Exodus From the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth (55 page)

In conclusion, based on Colonel Almonte’s casualty figure of 288, from his highly precise journal, and de la Pena’s figure of 252 defender’s bodies, the ratio of defenders to killed or wounded attackers has increased considerably. Even more, if approximately half of the Mexican losses were inflicted by fratricide, which was very likely according to Mexican sources, then less than 150 Mexican casualties resulted from defender’s fire. These facts and figures all additionally verify the exodus from the Alamo relatively early in the battle, as opposed to the last stand mythology of fighting to the bitter end.
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Ironically, the attempt to explore what really happened on March 6, 1836 has resulted in discovering a good many revelations not originally intended or even expected, including a new perspective about what has been the most controversial aspect of the Alamo story: that Crockett indeed died a hero’s death, though not in the conventional sense according the traditional legend of the mythical Alamo. Not a single eyewitness account exists of the traditional view of Crockett’s death, with the forty-nine-year-old Tennessean swinging his musket and slaying great numbers of the enemy.

Therefore, author James Atkins Shackford, who wrote the definitive account of Crockett’s life, was quite correct in his final analysis of the historical record: “According to the evidence, David was not among the five who surrendered. Nor was he one of the last to die, inside the fortress, in the [church] doorway, fighting off a whole regiment. Instead, he died on the outside, one of the earliest to fall, with no gun on him, going on some mission which apparently made him oblivious to danger.” This view seems to partly coincide with Ruiz’s account of having seen Crockett’s body at the main exit point in the west wall’s center at the lunette. If this was the case, then Crockett was killed early in his mission.
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Indeed, in attempting to separate fact from fantasy about the most romanticized death at the Alamo, Shackford emphasized in no uncertain terms how: “What evidence remains suggest that, in fact, David’s death was quite undramatic, that he was one of the first to fall, and that he died unarmed.”
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Since this 1956 analysis, a considerable amount of new information and documentation has come to light, especially about the flight of so many Alamo defenders. Shackford, however, was incorrect about where Crockett died. Ironically, Crockett’s death was most likely not inside the Alamo but on the outside, and not while engaged in some unknown daring “mission,” but when fleeing with so many others to escape certain death inside the old Spanish mission.

But if Crockett did not flee the Alamo with so many other escapees, then even this distinct possibility would be most revealing, because that would place the Tennessean’s decision to remain in an entirely new perspective. The fact that such a large percentage of the Alamo garrison fled in a desperate bid to escape has transformed Crockett’s alleged capture and execution in a much more heroic light, which, ironically, would be in keeping with the romantic image and legend, if that was the case. Indeed, perhaps unlike a majority of the Alamo garrison, Crockett, despite being stationed in the most vulnerable defensive position—the low palisade—and with more opportunity to escape than anywhere else along the perimeter, did not flee the doomed Alamo like so many others. Even more, because the largest body of men departing the Alamo passed through the edge of the palisade, which was defended by Crockett and the Tennessee volunteers, he might have watched these men leave, after deciding not to join them. Crockett had faced a quandary. After all, his political career was at stake, and perhaps his dream of becoming the future president of the Republic of Texas. If he fled with the other 62 escapees, then Crockett realized he risked earning a coward’s label, which would have ruined a future political career in Texas.
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Crockett, therefore, might have made his fatal decision to remain behind, sealing his fate inside the Alamo compound for political reasons. Nevertheless, he remained true to his contrarian nature in defying convention: one reason why he had come to Texas in the first place. In this sense, Crockett did what he thought was the right thing to do under the circumstances: remain behind in the Alamo and defend it to the very end. Instead of fleeing, which certainly would have been the natural impulse with a no-quarter fate awaiting him, Crockett might well have stayed behind to die with a minority of the garrison. In such a situation, Crockett would have certainly proved to be one of the most courageous Alamo defenders.With perhaps the majority of the garrison having fled the Alamo, there was nothing else to do for remaining defenders but to seek safety in the church and other buildings. From such shelter, according to the de la Pena diary and other Mexican accounts, Crockett later emerged in a futile attempt to surrender but was executed.

