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Post by Herb on Dec 28, 2008 13:34:53 GMT -5
As most of us are aware, the Sutherland Account was originally written as a rebuttal for the 1860 Potter Account, however I'm unaware of any publication of it prior to RIP Ford's publication years later.
Does anybody have any knowledge of any publication prior to Ford's? I'm particularly looking for anything prior to Morphis's publication of his Dickinson Account in 1874.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Dec 30, 2008 0:07:07 GMT -5
I hunted online for a while and could not find any reference to publication of Sutherland prior to 1936, although all sources agree it was written in 1860.
AW
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Post by stuart on Dec 30, 2008 9:38:33 GMT -5
No, it doesn't look like there was one. The Williams transcript certainly starts off as a letter to the editor of the Alamo Express in rebuttal to what is presumably Potter's article.
According to the Handbook of Texas Online:
"The San Antonio Alamo Express, a weekly Union newspaper, was first published in San Antonio by James P. Newcomb on August 18, 1860. The paper may have ceased in November of 1860. It was succeeded, beginning on February 4, 1861, by the Weekly Alamo Express, which was published in weekly and tri-weekly editions by Newcomb and Baccus. In May 1861 the press was destroyed by secession sympathizers and Newcomb fled to Mexico."
In his introduction to the 1878 version of the story Potter, however said that he had published the original in the San Antonio Herald in 1860. The problem with this is that so far as I'm aware from a quick Google most major libraries hold copies or microfilms of the Herald, but not the article.
The answer I think is Newcomb, who was editor of the Herald until 1860 but then left to found the pro-Union Alamo Express
Potter may have submitted his original article to Newcomb for the Herald, but in the meantime Newcomb had started the Express and published it there instead.
This brings us back to Sutherland, who started off writing his lengthy letter of rebuttal for the Express but never finished it because Newcomb ceased publication in November 1860 and then fled to Mexico.
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Post by Herb on Dec 30, 2008 12:01:47 GMT -5
Thanks.
So realistically in 1874, the only things published were the 1860 Potter and the Yoakum accounts?
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Post by stuart on Dec 30, 2008 12:48:30 GMT -5
So far as I can see, yes, with the caveat that the 1860 Potter (admitted by himself to be imperfect) may have been difficult to get hold of. Certainly the way I read the extant transcripts of the Sutherland account, it was written in for the Express in 1860, but because it ceased publication in November of that year the account remained in manuscript form until Ford transcribed, edited and published it many years later.
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Post by stuart on Dec 31, 2008 5:09:29 GMT -5
Just a further thought on this one, albeit going off the original question.
Newcomb's choice of the Alamo Express title for his pro-union paper may well have been inspired by Potter's article - remember that Travis made his appeal to all the Americans in the world and that like Sam Houston many of the Alamo defenders saw Texan "independence" merely as a prelude to annexation by the US.
The Alamo Express title and Potter's article - perhaps in the first issue - may well have been a deliberate and none too subtle reminder of this and the importance of retaining the Union
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