Alamo Traces
Page 37
51 Jack Jackson research notes on Francisco Duque service record, Book 2, p. 261-267, Secretaria de la Defensa Nacional, Mexico City. Duque’s request was either refused or he later rejoined the army.
52 Shackelford, “Some Few Notes,” in Foote, Texas and The Texians, 45-46.
53 Pena, With Santa Anna, 61.
54 Barnard, Dr. J. H. Barnard’s Journal, 29-30; Andrade, Documento Que El General, April 10, 1836, May 16, 1836, and June 13, 1836; Santa Anna to Filisola, February 27, 1836, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 448; Ruiz, “Fall of the Alamo,” 81.
55 Helen Hunnicutt, “A Mexican View of the Texas War,” The Library Chronicle of The University of Texas, IV: 64.
56 Filisola, Memoirs, II: xii, 153, and 178; Caro, “A True Account of the First Texas Campaign” in Castaneda, trans. and ed., The Mexican Side, 105 and 109.
57 Almonte, “Private Journal,” 23; Filisola, Memoirs, II: 211. According to Filisola, Santa Anna departed Bexar on March 31, 1836.
58 Almonte, “Private Journal,” 18. The wounded men Almonte reported were not added into the total wounded number because they would have been included in Dr. Arroyo’s total for the number of wounded during the entire siege.
59 James P. Newcomb, “How the Alamo Looked Nine Years After Its Fall,” San Antonio Express, April 9, 1905; Dr. John Sutherland, “The Fall of the Alamo,” 1860, typescript copy, Dr. Amelia W. Williams Papers, CAH; Dr. John Sutherland, Annie B. Sutherland, ed., The Fall of the Alamo (1936), vii. In her foreword, Annie B. reported that she worked from John S. Ford’s copy, which she had obtained from his papers at the University of Texas. Location of the original Sutherland manuscript is unknown. Also, how Dr. Williams obtained her transcript is unknown, but it appears she obtained it many years after the publication of her study in the 1930s. This investigator has been searching for the original but so far has not found it. Sutherland may have written his article to make his story about being Travis’s first courier seem creditable and establish the tale in the source material in order to obtain the bounty and donation land grants he had been denied in 1854. Sutherland probably understood that once something appeared in a newspaper it was accepted as the truth by most people. Even today, the number of writers and historians who are willing to accept anything written in an old newspaper or magazine as the truth is amazing. The William P. Zuber Moses Rose story is a good example of such uncritical acceptance.
In Jacques Barzun, From Dawn to Decadence (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2000), 203-204, we find a great observation about uncritical acceptance. Barzun, in discussing the influence of Francis Bacon, wrote: “The ancients, he [Bacon] pointed out, can no longer be invoked as authority, because we know more than they did. . . . Besides, authority is worthless. The notion that something is true because a wise man said it is a bad principle. Is the thing true in fact, tested by observation?” If to accept, without examination, something that a wise man said as the truth is a bad principle, then it would seem that to accept, without examination, anything that was said by any man as the truth is an even worse principle.
60 1860 Sutherland account; John Sutherland account record, January 25, 1836 to April 6, 1836, John Sutherland file, Audited Military Claims collection, Archives Division, Texas State Library, Austin, Texas. None of the Joe accounts report the Mexican dead. The only evidence that verifies Sutherland’s claim that Mrs. Dickinson verified Caro’s claim of 1,544 Mexican dead is found in the 1875 Dickinson account found in Morphis’s History of Texas, from its Discovery and Settlement, 174-177. Morphis reported that Dickinson claimed 1,600 Mexicans were killed. Given that Sutherland died in 1867, he could not have taken his Dickinson number from Morphis’s book.
61 John Sutherland petition, January 18, 1854, John Sutherland file, Memorials and Petitions collection, TSL. Sutherland furnished the government two statements from friends, who pretty much just claimed he was a fine fellow. Those who wish to know more of the evidence that Sutherland was not at the Alamo on February 23, 1836, can read: Thomas Ricks Lindley, “The Revealing of Dr. John Sutherland.” The work is unpublished and needs a rewrite as I now have more evidence on the subject. The DRT Library at the Alamo has a copy of my analysis.
62 Pat Ireland Nixon, The Medical Story of Early Texas (Lancaster: Mollie Bennett Lupe Memorial Fund, 1946), 402.
63 William C. Davis, “How Davy Probably Didn’t Die,” Journal of the Alamo Battlefield Association, Fall 1997; Huffines, Blood of Noble Men, 185. Davis acknowledged that the Ruiz account is probably compromised by the fact that the account is not what Ruiz said, but rather it is what the translator said Ruiz reported.