Yet other evidence—a significantly lesser amount, and more circumstantial, than exists about his possible execution—indicated that Crockett might well have joined the flight of the 62 men who went out through the wooden palisade, where he and his Tennessee boys were stationed. After all, this was the ideal place to exit the Alamo. Such a possibility coincides with existing “evidence that indicates that Crocket was not among the five who surrendered.”
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Ironically, perhaps some indirect evidence of Crockett’s flight might indirectly be gleamed from the controversial de la Pena memoir. De la Pena became Santa Anna’s sworn enemy who had a heavy political axe to grind—seemingly the overall purpose of writing his postwar memoir based upon a diary and then embellished—and because of the lingering doubts about the diary’s authenticity and provenance and because he also incorporated other Mexican soldier accounts and even American 1836 newspaper articles that described Crockett’s execution after surrender, he evidently only rewrote an old tale of Crockett’s surrender and execution scene to raise even more hatred against Santa Anna after the Alamo’s fall.
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Actually, the distinct possibility also existed that Crockett actually died a death even more heroic than imaged or previously known. If Crockett indeed went down fighting around his assigned position at the palisade, as tradition has it, then his last stand was in fact far more heroic than simply slaying as many Mexicans as possible for no gain: Crockett may well have stayed in position at the palisade to buy time and protect the flight of his comrades. If so, then such a heroic scenario was reminiscent of what Captain Dickinson and his gunners accomplished in providing timely protective fire for the escapees, during one of the most valiant acts on the bloody morning of March 6.

Ironically, while the Alamo defenders became heroes across Texas and the United States, the young soldados, who won a one-sided victory, continued to be yet denounced as inferior fighting men during this campaign. In a strange paradox, the overall character and quality of the Mexican fighting man continued to be held in utter contempt by the Anglo-Celts. For instance, the
Louisville Journal
ran an Alamo story under the headline, “Convicts Used to Storm Béxar!!!”

What was occurring was an attempt by Texans and Americans— both in Texas and the United States—to retain the moral high ground by yet demonstrating the inferiority of Mexican people, represented by their fighting men, in order to provide a guilt-free, righteous basis for a claim to bountiful Tejano and Mexican land that was not their own. Not long after the Alamo’s fall, the editor attempted to solve the mystery of how allegedly inferior Mexican soldiers could possibly have defeated even a relative handful of Anglo-Celts at the Alamo: “The tyrant [Santa Anna] brought with him 1,508 convicts from the Mexican prisons [and] he placed the whole body of them as a forelorn [sic] hope in advance of the rest of the army [and] each convict who attempt to escape or retreat, should be instantly shot or cut down” by those troops in the rear. Even in reaping a one-sided success, the courage of the average soldado was yet derided by Americans.

This Kentucky editor also described how Santa Anna “then ordered the convicts to storm the fortress, setting before them liberty and promotion if they succeeded, and immediate death in the event of their failure. They rushed forward with the fury of devils, and, in less than an hour, every man in the garrison was massacred. Out of the fifteen hundred [attackers], all but three or four hundred were either killed or mortally wounded.”
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Even de la Pena was confused about “convict” troops. Santa Anna had ordered his commanders to secure “useful men familiar with firearms” from the towns along the army’s path toward Texas. Therefore, what had been incorporated into the army were border men, frontiersmen from northern Mexico, especially along the Rio Grande. Because of their rough manner and looks, de la Pena, an aristocratic, inexperienced young officer with a naval background, believed them to be convict soldiers, which was not the case. Nevertheless, he was complimentary of their military skills in unconventional warfare, which far exceeded those of the regulars.
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Popular negative stereotypes—of freedom-loving Alamo garrison members having been overrun by a mindless, barbarian “Aztec horde” that had been prodded forward by officers and rearward troops—not only robbed the average Mexican soldado of a well-deserved valor in storming the Alamo, but also overlooked the success of Santa Anna’s tactical plan.
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While the Alamo’s legacy has been glorified and romanticized by generations of American historians and writers to create a heroic epic based upon the last stand, what has been overlooked were the forgotten victims—the real long-term casualties—resulting from the Texas Revolution’s success, the Mexican and Tejano people of Texas. The mythical Alamo played a role in setting the cultural, racial, and political foundation for the establishment of modern Texas. This mythology provided a moral, righteous justification for discrimination and the acquisition of Tejano and Mexican lands, because it was based upon an alleged Latino inferiority, which was exemplified by a relative handful of Anglo-Celts bravely standing up to multitudes of allegedly inferior soldiers: the mythical last stand With the silencing of the truth of massive flight rather than fight, the Alamo’s story was transformed into a moral triumph and the legendary “Cradle of Texas Liberty,” symbolizing the birth of a new republic, or the domination of Anglo-Celtic Texas over Tejano and Mexican Texas.

