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Post by deadwoodgultch on Mar 9, 2016 0:28:52 GMT
I have driven the back roads from Port Lavaca and Victoria, TX to San Antonio. I am sure those of you know the battlefield I passed through on the way. I have also driven interstates and back roads from San Antonio to Temple. I see areas where the Texas freedom fighters could have given Santa Anna fits.
Why did the defenders of the Alamo choose to DIP rather than breakout and fight a guerilla campaign. The personnel that were at the Alamo would have lent themselves to that type of warfare in a big way. Had they done this I think they could have depleted Santa Anna' s forces with less loss of life to the Texicans. Had they done this and contacted Sam Houston, and informed him, Santa Anna's troops may have given up the ghost before they did. Many don't know of Sam's background with the Cherokee's and his familiarity with this type of warfare.
There was time for that breakout even after Santa Ann's arrival and initial thrusts. Being the topline student that I am, I am sure that I will be brought up short. No C-2 here please, just straight forward reasons. Thank you.
Regards Tom
PS, time for Dos Equis, while awaiting response and the worlds most interesting man.
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dave
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Post by dave on Mar 9, 2016 3:17:10 GMT
I wonder if Travis could see beyond the glorious opportunity to regain his personal honor which had somewhat besmirched by his past actions? Did he stayed even though Houston ordered the destruction of the Alamo? Houston did that right? This is a topic for The Old Man of Colorado!! Come forth QC and tell us what it was like at the Ole Alamo. Regards Man
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Post by quincannon on Mar 9, 2016 4:15:31 GMT
Pork Chop Hill - It's complicated.
First off, Travis was one piss poor commander, and at the same time one hell of a leader. What he accomplished was the seminal battle in American History, the thing that made, the thing that made America spread from sea to shinning sea (Read that line twice to gain the true meaning)
Next: Dismiss from your mind every Alamo movie ever made, especially the Wayne movie, which I enjoy, but gives a very false impression of the capabilities of the garrison.
The siege of Bexar (San Antonio) took place in December 1835. It was a clear cut Texian victory, but there was some cost, mainly wounded. Those wounded were still present in late February 1836 and housed in the designated hospital on the second floor of the convent (the still standing, although the second floor is gone, building facing Alamo Plaza). There were about 30 in number.
In the period Dec-Feb, at least one ill advised expedition, which ended up getting destroyed was launched on a rogue basis from Bexar. With them they took everything that was not nailed down including munitions and livestock. Do you start to see where this is going?
During that same period the general feeling was that Santa Anna could not possibly launch an offensive operation until April, so most that were not lured away by adventure, were lured away by homesickness and the need to prepare for planting, and seeing to their families. Most of those remaining in Bexar then (the able bodied) were recent arrivals in Tejas, with no roots in the province, men like the New Orleans Grays. There would be plenty of time to return once word reached them Santa Anna was on the march.
On 23 February, did I mention Travis was a piss poor commander, there was no security out, none, what livestock that remained were all out in the countryside, unsecured, grazing, the wounded were still on the second floor, no rolling stock was left in town, and Santa Anna was on the Medina (a little less than 8 miles away) and marching to Bexar, faster than Don Juan could get under the blanket with his conquest du jour. SUPRISE. He did the unexpected, was undetected, and stole the march.
The Texians quartered in town, about half of the total, ran for the nearest lifeboat, the Alamo. They gathered up what they could as far a food, some few cattle on the hoof, and perhaps as many as fifteen horses. By the next morning a loose ring was thrown around the Alamo by SA's vanguard force of about a thousand. Still it was easy to come into, and exit the mission compound. It was a big area to cover with only a thousand. So Tom is correct there would not be much to stop a nighttime breakout, but breaking out is one thing, and getting away another. The Mexican cavalry was the best in North America and that goes triple for Presidials (the Mexican version of the Texas Rangers)
A breakout also poses the problem of what do you do with the wounded, the numerous women and children that shared the dangers throughout the siege with the defenders, as well as how do you transport the food and munitions enough to sustain a combat force.