64 Webb, Carroll, and Branda, eds. The Handbook of Texas, II: 424.
65 Ruiz, “Fall of the Alamo,” 80-81; Filisola, Memoirs, II: 150 and 178.
66 Ruiz, “Fall of the Alamo,” 81; Houston to Raguet, March 13, 1836.
67 Samuel T. Allen to Thomas J. Allen, San Augustine, May 18, 1836, Jenkins, ed., Papers, VI: 319; Susanna Dickinson account, Telegraph and Texas Register, March 24, 1836, in Bill Groneman, Eyewitness to the Alamo (Revised Edition) (Plano: Republic of Texas Press, 2001), 20. Dickinson is alleged to have claimed: “It is stated that about fifteen hundred of the enemy were killed and wounded in the last and previous attacks.”
68 Charles Merritt Barnes, “Aged Citizen [Pablo Diaz] Describes Alamo Fight and Fire,” San Antonio Express, July 1, 1906. According to Barnes, Diaz claimed: “As I reached the ford of the river my gaze encountered a terrible sight. The stream was congested with the corpses that had been thrown into it. The alcalde had vainly endeavored to bury the bodies of the soldiers of Santa Anna who had been slain by the defenders of the Alamo. Nearly six thousand of Santa Anna’s ten thousand had fallen before they annihilated their adversaries and captured their fortress. Then involuntarily I put my hands before my eyes and turned away from the river, which I hesitated to cross. Hurriedly I turned aside and up La Villita and went to south Alamo. I could not help seeing the corpses which congested the river all around the bend from Garden to way above Commerce Street and as far as Crockett Street is now.” Clearly, the Diaz story repeats and embellishes Ruiz’s claim of having thrown dead Mexican soldiers into the San Antonio River.
Historian Richard G. Santos, in Santa Anna’s Campaign Against Texas, 84, wrote: “This author has unsuccessfully attempted for several years to locate the original Ruiz account translated by Quintero due to some obvious errors or misconceptions. It is highly unlikely that the Alcalde of San Antonio would order the Mexican dead to be thrown in the river not only because of the possible consequences from the insult, but also because the stream furnished the community’s drinking water.”
69 Ruiz, “Fall of the Alamo,” 80-81; Francisco Antonio Ruiz statement (identifying the body Toribio Losoya as an Alamo defender), April 16, 1861 in Matovina, The Alamo Remembered, 37; Santos, Santa Anna’s Campaign, 83, n. 50; Ruiz, “Fall of the Alamo,” 80-81; Rachel Bluntzer Hebert, The Forgotten Colony: San Patricio de Hibernia (Burnet, Texas: Eakin Press, 1965), 57.
70 Francisco Flores pension file, Republic of Texas Pension collection, TSL.
71 Miguel Benites statement, December 5, 1874, Antonio Menchaca, Ygnacio Espinosa, and Juan Ximenes statement, December 5, 1874, Miguel Benites file, Republic of Texas Pension collection, TSL. In 1836 there was no location known as Camp Preston. That site was established in 1837 and was on the east side of the Navidad River about two or three miles from the confluence of that river and the Lavaca River. Dimitt’s Point was on the east side of Lavaca Bay. Thus, the site that became Camp Preston was a few miles north of Dimitt’s Point. There was a road that ran parallel (west side) to the Lavaca River and ran north to intersect the Gonzales to Columbus road. Camp Preston appears to have been placed in the vicinity of that road.
72 F. W. Johnson to James W. Robinson, December 25, 1835, Jenkins, ed., Papers, III: 325-327; Sam Houston to J. C. Neill, December 21, 1835, Jenkins, ed., Papers, III: 278-279; William B. Travis and James Bowie to Henry Smith, Febru
ary 14, 1836, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 339.
73 J. C. Neill to Government, January 28, 1836, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 174-175.
74 James Bowie to Henry Smith, February 2, 1836, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 238. Mr. Williams should not be confused with Samuel May Williams, Stephen F. Austin’s secretary and close friend.
75 R. R. Royall to Henry Smith, February 2, 1836, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 243; James W. Robinson to Philip Dimmitt, February 16, 1836, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 353; Schooner Caroline Invoice of goods shipped to Texas, January 19, 1836, New Orleans, Schooner Tramaulipas Invoice of Goods shipped to Texas, January 20, 1836, New Orleans, consigned to R. R. Royal and John H. Wharton, Box 2-9/17, TSL; John S. Brooks to Mother, March 2, 1836, Goliad, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 486; J. G. Ferguson to A. J. Ferguson, March 2, Goliad, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 488.
