Pena supporters argue that many different types of paper found in the memoir manuscript simply reflect Pena’s prison situation. That he had to “beg, borrow, and steal” to obtain paper while in prison. Yes, that is an explanation. Pena did write a number of letters to Mexican officials and newspapers while he was imprisoned. So he obviously had a source for a small amount of writing paper when in prison. However, Pena’s petition to the government demanding his release from prison was rejected because of the disrespect for military officials that was exhibited in the document. Thus, is it not logical that prison officials would have given Pena a large amount of paper to write a personal and unofficial chronicle of the campaign against Texas that also was disrespectful of military and government officials.45
In summary, the Pena memoir manuscript has a number of elements that indicate it was not written by Pena. First, there is the lack of a satisfactory provenance. Jesus Sanchez Garza, the Mexico City coin collector and dealer who discovered the Pena collection and first published the memoir manuscript in Spanish, never reported how and where he obtained the Pena documents.46 If this were the only problem for the memoir manuscript, it would not be sufficient to declare the document a forgery. There are, however, other problems. Second, there are at least fourteen different kinds of paper in the manuscript. Forgers often have to collect period paper from many different sources to obtain enough paper for a forgery project. Third, the memoir manuscript is clearly not in Pena’s handwriting. Fourth, a great deal of the information in the memoir manuscript is not found in the Campaign Diary. This data appears to come from other sources. In some cases the material came from sources that were not available to Pena because they were written after his death. Thus, these derivative sections in the memoir manuscript are best described as source anachronisms.
The source anachronisms that deal with David Crockett as a noncombatant and the lack of Mexican surgeons at the Alamo were covered in chapter eight. There are other such anachronisms in the memoir document. For example, look at what the chronicle says about the burning of the bodies of the Alamo defenders. That account reports: “. . . within a few hours a funeral pyre rendered into ashes those men who moments before had been so brave that in a blind fury they had unselfishly offered their lives and had met their ends in combat.”47
Any fireman or crime scene investigator will tell you that a complete burning of that many bodies in a “few hours” is impossible. A wood fire does not produce the high and constant heat necessary to completely burn a body. Even in a modern cremation a body’s large bones are not destroyed. Also, the burning of a human body does not produce ashes. That belief is a misnomer. The “ashes” that come from cremation are machine-crushed bone, not true ashes.48
Another questionable Mexican account, however, makes the same claims about the burning of the Alamo defenders’ bodies. Francisco Becerra, a Mexican sergeant, in 1882 allegedly furnished a description of the body burning that is identical in meaning to Pena’s report. Becerra claimed: “The bodies of those brave men, who fell fighting that morning, as men have seldom fought, were reduced to ashes before the sun had set.”49
The words used in the Pena and Becerra accounts are different, but they convey the same meaning: (1) the defenders were brave; (2) they died in combat; (3) the way they fought was unique; (4) their bodies were burned to ashes in a few hours.
More likely, the burning of the Alamo bodies continued into the night and perhaps the morning of March 7, 1836. Undoubtedly, the bodies’ large bones were not destroyed. Also, a large number of charred hunks of flesh probably survived the fires. That was certainly the case with the Texian bodies that were burned after the executions at Goliad.50
Pena was at the Alamo and would not have reported such an inaccurate story about the burning of the Alamo dead. Pena supporters, however, might argue that Becerra was at the Alamo, and his statement about the disposal of the Texian bodies verifies Pena’s account.
