Post by Herb on Feb 8, 2009 18:45:05 GMT -5
This is based on the discussions that started on the "Exodus" thread and the artifacts found at the History Shop location.
I've been thinking about that discussion, and thought that the finds and theories were significant enough that they deserve their own thread.
Mark mentioned that some Baker Rifle artifacts had been found at the location. According to Santa Anna's attack order (and what little we know) there should not have been any Bakers with Romero. This seems to suggest that at least part of these artifacts are from the skirmishing (Travis called it an attack) that occurred on the East Side on Friday, February 26th. It would be interesting, if any of the artifacts (buttons?) belonged to the two battalions that participated in Romero's attack.
Much has been made about the size of the ponds (a lot by me). This probably needs to be clarified a bit. The ponds would have been shallow for the most part not much more than a few inches. However, from the drawings/paintings post battle, we have, the ground was extremely marshy and probably would have bogged down/slowed an attacking unit - not an insurmountable problem. But, one that an intelligent officer would seek to avoid. The true significance of these ponds is in a limited visibility attack, such as March 6th, it would have been impossible to determine where the acequia actually ran. And, the acequia was a significant obstacle. Splashing around in the midst of attack just doesn't make too much sense.
I know Mark and others have tried/ are trying to make sense out of the dimensions of the flooded areas versus the fore shortened walls drawn by LaBastida. I'm not a skilled artist and my drawings aren't too much better than a 3rd grader. But, as a military officer I often drew sketches of terrain to clarify orders. My thinking on this, is that the dimensions of the pond are probably correct in these respects where the south end of the pond is relative to the Alamo Church, the ponds' shape in the the center area opposite, the north wall of the courtyard, and the pond's shape vic of the North Wall of the Main Compound. In other words, while Labastida's vantage point might have caused the inaccuracies on the East Side, as an officer he probably got the dimensions of the pond in relationship to the walls right.
Because of the nature of the Alamo fortifications, the location of the acequia, the flooded ponds and the marshy area, the usable maneuver space for 300 soldatos (ie the physical space required for them to operate as a unit) on the East side as always seemed to me to limit Romero's attack to the area North of the Alamo's Cattle Corral and East of the Long Barracks Extension. This by no means that is what he did, but in the absence of concrete evidence to contrary it seems to be the safe assumption that Romero followed the conventional military wisdom of the time. The recent artifact find in this area, if it can be confirmed to not being solely from the attack on the 26th, seems to bear this out.
Placing Romero's column in this space, leads one to the conclusion that he had one of two initial objectives. to either seize the East Gate/Gap or of seizing the cannon position at the corner of the Cattle Corral (as suggested by alamonorth) or perhaps both. This last option is one that probably should be considered. Romero's Column was the only one with two Battalions, it would seem that there is very high probability that they had two different but mutually supporting initial objectives.
This also suggests that Cos's Column's initial objective was both the cannon position at the NW corner and the roughly collocated Northern Postern. Likewise Morales had similar objectives with the SW corner and the Main Gate.
Back to Romero, if indeed his initial objectives are what I'm saying. He had only two (possibly) usable avenues of approach to reach his objectives. AA1. To move down the West side of the acequia from the NE, and AA2. to move from due East down the Camino de los Noches across the Acequia into the objective area.
There is a third larger avenue of approach to the Alamo but not specifically this area, AA3. AA3 is south of AA2 and basically dead ends in flooded/marshy area opposite the highest walls of the Alamo, and the three cannon Church Battery.
AA1: provides for high speed and ease of approach, plus an attacking column is not limited by space so the unit commander can deploy his unit as he will. Disadvantages are: , prior to the attack with the Reserve and perhaps Duque's column in close proximity there is the possibility of intermingling and confusion. Once the attack begins the column can be fired on from the North Battery (but that fire should be aimed at Duque) as well as the Courtyard gun.
AA2: Advantages, a high speed avenue of approach, no possibility of units intermingling prior to the attack. Disadvantages, units are constricted to the road, units can be fired on from the Church Battery as well as Courtyard gun. Unit cannot deploy until it crosses the acequia.
AA3. Advantages provides the highest speed and ease of deployment. Disadvantages, under fire from Church Battery and Courtyard gun. Avenue dead ends short of the objective with no real way of pushing across the obstacles and attacking in an organized manner.
I personally would choose AA1 as I've argued previously, but as Mark as pointed out the artifacts and the dimensions of the flooded area may point to AA2 being the approach actually used. If so, I would suggest it has to do with a couple of reason one is moving the start position away from the other units , while it may sound simple, it can be a nightmare trying to untangle in the dark from intermingled units. Also, it is certainly possible that the Mexicans learned something, they thought they could use to their advantage during the fighting on the 26th. AA3 makes no sense to me for an attack by line infantry. While it may get me to the Killing Zone the fastest, there's just not too much I can do with line infantry once I'm there.
One final, thought, if the dig site contains artifacts from both the Feb 26th and the Mar 6th fights. There is probably something significant about that particular piece of ground that we're not seeing today. The easiest conjecture is that is the point where the bridge/culvert of the Camino de los Noches exited from crossing the acequia.
