Osprey's "Essential Histories"

Osprey has a series of books called "Fortress" that highlights the architecture and other features of various famous forts throughout history. I'm surprised some enterprising writer hasn't snagged a contract with Osprey for a book on the Alamo as a fortress.

The only original source for the 3-day amnesty that I can find is in Enrique Esparza's 1907 interview. That is the source that Davis cites and so do Roberts and Olson in "A Line in the Sand." I checked both of Huffines books, the Osprey and "Blood of Noble Men," which goes into considerably more detail and is footnoted, but leaves out the source of the story.

Davis's footnote acknowledges that there are problems accepting Esparza's story, but he mentions an article by Stephen L. Hardin titled "Efficient in the Cause" (in Poyo, Tejano Journey, a book he does not include in his bibliography and which I've never heard of. He says that Hardin makes a persuasive case for Esparza being essentially correct about the Tejanos leaving, including Menchaca, Bowie's old friend, which casts doubt on Menchaca's claim to have left the fort prior to the siege.

Given the general evacuation of most Tejanos (if this entire thing is true; none of the Mexican memoirs or diaries mentions it; Santa Anna later made note of it, but not at the time), I wonder if this is what motivated Travis's claim that only a few Tejanos were loyal to him.

AW

I wouldn't go quite that far, but it doesn't make too much sense to me, to take an old man's memories from when he was a little boy, without collaboration, as uncontested fact!

We just went through the 3 day truce exercise in another thread, and only identified one day iirc, that there is no first hand account of any firing: Feb 29th. Now, just possibly the truce went into effect at noon on the 28th and ended at noon on the 1st or some such. But, I'm highly desirous to see some other proof before accepting this.

As with most of the eyewitnesses, you need increasing amounts of salt as the years go by. The later the interview, the more the embellishment, as a general rule. The closer you get to the battle itself, the more reliable these accounts are likely to be. I don't recall when Esparza's first interview took place, but the later ones do appear to be part fabrication, invention, or a mish-mash of what he'd heard or read from other sources. I think he also tended to tell them what he thought they wanted to hear or what would keep the spotlight on him for a few more minutes. There's not much copy in him saying "I was locked up most of the siege and didn't see anything. My father was killed and, when the Mexicans busted into our room, we were nearly killed too." He makes a few observations providing glimpses of the siege, but little of real value.

As to the truce -- I'm bothered by the fact none of the Mexicans mention it, and I wonder what purpose a truce would have served the Mexicans? Santa Anna did have a report of 200 Texan reenforcements on their way to Bexar, and he sent the cavalry out looking for them, but it never materialized. I honestly don't see how a truce would change anything for the Mexicans or what they stood to gain by it.

AW

I suppose to some extent it may depend on how you define a truce.On the one hand I can find neither evidence nor any reason for a formal truce, ie; where both sides agree to stop fighting for a specified period of time or until a particular event takes place. A common one in sieges is an agreement that if a fortress is not relieved by a certain date then it will surrender and in the meantime since neither side has anything to gain they agree to refrain from murdering each other until the issue is decided.

On the other hand that's not to say there might not have been a fairly tacit policy of live and let live for a time with Santa Anna not wanting to push things until his reinforcements arrived and the garrison lacking the men for adventures of their own. In other words although there was not a truce as such it might have seemed like one to those expecting a real siege to be a continuous roar of cannon and musketry punctuated by "combats"

The parley and exchanges of messages on the first day may have seemed like the start of a truce, but then there was the heavy cannonade for the first day at least, then a decline in canon shots. I detailed somewhere else the Almonte diary references to very little shooting over several days. I'm guessing the Mexican attitude was that time was on their side; there was little to fear from the Texans in the Alamo, they were keeping an eye out for any Texan reenforcements, and were waiting for reenforcements of their own, as well as the siege guns. SOP for a siege I guess.

Is there any evidence of an amnesty for Tejano defenders, a story that also seems to have originated with the 1907 Esparza interview? I don't see that referred to anywhere else; not in the Mexican accounts. The following website includes these names as Tejanos who died in the Alamo:

www.houstonculture.org/hispanic/alamo.html

Juan Abamillo, Juan A. Badillo, Carlos Espalier, José María Esparza(aka Gregorio Esparza), Antonio Fuentes, and Andrés Nava, José Toribio Losoya, Damacio Jiménez.

Groneman's "Defenders" book is one of their sources for this.

AW

Could be. If the accused colaborators were located in town, rather than in the Alamo, their executions would likely have taken place before the battle; maybe within a day or two of the Mexican arrival. However, I have not seen any Mexican references to this either and the Mexicans don't seem to have been too tough on the local population. I know they did some burning during the "runaway scrape" and Santa Anna had them looting and raping all over Zacatecas, both as a motivation for his troops and to strike terror into the hearts of rebels. Couldn't the Alcalde, Ruiz, have been seen as a collaborator? Wasn't he running errands for the Texans when the Mexicans arrived? There's something in Lindley's "Alamo Traces" about this I believe.

AW