That would be a superficial view of the source materials. There is no doubt Pena participated in the storming of the Alamo. Becerra appears to have claimed he was at the Alamo. There is, however, no independent evidence that proves Becerra participated in the famous fight. Moreover, the Becerra report is extremely unreliable. Walter Lord described the chronicle as: “Probably the least reliable of all the Mexican accounts.” The late Dan Kilgore, though he used the account in his book How Did Davy Die?, viewed the Becerra story as unreliable. Also, he wrote: “The early accounts by Urissa and Becerra have a ring of folklore instead of history. . . .” The Becerra description of the burning of the Texian bodies more likely came from the mind and pen of John S. Ford, the old Texas Ranger and newspaperman, who allegedly interviewed Becerra while he was in Ford’s military unit during the Civil War and published the account in 1882 in the Texas School for the Deaf magazine, Texas Mute Ranger.51
The alleged Pena memoir manuscript has other characteristics that indicate it was not written by Pena. Limited time and space, however, make additional analysis impossible. In the end, the debate boils down to Occam’s Razor, a rule of logic that states: “. . . a person should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything, or that the person should not make more assumptions than the minimum needed.”52 Pena believers can spin all kinds of different theories to explain the many forgery characteristics found in the Pena memoir manuscript and its presentation to the world by Jesus Sanchez Garza, a known counterfeiter of nineteenth-century Mexican coins.53 There is, however, only one reasonable answer that explains all of the Pena problems: it is a forgery. Lastly, one must remember that old observation about the truth: “if it looks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, if it walks like a duck, then it is most likely a duck.” Think about it. The Campaign Diary manuscript has no forgery characteristics. Yet, the memoir manuscript and the manner in which Sanchez Garza published the document are loaded with forgery characteristics. The memoir manuscript sure looks like a duck to this investigator.
[13]
Crockett at the Alamo
They saw the bloody Spaniard near,
His legions gath’ring thick and fast—
“We fall, but it shall cost you dear,”
Words by each soldier briefly past.
For mortal fight they quick prepared,
Undaunted by the num’roas host,
To heaven each sent his dying prayer,
And hastened to his fatal post.
A thought to wife and children dear,
On life’s rough sea without a guide,
Drew from each eye the “Soldier’s Tear,”
Brushed away quick with soldier’s pride.
And ’mong the names that Fame has spread,
For daring deeds to every land;
’Mong heroes who have nobly bled,
Crockett in bold relief shall stand,
Like tiger turning on his foe,
When driven to his last retreat,
His hand dealt many a fearful blow,
And heaps lay welt’ring at his feet.
Till covered thick with gashes deep,
Borne down by numbers, Crockett fell,
Calmly as to an evening’s sleep,
Lull’d by the tolling curfew bell.
His soul from Nature’s quarry wrought,
Own’d not the world’s adultering mould—
But rough as by the miner bought,
Remained the virgin gold.
And Texas Phoenix-like shall rise,
Shall freedom’s pinions proudly spread,
Hail’d by those spirits of the skies,
That on her alters nobly bled.
J. A.54
Analysis
None needed. The poem speaks for itself.
Appendices Notes
1 Election Returns Collection, TSL.
2 Telegraph and Texas Register, January 23, 1836, San Felipe. This important document does not appear in The Papers of the Texas Revolution, 1835-1836. Hist
orian Stephen L. Hardin located the document and shared it with this investigator.
3 Fernando de Leon and Charles Laso to Philip Dimmitt, December 18, 1835, Goliad, Box 2-9-19, Council Papers, TSL. Laso was Dimmitt’s father-in-law.
4 Goliad Declaration, December 20, 1835, Goliad, Jenkins, ed., Papers, III: 266.
5 Hobart Huson, Captain Philip Dimmitt’s Commandancy of Goliad, 1835-1836 (Austin: Von Boeckman-Jones Co., 1974), 198.
6 “Detailed Report of the Names of those persons who volunteered and formed the first Division in the attack on San Antonio de Bexar and entered the House of La Garza on the morning of the 5th of December 1835 under the command of Col. B. R. Milam assisted by Major Morris,” and “Detailed Report of Names of those persons who Volunteered and formed the Second Division in the Attack on San Antonio Bexar and entered the house of Berramander [sic] on the night of the 5th of Dec 1835 under Command of Col. F. W. Johnson assisted by Cols J. Grant & WT Austin Adjt N. R. Brister & Jno. Cameron,” Texas Revolution Rolls, Box 401-714, Military Rolls Collection, TSL. Dimmitt’s name does not appear on either roll.
7 Paul D. Lack, The Texas Revolutionary Experience: A Political and Social History 1835-1836 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1992), 58.
8 Goliad Declaration, December 20, 1836; Proceedings of General Council, January 3, 1836, Gammel, The Laws of Texas, I: 735-736. The federalist Council of Texas became quite disturbed over the Goliad declaration. They refused to allow it to be published in the Texas newspapers and declared that it had been “inconsiderately adopted – without designing to produce the consequence to the country inevitable upon its execution.”