I've been thinking about that discussion, and thought that the finds and theories were significant enough that they deserve their own thread.
Mark mentioned that some Baker Rifle artifacts had been found at the location. According to Santa Anna's attack order (and what little we know) there should not have been any Bakers with Romero. This seems to suggest that at least part of these artifacts are from the skirmishing (Travis called it an attack) that occurred on the East Side on Friday, February 26th. It would be interesting, if any of the artifacts (buttons?) belonged to the two battalions that participated in Romero's attack.
Much has been made about the size of the ponds (a lot by me). This probably needs to be clarified a bit. The ponds would have been shallow for the most part not much more than a few inches. However, from the drawings/paintings post battle, we have, the ground was extremely marshy and probably would have bogged down/slowed an attacking unit - not an insurmountable problem. But, one that an intelligent officer would seek to avoid. The true significance of these ponds is in a limited visibility attack, such as March 6th, it would have been impossible to determine where the acequia actually ran. And, the acequia was a significant obstacle. Splashing around in the midst of attack just doesn't make too much sense.
I know Mark and others have tried/ are trying to make sense out of the dimensions of the flooded areas versus the fore shortened walls drawn by LaBastida. I'm not a skilled artist and my drawings aren't too much better than a 3rd grader. But, as a military officer I often drew sketches of terrain to clarify orders. My thinking on this, is that the dimensions of the pond are probably correct in these respects where the south end of the pond is relative to the Alamo Church, the ponds' shape in the the center area opposite, the north wall of the courtyard, and the pond's shape vic of the North Wall of the Main Compound. In other words, while Labastida's vantage point might have caused the inaccuracies on the East Side, as an officer he probably got the dimensions of the pond in relationship to the walls right.
Because of the nature of the Alamo fortifications, the location of the acequia, the flooded ponds and the marshy area, the usable maneuver space for 300 soldatos (ie the physical space required for them to operate as a unit) on the East side as always seemed to me to limit Romero's attack to the area North of the Alamo's Cattle Corral and East of the Long Barracks Extension. This by no means that is what he did, but in the absence of concrete evidence to contrary it seems to be the safe assumption that Romero followed the conventional military wisdom of the time. The recent artifact find in this area, if it can be confirmed to not being solely from the attack on the 26th, seems to bear this out.
Placing Romero's column in this space, leads one to the conclusion that he had one of two initial objectives. to either seize the East Gate/Gap or of seizing the cannon position at the corner of the Cattle Corral (as suggested by alamonorth) or perhaps both. This last option is one that probably should be considered. Romero's Column was the only one with two Battalions, it would seem that there is very high probability that they had two different but mutually supporting initial objectives.
This also suggests that Cos's Column's initial objective was both the cannon position at the NW corner and the roughly collocated Northern Postern. Likewise Morales had similar objectives with the SW corner and the Main Gate.
Back to Romero, if indeed his initial objectives are what I'm saying. He had only two (possibly) usable avenues of approach to reach his objectives. AA1. To move down the West side of the acequia from the NE, and AA2. to move from due East down the Camino de los Noches across the Acequia into the objective area.
There is a third larger avenue of approach to the Alamo but not specifically this area, AA3. AA3 is south of AA2 and basically dead ends in flooded/marshy area opposite the highest walls of the Alamo, and the three cannon Church Battery.
AA1: provides for high speed and ease of approach, plus an attacking column is not limited by space so the unit commander can deploy his unit as he will. Disadvantages are: , prior to the attack with the Reserve and perhaps Duque's column in close proximity there is the possibility of intermingling and confusion. Once the attack begins the column can be fired on from the North Battery (but that fire should be aimed at Duque) as well as the Courtyard gun.
AA2: Advantages, a high speed avenue of approach, no possibility of units intermingling prior to the attack. Disadvantages, units are constricted to the road, units can be fired on from the Church Battery as well as Courtyard gun. Unit cannot deploy until it crosses the acequia.
AA3. Advantages provides the highest speed and ease of deployment. Disadvantages, under fire from Church Battery and Courtyard gun. Avenue dead ends short of the objective with no real way of pushing across the obstacles and attacking in an organized manner.
I personally would choose AA1 as I've argued previously, but as Mark as pointed out the artifacts and the dimensions of the flooded area may point to AA2 being the approach actually used. If so, I would suggest it has to do with a couple of reason one is moving the start position away from the other units , while it may sound simple, it can be a nightmare trying to untangle in the dark from intermingled units. Also, it is certainly possible that the Mexicans learned something, they thought they could use to their advantage during the fighting on the 26th. AA3 makes no sense to me for an attack by line infantry. While it may get me to the Killing Zone the fastest, there's just not too much I can do with line infantry once I'm there.
One final, thought, if the dig site contains artifacts from both the Feb 26th and the Mar 6th fights. There is probably something significant about that particular piece of ground that we're not seeing today. The easiest conjecture is that is the point where the bridge/culvert of the Camino de los Noches exited from crossing the acequia.
;D