Jacales

I'm not disputing the type of construction you're describing, Stuart, but by "along the border," are you saying the Rio Grande Valley? And how period-specific were the photos of jacales of horizontal-log construction? Early-to-mid-19th century?

I've also seen plenty of primary pictorial evidence for vertical-log or -picket jacal construction in the mid-19th century. Mary Maverick's published memoirs contain a circa-1850s photo of a San Antonio jacal, and without digging out my copy, I'm pretty sure it's constructed of vertical posts set into the ground.

The Amon Carter Museum has some eyewitness watercolor sketches by James G. Benton made around 1850. On this first page, see the sketch of the jacal at the top of the menu: vertical posts.

www.cartermuseum.org/books/encountering/art/jb2.htm

On the following webpage, enlarge the top two pictures in the menu. In the top sketch, the jacal on the left seems to be of horizontal-post construction, and the other of vertical posts. In the sketch that's second from the top, the jacales are again of vertical posts.

www.cartermuseum.org/books/encountering/art/jb3.htm

I'll have to go digging, but I'm quite sure that the works of mid-19th century central-Texas artists such as Theodore Gentilz and Hermann Lungkwitz show jacales with vertical-post construction. Again, I don't have evidence in hand, yet, but I'm sure there are eyewitness written descriptions of jacales specifically in San Antonio or central Texas of vertical-post design.

Rio Grande Valley indeed.

I've seen other reconstructions of jacales with vertical posts before, eg: Gary Zaboly. What struck me about these photographs was that all of them featured the horizontal post construction

I think I’m happier with this last interpretation than the notion that Jameson was just groping for words to describe jacales. Your model suggests that this area was very vulnerable and had I believe been shot at by the Texian artillery while Cos was in residence.

Could Jameson actually mean exactly what he says and that the adobe walled structures running north from the convento were reinforced by external stockading (and an earth bank as you depict) to protect them from artillery fire and to provide a proper parapet for riflemen on the roofs?

The way he refers to them as "Dobe houses picketed all around as in B.W." (my emphasis) clearly seems to indicate he is talking not about the original structure (whether jacale or adobe brick) but an addition to it.

Mark, I just don't agree with you on your interpretation of these structures or your baseline reference point.

Part of the problem may be the source you are using for Jameson's description. If it is Nelson, there are inaccuracies and deletions.

I just checked my copy of Jenkins' Papers of the Texas Revolution, Vol. 4 (page 60), for a more accurate printing of Jameson. Compare it to Nelson's careless entries.

For item "H" in Jameson's index to his plat, he says, "Soldiers quarters built up of doby houses and picketed all round as letter B."

In "letter B," he says, "Temporary redoubts of stakes on end and rocks and dirt between, the long one is in front of the house in which Col. Mendoza now lies wounded."




Clearly, he is saying to us that these houses are fortified with the same field fortification technique he described for the redoubts. The "breastwork" as in the palisade "B.W." is not a part of his description, according to Jenkins' copy of the letter.

In addition, in "letter B," he is describing "redoubts" (plural) not a single redoubt. He must have had several drawn on his original plat (God render us the plat!) in several locales around the inside of the fort. This is additionally supported by his next statement, "the long one is in front of the house in which Col. Mendoza now lies wounded." Note, this suggests a redoubt other than the one inside the main gate.

Since Jameson is referring to all this when he says, "and picketed all round as letter B," he cannot be talking about how the walls of the houses were built, but rather the way they were additionally protected by outside breastworks.

If you still feel that "picketed all round" doesn't make sense with my interpretation because these breastworks would not be on all sides, then I would have to counter by saying that the houses in your model are only picketed on one side (the west side) with the east wall being stone and the partition walls being adobe. For me, that doesn't inform the prase, "picketed all around."

To me, "picketed all round" means all around the outside of the fort along the houses' east walls and the north wall. Perhaps the outer wall was adobe and not stone here as in your model.

Jameson also uses the phrase "pickets all around" in letter I. He says, "Strong stone walls without pickets all around." [Nelson leaves out the word "all."] If you contend that, for the houses, "pickets all round" means the walls of the houses were built of pickets, then how do you explain the same phrase when it refers to a single curtain wall?

My conclusion is that "built up of doby houses and picketed all round as letter B" does, as Stuart says, mean "exactly what he says." The houses are of adobe brick and reinforced on the outside of the fort "all round" with a structure similar to the redoubts he describes. I do not see this as an ambiguous or "convoluted" statement. Seems like precise description to me.

Rich,
Reading my last post to Stuart, you'll see that I allowed that what you are proposing, ie: that the outer wall of the Long Barrack northern extension may have been reinforced much like the north wall exterior was. I still am far, far from convinced of this, but I'll allow it as a possibility. What I cannot agree to, is a subsequent leap of logic, to then place a banquette, or wooden firing platform, atop, or behind this structure. There just is no evidence of it whatsoever. These houses were fragile, and disappeared very soon after the battle. They most likely would not have supported the weight of such a structure atop them. If, as Stuart suggests, a type of defensive "bunker" was built inside of them (as he interprets the interior ditches at this point) neither Sanchez Navarro, nor de la Pena mention it. Instead, they simply refer to these structures having the interior ditch, nothing more. All contemporary sources depict them simply as soldiers' berthing.
Mark

Well, I suppose I'm not doing a very good job of speaking clearly......anyway, for the third time now, I'll repeat that the northern extension wall may have had, like the north wall, it's own outer skin of palisade..But I'd stop well short of stating that Jameson's wording is "pretty unambiguous" on the matter. Otherwise, if it was so very clear, historians and artists through the generations would have shown this feature with no qualms or questions. But, as of this writing, literally NO historian or artist has, to my knowledge, proposed, or depicted this. Of course, that does not mean it didn't exist, just that it is not "pretty unambiguous." On the contrary, it is very ambiguous. Neither Sanchez-Navarro, nor Labastida , the only two known contemporary depictions of the place, show this feature, and nowhere in the written record does it show up (other than that certain interpretation of Jameson.) So, while the palisading on the exterior of this wall may have existed, at this time, there is just not enough data to state that it did. "May have," and "perhaps" are about the strongest terms we should use.

He was describing both. If my memory serves, the ones he drew in red ink were the proposed changes, and the ones drawn in black ink were the ones already in place. The northern extension, however, was not depicted as any sort of defensive work, at least, not in the second-generation map, and the key to it.