9 Chabot, With The Makers, 387. Charles A. Herff appears to have been the third son of Dr. Ferdinand von Herff, a German doctor who settled in San Antonio in 1850.
10 Ibid., 300. Peter Gallagher was a builder who was in San Antonio as early as 1841.
11 San Antonio Express, September 1, 1935.
12 Thomas Lloyd Miller, Bounty and Donation Land Grants of Texas 1835-1888 (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1967), 163, 281, 742; Luis Castanon file and Peter Gallagher file, PC-TSL.
13 Jon Winfield Scott Dancy Diary, p. 29 and 31, Box 3N186, CAH. Mr. Smith appears to have been John W. Smith, who served as a guide for the Texians during the storming of Bexar in December 1835.
14 Telegraph and Texas Register, March 28, 1837. The ceremony took place on February 25, 1837.
15 Jesse Burnam file, OS Box 7, M&P- TSL; William B. Dewees & Benjamin Beeson Claim, August 23, 1848, M&P-TSL. The Dewees and Beeson properties at Columbus were also burned on orders from Sam Houston.
16 “Minutes of the Gonzales Ayuntamiento of 1835,” found in a ledger titled “Deed Records,” Box 2N242, Julia Lee Sinks Papers, CAH.
17 Gonzales Meeting, July 7, 1835, Jenkins, ed., Papers, I: 214-216; Edward Gritten to Domingo de Ugartechea, Gonzales, July 7, 1835, Jenkins, ed., Papers, I: 216; Domingo de Ugartechea to Alcalde, August 29, 1835, Bexar, Jenkins, ed., Papers, I: 376.
18 Alejo Perez Garcia statement, June 27, 1836, Matamoros, original in Operaciones, XL/481.3/1150, f. 33-34, Archivo Historico of the Secretaria de la Defensa Nacional, Mexico City. The photocopy used came from the Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic site in Brownsville. Special thanks to the staff at the location for their help in obtaining the photocopy.
19 Jose Enrique de la Pena, Campaign Diary, 13, Jose Enrique de la Pena Collection, CAH.
20 Pena, Campaign Diary, 15.
21 Pena, Campaign Diary, 21.
22 Memoir Manuscript, Quarto 38, Pena Collection.
23 Memoir Manuscript, Quarto 58.
24 Memoir Manuscript, Quarto 59.
25 Prologue letter, September 15, 2836, Pena Collection.
26 This investigator, Thomas Ricks Lindley, is not a certified document examiner. He, however, hired one—Ms. Lillian I. Hutchison, a court qualified professional, who examined the Woll/Pena document, the alleged Pena prologue letter, a number of pages from the Campaign Diary manuscript, and a number of pages from the memoir manuscript. Based on the differences in the handwriting, she concluded that the Woll/Pena letter and the Campaign Diary were written by the same person. She concluded that the prologue letter and the memoir manuscript were written by the same person, but that person was not the individual who wrote the Woll/Pena missive and the Campaign Diary. Thanks to Joe Musso, Bill Groneman, and Steve Harrigan for their contributions that helped me pay for Ms. Hutchison’s professional handwriting analysis.
27 David B. Gracy II, “ ‘Just As I Have Written It’: A Study of the Authenticity of the Manuscript of Jose Enrique de la Pena’s Account of the Texas Campaign,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, CV: 280-291.
28 Gracy, “ ‘Just As I have Written It,’ ” 277.
29 The word count for each page was complied by professional Spanish translator Ned Brierly of Austin.
30 Joe Nickell, Pen, Ink, & Evidence: A Study of Writing and Writing Materials for the Penman, Collector, and Document Detective (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1990), 188-189.
31 Phone conversation with Dr. James Crisp, June 10, 2001.
32 Jose Enrique de la Pena to the President of Mexico, June 11, 1838, Item 487, Valentin Gomez Farias Collection, Nattie Lee Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas, Austin, Texas.
33 Ibid.
34 Jose Enrique de la Pena to Editors, December 6, 1838, Guadalajara, El Cosmopolita, Mexico City, January 2, 1839.
35 Jose Enrique de la Pena Petition, March 6, 1839, Hospice of Guadalajara, Mexico, El Cosmopolita, Mexico City, October 12, 1839. Based on a second petition, dated June 6, 1839, from Durango, it appears the two petitions were sent to a district judge.
