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Here's an opprotunity to start a 50 page thread. Was Crockett captured and then killed or was he killed fighting? How reliable was de la Pena?
That will probably never be known. I've made it my business to read everything I've been able to find on the controversy and a persuasive case may be made for Pena's legitimacy, as well as one for his diary being a fraud.
What best supports the notion that Crockett was executed after the battle, is that Pena's diary is not the only source, and the other source is superior evidence since it was a nearly contemprary account.
After San Jacinto, Texian officers debriefed the captured Mexican officers, and it was one of them who related the tale, with some minor differences from Pena's story. A copy of the interview was published in a Detroit newspaper that summer.
I think that the evidence is strong enough to establish that there were indeed some survivors of the battle who managed to surrender, only to be executed on Santa Anna's orders. I do not believe that the evidence is persuasive enough to conclude that Davy Crockett was one of them.
Pena's diary suffers from a wide array of historical shortcomings...that it is written is several different handwritings, that it did not surface until 1955 at the height of the Disney generated Davy Crockett craze, that the finder of the diary self published it rather than having it vetted by the editors of a publishing house, and that Pena personally hated Santa Anna and would have gladly written anything which made him appear in a worse light.
I have read counter arguments which cleverly explain away all of the above listed shortcomings, but those arguments advanced possible explanations, not unassailable counter facts.
The above accounts contradict the first hand account left by Joe, Travis' slave, who said that Santa Anna had called upon him to identify the bodies of Travis, Bowie and Crockett, and that Crockett was lying dead with his men near the SW corner of the mission. Unfortunately, Joe vanished from history immediately after that and was never available for questioning or clarification.
Mrs. Dickinson also claimed to have seen Crockett's body, but her statement to that effect was not made until decades after the battle, and is questionable because she said that she identified his body by his "peculiar hat." That was a reference to the coonskin hat, but Crockett did not wear a coonskin hat anywhere except when making public political appearances. He had no such hat, but the various actors who portrayed him in plays about his legend, did wear coonskin hats, so Crockett got one just because everyone was expecting to see him in it when addressing the public. That he would have been wearing it during the battle seems extremely improbable since he treated it as a gimmick only.
Finally, I don't think it makes a bit of difference in terms of judging Crockett's heroism. While it is true that he came to Texas looking for political opportunities, not a fight, once the fight was thrust upon him, he behaved splendidly during the siege, so much so that Travis mentioned in one of his letters how Crockett was "seen at all points, animating the troops."
That Crockett might have surrendered when the Alamo had fallen and further fighting was clearly useless, doesn't make him a coward.
Yes, that would be an interesting thread, but not here please.
This thread is just to remember those who died there, including those 600-1500 Mexican soldiers who died defending their country too.
Sorry, skillit, but I started writing before the above appeared from you.
Actually, I don't know what a thread which calls for "just remembering those who died" would be beyond everyone making the same post saluting those who fell.
This thread is just to remember those who died there, including those 600-1500 Mexican soldiers who died defending their country too.
Maybe that many Mexicans were killed during the entire rebellion though I think 1500 would be very high. I doubt that many were killed at the Alamo; it was all over pretty quickly.
Here's an opprotunity to start a 50 page thread. Was Crockett captured and then killed or was he killed fighting? How reliable was de la Pena?
I wrote a story wrapped around the history and decided to simply say it is unknown if he was a or b. Should be an interesting discussion. I didn't go to documents but most of what I found chose to say in was unclear.
Maybe that many Mexicans were killed during the entire rebellion though I think 1500 would be very high. I doubt that many were killed at the Alamo; it was all over pretty quickly.
The Mexican casualty count is another mystery which I do not see ever being resolved short of the discovery of some new and compelling evidence.
That the defenders were taken by surprise, that it was still too dark to see well, and that the Mexicans were at the walls before the fort reacted, suggests that a high casualty count for the attackers is unrealistic.
However, the the flanking wings attacking the North wall were driven back before merging with the central column and overwhelming the wall with numbers. We also know that the column which was supposed to attack the low wall in the SW corner, was driven back by the defenders and they wound up shifting their assault to the NW corner. These things suggest that the Mexicans were taking a great deal of punishment.
We must also consider that while the Alamo defenders may not have shot that many Mexicans, the Mexicans were engaged in shooting themselves.
Santa Anna's army was composed of some disciplined, veteran troops, some well trained cavalry, and a huge mass of recently impressed peasants who had received next to nothing in terms of military training. They were simply given Revolutionary War vintage Brown Bess muskets, which became innacurate after sixty yards, and many had never even practiced with them.
Compounding things, the typical Mexican peasant of this time was a very short, and due to undernourishment, very slight individual. The recoil from the Brown Bess when fired was so severe that shoulders were being dislocated and bones shattered. In reaction, the peasants adopted the practice of securing the butt of the gun to their belt buckles when firing in order to endure the recoil. Such shots were of course unaimed, and tended to go low.
All of these factors resulted in the second wave troops pausing and firing into the first wave which was at the base of the wall. If there was a high casulaty count, the Mexicans made a great contribution to it themselves.
The battle of the Alamo remains an inspiring moment in Texas history. The sacrifice of Travis and his command animated the rest of Texas and kindled a righteous wrath that swept the Mexicans off the field at San Jacinto. Since 1836, Americans on battlefields over the globe have responded to the exhortation, "Remember the Alamo!"
What of real military value did the defenders' heroic stand accomplish? Some movies and other works of fiction pretend that Houston used the time to raise an army. During most of the siege, however, he was at the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos and not with the army. The delay did, on the other hand, allow promulgation of independence, formation of a revolutionary government, and the drafting of a constitution. If Santa Anna had struck the Texan settlements immediately, he might have disrupted the proceedings and driven all insurgents across the Sabine River.
But as Dandy Don used to say and helped popularize, if "Ifs and buts was candy and nuts we'd all have a Merry Christmas".
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