The two invoices total seven pages. A sample of the items shows: 389 barrels of flour, 50 barrels of pork, 20 sacks coffee, 20 barrels cider vinegar, 10 boxes sperm candles at 325 each, 40 barrels beans, 15 barrels ship bread, 6 barrels brown sugar, carpenter tools, blacksmith tools, 4 dozen spades, 10 corn mills, 52 and ½ dozen butcher knives, 7 and ½ dozen coffee pots, 5 dozen boilers, 4 dozen broad head hatchets, 59 bags of musket balls at 312 each, 2 Letts Scots Infantry Tactics, 150 kegs gunpowder, 3 field drums with eagles, 4 field drums plain, 4 field bugles, 2 Octave bugles, 20 fifes, 1 case of 50 iron pistols, 400 pair thick boots, 800 pair Russet Brogans, 1200 Mens Kip Brogans, 16 infantry and artillery tactics, 1 standard staff and the making, 30½ dozen jackets, 30½ dozen pantaloons, 49½ dozen socks, 62 dozen shirts, 22 cases of U.S. muskets at 20 each, 200 cartridge boxes and belts, 30½ dozen canteens, 1 large telescope, 75 sabers, 50 pistols, 6 iron ladles, 81 bags of corn, 2 bales of blankets at 200 each, and 10 boxes of tobacco. This listing is about 2/3 of the items found on the two invoices.
76 Webb, Carroll, and Branda, eds., The Handbook of Texas, II: 516-517; Thomas J. Rusk to M. B. Lamar, May 17, 1836, Jenkins, ed., Papers, VI: 314-315; Thomas J. Rusk to M. B. Lamar, May 29, 1836, Victoria, Jenkins, ed., Papers, VI: 410. In both letters Rusk complains of his lack of supplies and provisions. At Victoria, Rusk was about 35 miles from Dimitt’s Point.
77 James W. Fannin to James W. Robinson, February 27, 1836; Victor Lopez statement, August 14, 1837, Thomas G. Western file, Audited Military Claims, TSL. Fannin wrote: “All our provisions are at Matagorda, Dimitt’s Landing, Coxes Point & and on the way here.” Lopez reported that Fannin had hired carts at Victoria to transport the goods.
78 Santa Anna to Jose Urrea, March 3, 1836, in Roger Borroel, ed. and trans., The Papers of Lieutenant Colonel Jose Enrique de la Pena: The Last of His Appendixes, II: 44,
79 Almonte, “Private Journal,” 26: James W. Fannin to Francis De Sauque and John Chenoweth, March 1, 1836, Goliad, Jenkins, ed., Papers, IV: 477.
80 Fannin to De Sauque and Chenoweth, March 1, 1836.
81 Antonio Menchaca, Manuel Flores, Ambrosio Rodriguez, Nepomuceno Flores statement, November 7, 1839, San Antonio, Erasmo Seguin statement, November 8, 1839, San Antonio, Erasmo Seguin file, Audited Military Claims file, TSL; Fannin to De Sauque and Chenoweth, March 1, 1836. Seguin did not give a date when the property was taken, but he did say it was taken to Fannin at Goliad, and Fannin did not arrive at Goliad until about February 2, 1836.
82 After the fall of the Alamo, the Tejanos outside of Bexar had three choices. They could join the Texians, hide in the countryside, or return to San Antonio and accept Santa Anna’s pardon offer. Given that Ruiz was elected as regidor on April 6, 1836, he must have returned to Bexar and accepted the pardon.
Chapter Nine
Alamo Strays:
Question and Answer
It is worth remembering that in life, as in other mysteries, there are no answers, but part of the pleasure of intellection is to refine the question, or discover a new one. It is analogous to the fact, that there are no facts—only the mode of our approach to what we call facts.