36 Jose Enrique de la Pena Petition, June 6, 1839, Durango, Mexico, El Cosmopolita, Mexico City, October 19, 1839.
37 Jose Enrique de la Pena to the Editors, October 7, 1839, House of the Holy Office, El Cosmopolita, Mexico City, October 12, 1839.
38 Campaign Diary, 21; Memoir Manuscript, Quarto 58.
39 Campaign Diary, 21.
40 Memoir Manuscript, Quarto 58.
41 Signatures A and B, Alejo Perez Garcia statement, June 27, 1836; Signature C, Jose Enrique de la Pena to Mariano Mando, September 15, 1836, Pena Collection, CAH; Signature D, Jose Enrique de la Pena declaration, December 14, 1836, volume 200, f. 210-213v, Archivo de Guerra Groupo Documental, Archivo General de la Nacion, Mexico City. Thanks to Jack Jackson for furnishing this investigator with a photocopy of signature D.
42 Meeting with Jack Jackson, August 22, 2002, Austin, Texas.
43 Pena Collection, CAH. The Campaign Diary. This manuscript also includes 38 endnotes. Notes 1-7 are embedded in the text of the Diary. Notes 8-38 were written as endnotes on six separate pages. The six pages of notes, however, are not archived with the Diary manuscript. They are misplaced in the larger Memoir manuscript. The notes are written in the authentic Pena handwriting, thus there is no doubt about their authenticity.
44 Gracy, “ ‘Just As I Have Written It,’ ” 261.
45 Lic. Lenero to Commander-in-Chief, December 17, 1838, El Cosmopolita, Mexico City, January 2, 1839.
46 Groneman, Defense of a Legend, 36-37; Jose Bravo Ugarte, “La ‘Resena y Diario de la Campana de Tejas’ por el Teniente Coronel Jose Enrique de la Pena y su Primera Edicion (1955),” Memorias De la Academia Mexicana De La Historia, XVI, Mexico City. Groneman furnishes a complete review of the Memoir manuscript’s provenance as it was known in 1994. Whereas, Ugarte, in his 1957 review of Sanchez Garza’s Spanish language publication of the memoir manuscript, reports that the document came out of La Lagunilla, Mexico City’s ancient flea market.
47 Pena, With Santa Anna, 54-55.
48 Interview with Don Finch, professional mortician, September 8, 2002; Bill Groneman, author of Defense of a Legend: Crockett and the de la Pena Diary and Death of a Legend: The Myth and Mystery Surrounding the Death of Davy Crockett, is the fireman I talked with about
the burning of bodies.
49 Francisco Becerra account in Bill Groneman, Eyewitness to the Alamo (Plano: Republic of Texas Press, 1996), 92-93.
50 Moses Austin Bryan to Editors, August 24, 1873, Independence, Galveston News, date not given, found in Texas Scrap-Book, 169.
51 Dan Kilgore, How Did Davy Die? (College Station and London: Texas A&M University Press, 1978), 35; Groneman, Eyewitness, 93.
52 The quotation is from The Academic American Encyclopedia, on-line edition, Grolier Electronic Publishing, Danbury CT., 1991.
53 Jose Tamborrel interview, The De La Pena Diary (film), Brian Huberman, 2000, Brian Huberman interview with author, November 27, 2002
54 The Morning Star (Houston), Saturday, May 18, 1839. The poem first appeared in the Red Lander, San Augustine, Texas. Thanks to Jack Jackson for sharing this interesting research find with me.
Selected Bibliography
Archival Collections
Archives Division, Texas General Land Office, Austin, Texas
Bounty and Donation Land Grant Records
Character Certificate Records
County Clerk Returns Records
Court of Claims Records
First Class Headright Land Grant Records
Lost Book of Harris County
GLO Land Grant Indexes
Muster Rolls Book
Republic of Texas Veteran Donation Grant Applications Collection
Spanish Land Grant Index
Archives Division, Texas State Library, Austin, Texas
Alamo Papers
Alamo Strays
Adjutant General Correspondence
Army Papers
Audited Military Claims Collection
Audited Military Claims Ledger
Department of State Papers
Election Returns Collection
General Land Office Correspondence
Home Papers
Houston, Andrew Jackson Papers
Alamo Traces Page 43
