about three men, what they knew, what they did, and how they epitomized their time. But it is not a work of “lives and times,” and as a result it does not devote a great deal of space to more background than is necessary to put their actions in context. Furthermore, however controversial their lives may have been, the sources from which those lives can be—and have been—constructed are subject to even more controversy. In many cases extensive discussion is necessary to establish why a source is used, or rejected, or to defend some statement of events. Unfortunately all this is necessary thanks to the extensive mythology and fabrication that has dogged their biographies in the past. In order not to clog the narrative with such extended discourse, I have confined these discussions to the notes, and would urge anyone who is interested in the controversies surrounding these men to read the notes carefully in order to learn where my conclusions have come from and what some of the alternatives are. Here, too, I will mention one other stylistic practice: Spelling and punctuation were idiosyncratic and ad hoc in this era. Nevertheless I have left the words of the people as they wrote them, without correcting spelling or adding or altering punctuation. Neither have I inserted the scholar's “[sic]” after every misspelling. Only in cases where meaning might be clouded have I intruded by bracketed corrections.

  As always, special thanks are due my editor, M. S. Wyeth, for having the confidence to attempt this somewhat unconventional approach to the story, as well as to Susan H. Llewellyn for able and appreciated assistance in copyediting and catching some of the embarrassing number of mistakes and contradictions that even the best intentioned of historians may add to the story.

  About the Author

  William C. Davis is the author of thirty-five books on the Civil War and Southern history, most recently A Way Through the Wilderness; “A Government of Our Own”: The Making of the Confederacy; and the prizewinning biography Jefferson Davis: The Man and His Hour. For many years a magazine publisher, Davis now divides his time between writing and consulting for book publishers and television.