Therefore, the Alamo’s story—based upon the mythical last stand— evolved into a holy resurrection, a defeat that only paved the way for decisive victory by Houston’s ragtag army at San Jacinto, justifying a sense of cultural and racial superiority and a “racial enmity” that continues to exist to this day. In this way, the slaughter of the Alamo garrison was transformed into a great moral victory, a regenerative act of God’s will, a necessary sacrifice for the establishment of a dominant Anglo-Celtic civilization.
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Therefore, the Alamo’s story was really, in essence, one of the first battles of a war of politics, culture, economics, race, and power in a larger, ongoing struggle that continues well into the 21st century. As emphasized by Richard R. Flores in his classic work,
Remembering the
Alamo: Memory, Modernity and the Master Symbol
, the Alamo myth, especially the heroic last stand, served as an essential foundation for the creation of a modern Texas and the establishment of the new social, political, and racial order, justifying a sense of cultural, moral, and racial superiority during both the 19th and 20th centuries.
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Consequently, even respected Tejano Texas Revolutionary heroes eventually became villains, while Anglo-Celtic real-life tyrants became heroes. Ironically, despite his own distinguished service in leading his hard-riding Tejano cavalry company during the Texas Revolution, Juan Nepomuceno Seguín, a Castilian as fair-skinned as those who now targeted him, became an early victim when his former Texian allies turned against him. Officially denounced in Mexico during the summer 1836 as “Seguín and his henchmen,” which consisted of 65 Tejano rancheros and vaqueros, he would eventually be forced from Texas—his own homeland that he had fought to defend—just “for being Mexican,” after his ranchero was burned down by vengeful Texans.

A revival of a lust for land, a “Texas fever,” once again consumed white Texans, who now held all the political power in the antebellum period. The legacy of the Alamo’s dark shadow loomed over long-time Tejano rancheros around San Antonio, especially along the San Antonio River. More than one hundred Tejano families were forced to leave their well-developed, ancestral lands. But the land grabbing was especially prevalent in the ranching country of south Texas. Existing for hundreds of years, legitimate ancient Spanish land grants were routinely dismissed by white judges. Additionally, state and local government raised taxes to force foreclosure of Tejano properties, which were then eagerly gobbled up by large white ranchers. Unlike in the early 1830s, stealing vast amounts of lands from the Tejano people was now systematically accomplished legally, and with the blessings of power brokers.
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Like Captain Seguín, another Tejano victim was Placido Benavides. In commanding a band of rancheros during the 1835 Texas Campaign, he was second only to Seguín as a leading Tejano patriot. Not long after the war began, he had organized local Tejano rancheros from the Goliad area to fight against Mexico. This young Tejano captain served at the battle of Concepcion, then in San Antonio’s capture, and later at the Alamo as part of Travis’ “Legion of Cavalry.” Benavides was denied a well-deserved pension for his Texas military services as late as 1875, even though he and other Tejanos had risked all by having taken “up arms against our own kindred and country, believing we were right.”
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Segregation of Tejanos in Texas, along with its accompanying discrimination, became regular features of daily life in Texas for generations. Justification for this widespread discrimination and disenfranchisement was partly founded upon the righteous Anglo-Celtic versus evil Hispanic stereotype rooted in an Alamo story that had evolved into an idiological and racial symbol for the state.
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