Honor due: Alamo remembrance days begin
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It is right that we remember the Alamo;
It is right that we remember heroes;
It is right that we remember valor, sacrifice, and honor;
It is right that we remember the cost of independence;
Remember!
“Thermopylae had its messenger of defeat; the Alamo had none…” — Gen. Edward Burleson a commander of Texian Army forces during the Texas Revolution. Burleson accepted Santa Anna’s sword when he surrendered.
No matter where I roam in this world, I have dual citizenship, for Texas is my country too.
Alamo at night with Texas flag. Photo K. Lee Lerner
Accordingly, for 15 days each year, to commemorate the 13 days of glory representing the sacrificial battle of the Alamo, the massacre at Goliad, and the victory at San Jacinto that secured independence for Texas, the American flag that usually flies in front Sibley is replaced by a contemporary Texas flag that once flew over the Alamo. If I am traveling, arrangements are made to continue the tradition.
Those who know me well understand that it is my goal — among other goals, of course — to write a book of historical non-fiction treating the Texas revolution and war for independence. My progress toward that goals is, of course, interrupted by the constant flow of news and advances in science that I am privileged to cover. Science and factual writing is my first love and we have had a long and lovely relationship that will always continue in some form. I can’t imagine not teaching in some form or fashion and writing about science is simply another form of teaching.
Although I will never retire — I want to die with unfinished projects and stories on my desk — I also confess that I am increasingly feeling the stress of life’s brief span. Even under the luckiest of future circumstances, the horizon is on the horizon..
Still, I hope that by the time I turn 70 I might be more fully, if not solidly, committed to my other intellectual passions, including a book on the Texas Revolution.
History is always contested territory. In our contemporary culture wars, how people view the defenders of the Alamo, how they treat the historical fact and cultural mythology surrounding the defense and fall of the Alamo, almost always runs close to how they view the founding of America and the intentions of its founders.
With specific regard to the siege of the Alamo and massacre of its defenders, there are certainly many serious debates to be had about what is fact and what is legend but I only engage in such discussion with respected historians, authors, and others who have also deeply examined the primary sources, show a respect for the citation of primary sources, and who treat historical events and figures in the context of their time.
Over the years I made good progress on copies of the translated “after-action” reports from Mexican officers who reduced the Alamo. I secured these reports several years ago, and they do much to clarify fact versus myth.
In general, they are supportive of the heroic mythology that has evolved over the decades. They absolutely reduce to rubbish many revisionist attempts that try to substantially reframe the narrative by relying too heavily on a single source to he disregard of others at least equally privileged to the events and/or contemporaneous accounts. Some of these revisionist accounts cherry-pick evidence and dismiss the accounts of those present during the battle because the witnesses were women or hispanic.
One must be carful to weigh all the accounts and evidence, to test them against other accounts and evidence. This is especially important when the best we might do is make informed estimates and guesses about certain events that are otherwise lost to history.
How does one weight after action accounts by Mexican officers, some of whom were clearly exaggerating to aggrandize themselves or gain favor with Santa Anna versus accounts by, for example, Alamo survivor Susanna Dickinson (whose husband died in the battle) when her accounts were not formally recorded in newspapers until many decades after the battle and —critically –after some events like Travis drawing a line in the sand had already entered into popular accounts of the battle.
With specific regard to the siege of the Alamo and massacre of its defenders, there are certainly many serious debates to be had about what is fact and what is legend but I only engage in such discussion with respected historians, authors, and others who have also deeply examined the primary sources, show a respect for the citation of primary sources, and who treat historical events and figures in the context of their time.
Wonderfully intriguing questions may never be answered.
Did Travis literally draw a line the sand, or is the legend mythical and metaphorical? How many Alamo soldiers tried to escape or move from the Alamo to another nearby position once the walls had been topped and breached? How many, and which, of the Alamo defenders may have attempted to surrender only to be executed?
Given current known evidence, answers to such questions may forever remain elusive. Anyone — no matter how respected a historian or diligent author they might be — who claims to have the definitive answer to such questions — or who offers an answer cast in ideological bias — is a fool, dishonest, or trying to sell a lie. The best that can be done is to weigh conflicting and often disputable evidence and form a reasoned evidence-driven opinion.
My own writing certainly casts the defenders of the Alamo as flawed men who nevertheless, in the words of Chester Newell — the Massachusetts-born, Yale-educated, Episcopalian minister who became the earliest historian of the Texas Revolution– who wrote, ” It was here that a gallant few, the bravest of the brave, threw themselves between the enemy and the settlements, determined never to surrender nor retreat. They redeemed their pledge to Texas with the forfeit of their lives – they fell the chosen sacrifice to Texas Freedom.”
While I am still deep in the research phase of my book, nothing yet strains my central hypothesis that it is trivial whether, for example, Travis’ iconic line was myth or fact because the choice the line symbolized –a choice between life and death for one’s country — was one made manifest every day by the defenders who stayed in the Alamo from the time Santa Anna’s forces laid siege on February 23, 1876 to the fall of the Alamo thirteen days later on morning of March 6th.
Along similar lines, whether a group of defenders tried to escape or reposition themselves outside the walls in the waning moments of the frantic one-hour battle, or whether our strong human instinct for survival compelled a few brave defenders to, when all was lost. to attempt to surrender even though they knew no quarter would be given, are not problematic to the traditional interpretations of the Alamo articulated by Newell.
Anyone who has studied war, especially those who know the stench, chaos, fear, and desperation (even in the bravest) that are part and parcel of battle must see such departures from myth or Hollywood-esque treatments of history as normal, understandable, and inconsequential to greater glory of the defenders or the larger significance of the Alamo.
Accordingly, I have little patience with those who simply want to parrot ideologically-tinged debates about the Alamo, nor do I normally show great tolerance with the opinionated but factually unarmed. A few recent books and essays, which I shall refrain from mentioning –if only to modestly deny them more of the publicity they crave — fail to meet even the most minimal the standards of scholarship to be taken seriously. Most are easily discredited, and several are nothing more than greedy attempts to cash in on anti-intellectual trends.
Enough said.
For now — for Texans, Americans, and all those in the world who cherish truth, honor sacrifice, and value freedom — it is simply time to remember.