Norman Mailer1
No other event in American history is as clouded with myth and historical error as the siege and storming of the Texian Alamo of February and March 1836. Some of the reasons for that situation were examined in the previous chapters. Still many questions remain. As Walter Lord said: “The answers come hard, even when someone wants to know the facts.” This work does not provide an answer to every possible Alamo question, and other Alamo puzzles will be addressed in future works. Nevertheless, here are explanations for a few of the clouded elements of the Alamo story.2
The Alamo Flag
As this book was being written, President George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, and state senator Carlos Truan were attempting to bring the New Orleans Greys flag back to Texas from Mexico. The Greys were two companies of United States volunteers that were organized in New Orleans in September and October 1835. Both companies participated in the storming of Bexar in December 1835. The Greys’ flag was captured at the fall of the Alamo. Santa Anna quickly sent the war trophy home to the Mexican minister of war. In regard to Bush and Truan’s actions, The Dallas Morning News reported: “In June [1996], Mr. Bush signed into law a bill authorizing the Texas State Library and Archives Commission to negotiate an agreement with Mexican authorities to help return a flag Mexican forces took during the famous 1836 fight at the Alamo. In return, Texas would offer three Mexican flags captured at the Battle of San Jacinto.” Bush and Truan, like many historians and Alamo partisans, believe the Greys flag was the banner flown at the Alamo.3 The belief appears to come from Walter Lord, who wrote:
John S. “Rip” Ford, early Alamo historian
Traditionally the Alamo flew a modified Mexican flag, but the best evidence indicates that was not the case.
The early Texan sources mention no specific flag, but in 1860 Captain R. M. Potter remedied the omission. In the first of several [two] accounts he did on the subject, Captain Potter declared that the Alamo flag was the regular Mexican tricolor, but with the date 1824 substituted for the usual golden eagle. This was based on no evidence but on Potter’s theory that the Texans were fighting for the Mexican Constitution of 1824, until the Declaration of Independence was formally passed on March 2, 1836. Since the Alamo defenders knew nothing of this event, the theory ran, they went down still fighting for a liberal Mexico. The irony of Potter’s theory was appealing; others backed it up and it lingers on.
But the theory does not jibe with the facts. Actually, Texas had stopped fighting for the Constitution of 1824 long before the Alamo.4
Lord concluded that the Alamo defenders, all supporters of independence, would not have maintained a banner that represented Mexican federalism. Therefore, since Colonel Juan N. Almonte’s journal only mentions the capture of one flag, which appears to have been the New Orleans Greys banner, Lord decided that the Greys’ azure blue standard was the Alamo flag.5
Lord was right about the Alamo defenders’ feelings on independence. He was wrong about the Alamo flag. The Greys banner was nothing more than “a flag captured at the fall of the Alamo.” At that point the blue cloth only represented proof of the involvement of United States volunteers in the Texian struggle against the Mexican government. Therefore, about an hour and a half after the dawn attack, Santa Anna wrote his government: “The bearer takes with him one of the flags of the enemy’s Battalions, captured today. The inspection of it will show plainly the true intentions of the treacherous colonist, and of their abettors, who came from parts of the United States of the North.” Santa Anna’s statement proves that the Greys banner was a unit standard, not the Alamo flag. The story of the true Alamo flag starts with the siege and storming of Bexar in 1835.6
Francis W. Johnson, co-commander of the storming of Bexar, in answering a letter from writer Julia Lee Sinks, wrote: “Your note of the 6th inquiring ‘what kind of flag was used by the Texans, if any, at San Antonio.’ I have to inform you that it was the Mexican flag – Red, White and Green. We at that time were contending for our rights as
citizens of Mexico.” That flag was the Mexican tricolor that contained a golden eagle, with rattlesnake in mouth, perched on a cactus on the flag’s middle white band. This was the Mexican national standard of the federal government of the constitution of 1824. After the surrender of the Mexican army on December 11, 1835, Herman Ehrenberg, a Greys private, confirmed Johnson’s statement: “We still considered Texas and Mexico as one . . . three colors floated over the church.”7
The Mexican federalist flag has ever since been confused with a flag created by Philip Dimmitt at Goliad. On October 27, 1835, Dimmitt wrote Stephen F. Austin: “I have had a flag made – the colors, and their arrangement the same as the old one – with the words and figures, ‘Constitution of 1824,’ displayed on the white, in the center.” Did Dimmitt’s flag make it to San Antonio? Many believe it did, but there is little reliable evidence to indicate the flag joined Austin’s army. On October 15, 1835, Dimmitt sent a company of Tejanos, under the command of Placido Benavides, to join Austin’s force, which was on the road to San Antonio. Dimmitt, however, at that time, had yet to create his flag.8
If Dimmitt’s flag had made it to Bexar, it would have joined the national federalist flag, the Gonzales “Come and Take It” cannon flag, the Greys banner, and Sarah Dodson’s single starred red, white, and blue banner in the army’s color guard that was commanded by Captain William Scott. After Scott’s discharge on November 18, the color guard detail was assigned to Captain Peter J. Duncan’s company. Future Alamo assistant quartermaster A. Anderson was a member of that unit.9