March 6, 2003, 9:00 a.m.
Why We Remember the Alamo
Comfort in history.
By Gleaves Whitney
Posted on 03/06/2003 12:00:57 PM PST by SJackson
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March 6, 2003, 9:00 a.m. By Gleaves Whitney |
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very good Texan knows that today is Alamo Day.
Before daybreak on March 6, 1836, Mexican General Santa Anna ordered the final assault on 189 defenders of a decaying mission fortress above the San Antonio River. After being repulsed by a fusillade of musket balls and cannon shots, Mexican soldiers regrouped and surmounted the north wall. In the hand-to-hand combat that followed, hordes of Mexican troops eventually overcame the Alamo defenders, who died to a man.
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The battle raged about 90 minutes and was over by sunrise — in the literal if not the figurative sense. Interpretive battles over what happened soon erupted and continue to this day. For example:
1) Did the commander of the Alamo, William Barrett Travis, really draw the line in the sand — or was it the invention of a storyteller? The incident was not written up until more than three decades after the battle.
2) What were the principals really like — Travis, Crockett, Bowie, Santa Anna? To what extent did their words and behavior reveal "warts and all"? In many fashionably revisionist accounts, it's just "warts" and no "all."
3) Then there is the matter of how David Crockett met his end. Was he cut down fiercely bludgeoning Mexican soldiers with his rifle? Or was he captured? Or did he surrender with a half-dozen other defenders, only to be mercilessly executed by order of Santa Anna? The revisionist notion that Crockett surrendered leans on the controversial diary of one of Santa Anna's soldiers, Jose Enrique de la Pena, who may not have even fought at the Alamo.
4) What flag flew over the Alamo? It matters to the meaning of the battle. If the defenders raised the Mexican tricolor of 1824, then they were fighting to restore the Mexican constitution of 1824, which Santa Anna had abrogated. If, as seems more likely, the flag was that of a group of American volunteers called the New Orleans Greys, then the Alamo was a defiant declaration of independence.
These are among the many questions over which historians and Alamo buffs have fought for decades. The arguments are coming to a head once again in 2003 because of the new Alamo movie that's being filmed. Walt Disney Pictures has teamed up with director John Lee Hancock, a native Texan, to produce the most ambitious Alamo ever. It is also rumored to be the most violent PG-13 film that Disney will have released. The cast includes Dennis Quaid (as Sam Houston), Billy Bob Thornton (Crockett), and Emilio Echevarria (Santa Anna).
To their credit, the filmmakers have consulted numerous historians. The set is a painstakingly accurate reproduction of San Antonio de Bexar in 1836, built on a sprawling ranch in the Texas Hill Country north of San Antonio. Only period weapons, artifacts, and clothing are being used. This will lead to some surprises for audiences raised on the stereotypical western. In 1836, for example, men wore not cowboy hats but seal-skin caps and tall hats. And the exterior of San Fernando Church is not sun-bleached white, but richly colored.
But the Alamo story is about so much more than getting the material culture right. It's about the meaning of the event. Professor Stephen Hardin, an eminent Alamo historian at Victoria College, has been one of the moviemakers' go-to guys. He himself goes right to the bottom line when he asks: To what extent will the story be told historically, and to what extent mythically?
The answer to this question is not altogether clear. Until the movie is released in December, John Lee Hancock will keep his cards vested. Alamo buffs and revisionists are particularly watching for leaks of how Crockett's death is depicted. Earlier this week I spoke with Dr. Bruce Winders, the historian at the real Alamo and a consultant to the moviemakers, and even he doesn't know what lines in the sand the director is drawing.
Winders is pretty sure, however, that no one school of thought will totally prevail. Those who hope for a documentary will be disappointed. Those who desire reaffirmation of the legend will be frustrated. Those who call for revisionism will be unrequited. The movie is unapologetically Hollywood: The aim is to connect with audiences emotionally by alternately entertaining, horrifying, and inspiring.
The unofficial website tracking the film reports that, in harmony with postmodern times, the movie will portray the 13-day siege and battle from various viewpoints — Anglo Texian, Mexican soldado, black slave. To heighten the sense of authenticity, the Mexicans will speak in 19th-century Spanish, during which parts there will be subtitles (a first for a mainstream Alamo movie). To avoid hero worship, some unsavory topics will be broached — for example, Bowie as a slave trader and Travis as an adulterer. Clearly this is not John Wayne's Alamo.