If you were going to turn the Alamo garrison into an irregular force, in my opinion, that decision would have had to be made no later than 15 February, and implemented to the point of clearing town by 17 February, and there is not one clue in my mind how they would have obtained the necessary intelligence to make that decision, and where they would have obtained the horses and rolling stock to get everything away that they needed to preserve lives, preserve the Tejano families that sided with the Anglos, and establish and maintain an irregular force delaying Santa Anna until Houston could form an army.
Keep in mind here this was 23 February to 6 March, and Houston did not have an army until he reached Gross' Plantation which was early in April.
So the short answer is I think Tom's vision of bridge burning, ambush, and death in the night is/was the correct solution, but there was just no way to implement it.
Did I mention Travis was a piss poor commander, but there was no other man in Tejas, including Houston, that could have kept those men together, fighting, for thirteen days, every damned one of them knowing the jig was up from day one. You can tell this latter statement from the tone of Travis' letter on that first day.
My take. I hope that answers the first of what I hope will be a continuing dialog on this subject that is dear to me, and has become dear to my granddaughter who is the only real Texian in the family.
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Post by quincannon on Mar 9, 2016 5:06:17 GMT
By the way Tom:
Texian - Anglo colonists, also any Anglo from the States that joined the cause, todays Texan.
Texican - Hispanics allied with the cause and there were many who like Santa Anna a hell of a lot less than the Texians did - today's Tejano.
Bexar - San Antonio de Bexar
The Alamo - Slang for Mission San Antonio de Valero, meaning cottonwood tree.
Freedom Fighter - Another name for a pirate, used depending upon what side you were on.
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Post by Beth on Mar 9, 2016 7:44:25 GMT
I can't believe we hadn't started a thread for the Alamo before now! A few days ago Jeopardy had a whole category on the Alamo and thanks to QC's reading suggestions and conversations, I got every single question right.
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Post by yanmacca on Mar 9, 2016 13:28:39 GMT
As defences go the Alamo was no great shakes, as this shows in how nearly two hundred men with plenty of canon were defeated. This was in no way down to the fighting ability of these men and if the walls were high and thick enough to be able to withstand a cannonade and high enough to prevent assault ladders from reaching the top, then things may have been different. If you look for example of how the great castles in Britain were built and defended, some of these huge structure were defended by a mere 30 troops, so the Alamo was too large and gave the attackers to many options and the walls were basically too weak and low to prevent assaults and ordnance from heavy artillery.
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The Alamo
Mar 9, 2016 13:40:17 GMT
via mobile
Post by BrevetorCoffin on Mar 9, 2016 13:40:17 GMT
As defences go the Alamo was no great shakes, as this shows in how nearly two hundred men with plenty of canon were defeated. This was in no way down to the fighting ability of these men and if the walls were high and thick enough to be able to withstand a cannonade and high enough to prevent assault ladders from reaching the top, then things may have been different. If you look for example of how the great castles in Britain were built and defended, some of these huge structure were defended by a mere 30 troops, so the Alamo was too large and gave the attackers to many options and the walls were basically too weak and low to prevent assaults and ordnance by heavy artillery. I do not believe The Alamo was built with much intent of it being a fortress. Built in the early 1700s the greatest risks were hostile NA's. From there I will not even attempt to add to QC's outstanding explanation. Best, David
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Post by quincannon on Mar 9, 2016 15:25:24 GMT
The average height of the plaza walls was eight feet, the height of most people's ceiling in the rooms of their house. The buildings in the plaza were built first, and the wall then added as a protection against Comanche raids. Any other fortification measures added were done so by the Presedial companies stationed there from time to time, until the Mexicans under Cos stated to fortify the place in earnest in 1835.
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dave
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Post by dave on Mar 9, 2016 16:01:25 GMT
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dave
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Post by dave on Mar 9, 2016 18:51:58 GMT
Yan
I hope QC will step in and correct any mistakes in this post. I have read that the thickness of the walls, particularly the north wall enabled the Mexicans to have shelter at its base. The defenders had to lean out and over the thick walls to fire and were easy targets for the attackers. This concept also applied to the cannons used for defense which could not depress enough to affect the Mexicans in close.
