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Post by Elwood on Aug 13, 2023 23:35:47 GMT
The Alamo Reader came in a few days ago. Huge book. Fascinating collection of documents, papers. Some really good, interesting maps of Alamo/Bexar. I am leafing thru it, reading here and there.
Very Hot in Texas. Darn! Dry too.
Greys book is turning out quite interesting. The Alamo has fallen, not a lot of details put forth re: the seige/battle that I hadn't heard. However, re: Battle of Coleto/Fannin/Goliad, much more details in the writing. I have never really read much about Coleto and Goliad, just what the basic story is. Quite a few Greys present tho and several were able to escape, ergo the added info. Greys did not hold Fannin in much respect. He made numerous tactical errors in the ill-fated attempt to leave Goliad and assist Travis at the Alamo as well as his retreat from Goliad to Victoria when he was surrounded by Mexican forces. However when the fighting began, he showed no lack of bravery which was noted by the Greys, according to the author. About to start the chapter on Palm Sunday, so we know how that ends.
No added info found on Samuel Holloway except he is listed on the roster made out in New Orleans and stated he died in defense of the Alamo. Listed as a private.
About 70 pages to go.
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Post by Elwood on Sept 27, 2023 20:44:33 GMT
Ordered Lord’s Time to Stand. Pretty sure I read it years ago but couldn’t locate the book. Will read again. Arriving in a couple of days.
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Post by Elwood on Sept 30, 2023 20:31:44 GMT
"These men were all kinds.
They were farmers, clerks, doctors, lawyers. There was a blacksmith, a hatter, a house painter, a jockey, a shoemaker, a Baptist preacher. Very few were the frontier type, although one was indeed the greatest bear hunter in all the west.
They came from Boston, Natchez, New York, Charlestown, Philadephia. From Illinois, New Jersey, Tennessee, 18 states altogether. A few were from across the ocean but only two or three had been in Texas as long as six years.
As a group, they had little in common - yet everything. For they were all Americans, sharing a fierce love of liberty and a deep belief that the time had come to take their stand to keep it."
The foreword from A Time to Stand, powerful writing.
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Post by Elwood on Dec 24, 2023 1:25:31 GMT
Couple of things, Alamo related, and also related to my father.
Going thru another box of my Dad's paper's, he had lots of these. Mostly papers headed for the trash or burn barrel but a couple of interesting things.
Samuel Holloway: found a copy of a letter from a lady to my dad asking him for information on a ancestor of hers with the same last name as ours. She evidently knew of his genealogy work. He writes to her that our ancestors came from Tennessee and before that, Virginia. He then writes,"Samuel Holloway, who died at the Alamo, was supposed to have come from Philadelphia but his people lived in Virginia.” I regret that I never had a more thorough conversation with him on Samuel.
No internet in those days, but I have come across lots of newspaper clippings in these boxes. Dad was an avid reader, books and newspapers.
In a clipping from the Dallas Morning News, Feb. 24, 1985, a US Air Force colonel, Henry Lee Somerville, while teaching military science at Texas A&M in 1955, came across a yellowed brown, cracked book with dust all over it at the college library. According to Somerville, the book was an account of a Mexican congressional investigation of Santa Anna's conduct and blaming him for losing Texas. The book was written in both Spanish and English. The story was told of a young Mexican colonel who stated that he rescued Crockett as Mexican soldiers were closing in on him. Crockett had broken the stock on his rifle but was proving to be deadly using the barrel as a club. The young colonel said he talked softly and from a distance and finally convinced Davy he could save the lives of his comrades by surrendering. The colonel guaranteed fair treatment. Santa Anna instead had the survivors shot and even threatened the young colonel with execution. Somerville said he told friends of the book and it soon disappeared from the library.
This somewhat matches the accounts I've heard of Gen. Castrillon except he was a General not a colonel and there is much more detail in this story.
I never had a problem with the Crockett surrendering scenarios. Logical that something like this happened when you consider firearms of the day. At some point you're unable to reload, what with hundreds of Mexican soldiers coming over and thru the walls. There didn't even have to be a surrender, just a taking of prisoners against their will. Doesn't change the outcome or the story of their sacrifice.
Re: Crockett. Dad loved to scribble. Found a quote he attributed to Crockett:
"If there is anything in this world particularly worth living for, it is freedom. (If there is) Anything that would render death to a brave man particularly pleasant, it is the cause of freedom."
Never heard it, don't know it is Crockett's, but thought I'd include it.
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Post by rollingthunder on Dec 24, 2023 20:52:11 GMT
Merry Christmas
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Post by Elwood on Dec 25, 2023 3:49:56 GMT
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays to you Sir and everyone around these here parts!
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Post by yanmacca on Dec 25, 2023 9:40:51 GMT
Merry Christmas Elwood, some of us put our exmas messages on the founders PM section, so I reckon the others will send their own message to you. Pachi check your PMs
Ian
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Post by quincannon on Dec 26, 2023 17:07:24 GMT
Christmas was a bit cold this year. Zero temps outside and a broken furnace inside. Still cold today but not as bad and the furnace is fixed. Walked around through the house until yesterday evening when the furnace got fixed in a parka with two sweaters underneath and I was still cold. Reminded me of the Infantry, hands shaking, snot running down my nose etc. Christmas dinner today (postponed), but it's going to be a good one, three small filet mignon with a selection of my favorite salads, topped off with cherry turnovers and a couple of belts of Bushmills, to make up for not watching the Pope from Rome on TV at midnight Christmas Eve which is my usual custom.
Merry Day After
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Post by Elwood on Mar 2, 2024 16:21:57 GMT
Happy Texas Independence Day!
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Post by Elwood on Apr 4, 2024 22:54:06 GMT
So I ordered and received Blood of Noble Men several weeks ago. I’ve just been busy with other things and only quickly looked thru it. Been studying it more now, huge amount of research, sources used in it. Quite interesting. I had never heard the story of Trinidad Coy, until now.
One bone of contention with the author tho. He makes the statement in one of his footnotes that Crockett “was not a frontiersman or an adventurer but a politician.” This was near the end of the book in reference to Crockett being executed. I really don’t agree with that statement. Had Crockett been a politician, he would have done whatever he needed to stay on Andy Jackson’s good side. Instead he exercised his own beliefs, took a stand and was run out of congress for it. Now if the author Huffines had written Crockett was no Soldier . . . I might have bought that.
Excellent book tho. Thanks for the recommendation!
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Post by quincannon on Apr 6, 2024 2:36:14 GMT
Huffines is not without a predilection to poppycock from time to time. David Crockett was what he was, when he was what he was, whatever that might be at the time he was doing it.
Problem with historical Texas figures is that they are historical TEXAS figures, large than life, able to leap tall building etc. etc. etc. The reality is that they were all mere mortals, subject to the same successes, faults, and failures that we all are subject to. Crockett was a novelty when he was in Congress. He was a political pain in the ass to Jackson, but again so was Houston. The difference was that Jackson loved Houston like a son, and had little (very little) time for Crockett.
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Post by Elwood on Apr 21, 2024 22:35:45 GMT
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Post by quincannon on Apr 21, 2024 23:36:13 GMT
The San Jacinto Campaign was a masterpiece, little studied, but a masterpiece none the less. Houston is rarely thought of among great American tacticians or practitioners of the operational arts, but if anyone wishes to present one campaign that had more decisive and long lasting results I would love to hear from you, armed of course with substantive rational.
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