The moviemakers want this new Alamo to show the complexity of the revolutionaries and their revolution. The film's production designer, Michael Corenblith, says he hopes the conflict is presented "as a dialogue between … factions." There were in fact many factions in the 1836 Revolution, and consequently many dialogues: between Mexicans and Americans; between Americans and Native Americans; between Texas Anglos ("Texians") and Hispanics ("Tejanos"); between slaveholders and freedom fighters. These dialogues fill a large horizon of the American experience.
At a deeper level, the Alamo story fulfills our need for heroes. Whatever the historiographic puzzles, whatever the biographical "warts," certain facts remain. On the morning of March 6, at least 189 men stood their ground against a ruthless dictator. Though many among this band of brothers were illiterate, they made a universally articulate statement about courage and self-sacrifice. Texians and Tejanos fought side-by-side with men from distant states and nations — England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Germany, and Denmark. Some of these men measured their time in Texas in mere weeks. Once the siege began, they had 12 days to escape. But they didn't. They endured round-the-clock bombardments, sleep deprivation, cold nights, and poor food. They forewent the comfort of a wife, the pleasures of the hearth, and the amenities of civilization.
What inspires men to sacrifice so?
That's the question these past 167 years. That's why we remember the Alamo, and why every generation of Americans recalls what happened on that distant borderland. The Texas Thermopylae holds a mirror up to our character. The event challenges us to ponder our principles, our aspirations, our capacity for virtue.
The new Alamo movie is getting considerable press, more than most movies receive. Why the heightened interest in the Alamo these days? I suspect it's because America is entering a season of war. Young men and women are being asked to interrupt their schooling, careers, and family life. They are called to go to a distant land, fight a ruthless dictator, and be willing to make a patriotic sacrifice.
They are going, they will fight, and they will be our heroes.
— Gleaves Whitney is a native Texan. His 19-year-old son Ian serves in the Michigan Air National Guard and has been deployed to the Middle East.
That wasn't my reaction, I thought it was too green. All that grass instead of dirt. And a whole city around it, doesn't look like the old Davy Crocket movies.
Make sure ya visit the basement!
The history is written that the last of the 189 defenders, including Crockett, fell back to the mission church for the final stand. It used to be pointed out by guides in the Alamo, that as you walk to the back of the church the temperature drops. History says they made the last stand at the alter of the church. In the heat of August in San Antonio you will still get a shiver at that alter. It's cool, much cooler than the rest of the church, and it's not air-conditioned. Go figure!
Now the socialist revisionists want to take away the courage, and gallantry of the Alamo. Not in Texas they won't. The communists that want your liberty, they want to wipe from you any bastion of courage and patriotism. They want our history as milk toast as their ideas. It just doesn't follow the truth, and the truth is what they hate. Therefore, they try to change the truth.
The Alamo was about liberty and freedom. It was about 189 men that said NO to the slavery of a Mexican dictator, and said YES to liberty. They gave their lives, voluntarily, for the cause of a free Republic of Texas. Could you do the same? If put in that same situation, could you face certain death for a cause as abstract as freedom for you fellow citizens. A soldier is going to face the same question in a land called Iraq, and he will have the blood of Bowie, and Travis, and Crockett running through is veins, and he will make that same decision that was made at the Alamo for the same abstract reasons, and for our freedom and our liberty.
Thank God that we have these brave men to, "Stand and deliver".
That said, I enjoyed my tour immensely. There is a great scale model depicting the assault, and the docents were great.
Equally as interesting, we found, was the mission tour. You need a car, but you can then visit a half dozen or so old Spanish missions around San Antonio. They give a wonderful sense for what life was like in the Southwest in the 18th and early 19th centuries. It was semi-feudal and very church oriented.
If it's like 25 years ago, you'll find it verrrry disappointing. In the early 70's it was surrounded by "downtown honkytonk tourist" garbage. You'll need to use your imagination to get any idea of what went on there, I'm afraid (unless there has been some sort of miraculous transformation).
Something I found moving: in the IMAX film, Travis visits Susannah Dickinson shortly before the battle and takes of a ring and ties it on a string and puts it around her baby's neck. When you go to the real Alamo after the movie, that ring is on display there.
Never in the history of man has it mattered who was there first, and unless you are 100% American Indian this is a real stupid question. If you are 100% it's just plain stupid (not real).
He who dares wins.
Republic ping for my McGee (Battle of Bexar) and Taylor (San Jacinto) ancestors.
*&*% $$$^* yankee (&%^$% %$#@^&%
Yeah...we remembered them both at San Jacinto. The enemies of America would do well to remember that.
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