David I agree that the mission was never designed to be a fortress and was too difficult to defend properly. The area enclosed by the walls was far too vast for 200 or so to properly defend. Not enough bodies to go around and since they were spread so thin it was just a death trap. Regards Dave
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Post by yanmacca on Mar 9, 2016 19:42:55 GMT
Dave, I suppose parts were thicker than others, but even a wall around a foot thick would mean you have no visual of the are around is base unless you lean over the edge to see. but the area needed to be defended was so vast and even if you had 200 men you were at a disadvantage because some of them had to operate the guns so that would take say 50 men out of the 200, leaving 150, then split these into four and that leaves you between 37-38 men to defend each wall, wow talk about Custer operating with small units, 37 men to defend a long stretch of wall, now that is leaving it thin.
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Post by quincannon on Mar 9, 2016 21:47:06 GMT
Dave: The concept is called getting under the guns, be they long arms or artillery. It is a problem of geometry. The closer you get to any wall the more relative safety you have from fire emitting from that wall.
The north wall was long thought to be the weakest. It was for a long time depicted in drawings and in movies as being a vertical palisade covering a breech made in the wall the previous December by Texian artillery firing upon Cos' men in the plaza from the vicinity of the Garza Sugar Mill across the river to the northwest, a fair piece, and to give you an idea of distance it is near the present campus of St Mary's University. That destruction at range from relatively light artillery shows the inherent weakness of all the free sanding walls.
More recent research has revealed that not only the breech, but the entire wall was covered not by a palisade, but rather a crib, meaning an additional log wall laid horizontally and parallel to the stone wall, and the space between filled with dirt. That made it exceptionally strong, but also thick, so you were actually enabling your enemy to get under the guns quicker.
It was the non-deliberate massing at the north wall that eventually permitted the decisive break in.
When you look at defenders. Taking an approximate number of 200, about 75 were dedicated to manning the guns. About 30 as previously said were ill, and took no part in the battle save dying. That gave you about 100 or probably less to man the walls as riflemen. There were more than four walls. Lots of angles have to be taken into consideration especially on the east side where those lower walls and angles were the remnants of that portion of the old convento. To visualize that is fairly easy today for that area still exists. What is now called cavalry courtyard in mission days was actually a square building enclosing a central courtyard. For those that have visited, it is the area now dominated by one humungous Texas live oak (best place in town for wedding and prom pictures so I am told). By 1836 three sides were in ruin, and all of the building that remained was the side facing the plaza, called the long barracks (still standing. Some of those old ruined walls are there as well, or at least there is a wall where they should be, that appears reconstructed.
A friend of mine on another site once did the math, and I think the riflemen worked out to one rifleman every fifteen meters. That figure is pure math and suspect for we know there was outside the wall security posted, and a couple of outside against the wall earthworks that should be subtracted from that rough number.
There is one thing I did not mention last night, because it was not necessary to answer Tom's initial question. Santa Anna did not have sufficient forces to conduct a successful assault with his vanguard force. He would not achieve sufficiency until about 3 March when his main body arrived. Until then he only had enough to place a very loose ring around the Alamo, and make the lives of the defenders generally miserable. So unless you were hit by chance the defense was no more than extremely tiring. It got much worse in the two days prior to the assault.
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dave
Brigadier General
Posts: 1,679
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Post by dave on Mar 9, 2016 22:49:00 GMT
Good post QC. I was sorta partially almost correct. That is pretty good for me since I have not been to the Alamo since about 1988. You will need to explain the situation regarding who is in charge of the Shrine since the Daughters of the Republic of Texas are no longer in charge of the facility. Regards Dave
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Post by deadwoodgultch on Mar 10, 2016 22:35:53 GMT
How much has the river changed or been redirected in 180 years, other than the River Walk?
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Post by Beth on Mar 11, 2016 0:31:32 GMT
There is a map in this article that shows the river in 1836 and today.
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