Alamo

[john henry harper]

Hi

I am from england which might explain a few things, the Alamo has intrested me since i met Fess Parker in Leeds, Yorkshire,England, in 1954/55 i have read books, been on the internet even spent time writing to USA for information,maybe you guys could give me your views

What part of the fight was Travis killed,and how, Bowie was in his cot ill with TB did he get out of his cot to fight he was in a small room so he would not have his long gun with  him i have heard he shot 2 and killed 1 with his knife before they stuck him, what in your opinion did Crockett die, susanna dickinson said she saw him on the ground dead as did one of the black servants they said i saw his hat, BUT i think Crockett and others  was caught there and was butcher,d where santa ana was

What do you think of la penas diary, and how many men were killed there,do you think all the ashs in the coffin are the  right bones, i have read some where there was a coward what was his name

 

if you answer all this lot i will be a happy man thankyou all

                               Jojn Henry Harper 

[Bob 'Buckshot' Bradley]

Welcome to the forum John. It's good to see another Yorkshire man here. I'm not to far away from you.

 

Travis died early in the battle with a single shot to the head.

 

I’ve read somewhere that Bowie may have died before the battle started. If he was alive I believe he was unable to defend himself.

 

For what it's worth I beleive Crockett was captured with a few others and executed.

 

Louis Moses Rose was the “coward.”

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=11142723

 

Here's a few links you may find interesting.

 

http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/adp/history/1836/the_battle...

 

http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/adp/archives/newsarch/who.html

 

http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/ccbn/dewitt/adp/central/forum/forum9.html

[john henry harper]

Bob Buckshot bradley

A great name, thankyou for you reply i have copied it and filed it, i dont think rose was a coward

i am 67 i would have stayed, but i have family ?????, i was told through out my early years

YOU SIDE WITH A MAN YOU STAY WITH HIM IF YOU DONT YOUR LIKE SOME KIND OF ANIMAL

he ask his leader if he could go travis said YES.[i dont blame him]

 Apart from this these men mountainmen/ hunters farmers, what ever, they were very good shooters the gun/rifile was made on a german mechenisum JAEGER not rifiled and also was fast at reloading but i have been told some of the mexicans had the BAKER  which i think was rifled

our guys at waterloo had these guns and they proved themselves good on the battle field  i assume then the mexican had no idea how to use them,

A kentucky long gun say can kill a man at 150 yards ??? a baker can do it at 200/250 yards

the british  marksmen in europe were feared, the baker was the best.

Same as the big 50 sharps with good sights and trypod and in good hands it was able to kill at 1700 yards[look at dixons shot 1400/1500 yards

most of the mexicans were conscripts any way an dident know much about guns

                               John H Harper

 

[C. F. 'Charley' Eckhardt]

Travis was killed in the first few minutes of the fight, almost as soon as the Mexicans started storming the walls. He was hit in the head. His servant/slave picked up his shotgun and continued to fight with it.  In those days the relationship between a slave who was a personal servant and the master was almost like a blood relationship.  In some cases it might have been.

 

Bowie certainly had pistols and his knife.  He could have gotten some with the pistols, depending on how many pistols he had with him and whether or not he had any misfires.  Flintlocks were not all that reliable.  Whether or not he got 1 with his knife would depend on how close they got to him.  He was down with TB, but he also probably had a either slipped disk in his back or a broken spine, which would have prevented him from getting out of the bed.  He was assisting in mounting a cannon when he fell several feet, landing on his back.  He apparently was bedridden from that point on.

 

The 'Alamo portion' of the de la Pena diary is a forgery dating from post-1940.  The forger was John A. Laflin, a retired Union Pacific locomotive engineer.  He forged over 600 doctuments, including letters from George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, the so-called Isaac Milsaps letter allegedly from the Alamo, and the so-called 'Laffite papers.'  The definitive exposure of the forgery can be found in ALAMO TRACES by the late Thomas Ricks Linley, an old friend and retired US Army criminal investigator. It's published by Republic of Texas Press out of Plano, Texas, & is available on-line.  Tom applied criminal investigation techniques to examining the Alamo portion of the diary--and a lot else about the Alamo.  His may be the best book ever written about the Alamo.

 

Probably the most accurate body count came from a Mexican officer, whose after-action report says he counted 257 defender bodies.  The so-called 'sacred list,' which was compiled in 1936, contains a lot of errors.  Tom Linley points out some of them in ALAMO TRACES.  The bodies were burned, except for one Hispanic defender, whose brother, a Mexican soldier, claimed his body and had it given a proper burial. The ashes were later gathered by the Texans after the victory at San Jacinto.  Juan N. Seguin had a lot of them placed inside the altar at San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio.  Others were buried in a cemetary on the east side of San Antonio.  None of the bones were ever identified positively.

 

Incidentally, I live about 45 miles due east of the Alamo.