The 1836 battle for the Alamo

The 1836 battle for the Alamo has grown to mythic proportions, bolstered in posterity by those keen to liken the last stand of Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and William Barret Travis to the Spartan defense of Thermopolyae two and a half millennia hence. Not a particularly shrewd or strategic military ploy, the defense of the Alamo was as much a miscalculation as it was a rebellious last stand. Nonetheless, the heroism and valor displayed by the small band of "Texians" during the siege on the Alamo remains today a source of pride for modern day Texans and Americans alike. Today, new accounts of the battle have surfaced, calling into question what have heretofore been regarded as incontrovertible historical facts. Also, Mexican-Americans have clamored for their place in the history books alongside Crockett, Bowie, Travis and company as opponents of the Mexican tyrant General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. As in all things throughout history, a true picture of the Alamo is hard to come by. Sifting through the legends, the lore, and the rumors, however, is an enterprise worth embarking upon.

It was the Mexican independence from Spain in 1821 that truly set the stage for what was to become a mini-revolution in Texas. Established at this time as an independent state within Mexico, Texas became a beacon to fortune-seekers, visionaries, and adventurers from the United States and Europe (Grigg 35). In 1824, Stephen F. Austin and the "Old Three Hundred" a complement of three hund

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rived six days later, and by February 14, Travis and Bowie had agreed to share command (www.thealamo.org). Bowie had already declared in a letter that "The salvation of Texas depends in great measure in keeping Bexar out of the hands of the enemy (Brands 92)." These strongwilled, rebellious men, acting with characteristic independence and bravado, had made their choice, and sealed their fate in the process. Interestingly, the fight that would ensue at the Alamo was ostensibly not a fight for independence as such; rather, the combatants at the Alamo sought merely a republican government and the restoration of their status under the Mexican constitution (Grigg 39-40). When General Santa Anna and his forces (some 1000 armed men with thousands more on the way) arrived in Bezar on February 23, 1836 (www.thealamo.org), he was enraged to find a small band of 200 Texans, holed up in the Alamo, flying not the lone-star flag of Texas independence (which had not even been officially adopted yet), but the red, white and green Mexican flag, on which was written "1824", a gesture alluding to the Mexican constitution of 1824 that had promised the Texians their statehood (Grigg 39). Santa Anna responded by flying a red flag, signaling "

Category: History - T