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Post by gregl on Feb 17, 2009 19:14:33 GMT -5
Hello all. I am a long time reader of the Alamo forums and have learned much from the obviously knowledgable people here. It is with great trepidation that I bring up the subject of Mexican Army casualties at the Alamo. However, I would love to come to some sort of logical conclusion on this if at all possible. This topic seems about as elusive as to how Davy died.
I have seen the various estimates of from 70 killed and 300 wounded up to 1500 killed. The recent findings of artillery fire NE of the corral have really rekindled my interest. Perhaps the Texans got off more fire and were more accurate than previously believed, or reported.
Ruiz (?) estimated 1500 casualties, the first reports to Houstan, I believe, said 500 killed and "as many" wounded. These numbers are said to be out of sync with the acceptable losses that any unit can take and remain in the battle. Assuming a maximum Mexican attack force of 1800, including reserves, most modern historians say they cannot have sustained more than about 500 total casualties (30%). Yet American Marine and Army units fighting in the South Pacific sustained casualty rates as high as 70%(!) and stayed in the battle( see Peleliu as an example). I am not suggesting that 70% was the Mexican Army casualty rate, but I don't think we should arbitrarily place a limit on the valor of this army either.
Mexican hospital reports indicate about 400 wounded. I don't have my Hansen handy, but didn't DLP estimate 250 killed, and Caro 300? Does this place total casualties at 650 - 750 or does Santa Anna's 370 or so make a better fit? The casualty rate seems to be an area that we might be able to get a handle on and if so, it would cast a big light on some of the other questions as to how the battle really went.
What is the current thinking on this topic?
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Post by Jim Boylston on Feb 17, 2009 21:39:02 GMT -5
Welcome to the forum Greg, and thanks for posting.
I'll weigh in that I think the 60-70 KIA is probably in line considering how fast most of the troops got under the cannons. I'm of the opinion that the most casualties were probably suffered by the Toluca Battalion, since they seem to get so much attention in the primary reports.
I'll let someone else crunch the rest of the numbers and chime in.
Glad you signed up!
Jim
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Post by jrboddie on Feb 17, 2009 23:08:52 GMT -5
Also there were claims that many of the Mexican casualties were the result of friendly fire. With the semi-darkness and chaos of that morning, this is easy to believe.
And many deaths occurred after the battle due to poor medical care.
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Post by Hiram on Feb 18, 2009 0:27:25 GMT -5
On the general subject of casualties, there are no established parameters in terms of acceptable percentages. Those numbers will vary based on the elements present at the time of engagement.
As for the number of Mexican Army casualties, there is a wide variation...as low as 288 (per Almonte) and as high as 2300 (per Becerra). There are several 19th century sources that are fairly consistent, stating casualty figures of 500-600 (Caro, Rabia, Perez, Barsena & Bergara, Bernard, Potter).
The Alamo was well-situated (in terms of terrain), well-fortified, and undermanned. The assault on March 6 was a simultaneous attack on multiple sides of a fixed position. Based on the length of the battle (60-90 minutes) the type of weapons used, and the total number of engaged Mexican soldiers (probably a little less than 2,000), total casualty figures in the range of 500-600 seem most likely.
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Post by stuart on Feb 18, 2009 2:19:31 GMT -5
TRL went into this question in some detail in Alamo Traces, analysing in particular the official reports by Andrade and Arroyo, but as usual I'm not entirely convinced by some of his reasoning which rests on juggling figures which include men killed and wounded other than on March 6.
Andrade reckoned 60 dead and 251 wounded, (total 311) which comes pretty close to Almonte's 65 dead 223 wounded, (total 288) while the San Luis log gives 21 officers and 295 soldiers killed and wounded - the latter are not broken down but total 316.
Oddly enough Santa Anna's own March 6 report puts his casualties at 70 dead and 300 wounded; higher than anyone else, but this could be attributed to incomplete data or simply a desire to inflate the magnitude of the fight. In 1745 for example the Jacobites inflated their own losses at Prestonpans in order to make it seem that they had fought a harder battle than was really the case. Conversely, I know of at least one officer officially returned as wounded at Culloden who had died before the ink on the official despatch was dry.
Either way, while there are plausibly explainable variations in the Mexican figures they are broadly consistent.
I will make a couple of observations though; considering the total Alamo garrison was hovering around the 200 mark, they didn't do too badly.
On the other hand some of those "shattered battalions" went on to do a pretty good job of dishing Fannin not so very long afterwards
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Post by billchemerka on Feb 18, 2009 8:38:01 GMT -5
This topic has remained a most popular one over of the years among students of the the Battle of the Alamo. Did I state years? Perhaps, should I say decades. Alas, it was the topic at the March 6, 1986 Symposium at the Crockett Hotel.
Tom Lindley provided Alamo Society readers with an advance view of the topic prior to the release of his Alamo Traces in a three-part Alamo Journal article Mexican Casualties at Bexar, 1835-1836 (#121, 6/'01; #122, 9/'01; and #123, 12/'01).
Back in 1986, one casualty figure was not discussed at the Symposium: Pablo Diaz's claim that "nearly six thousand of Santa Anna's ten thousand had fallen." A bit of a stretch, to say the least.
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Post by gregl on Feb 18, 2009 13:16:12 GMT -5
It looks like a general concensus is that the Mexican Generals' after action reports are mostly accurate. I always thought that the possibility existed that they were trying to get in line with Santa Anna's figures. These casualties, particularly the 70 KIA seem extraordinarily low and would seem to limit almost all of the damage to a single cannon blast from the Northern battery.. I believe Texian after action reports of the infamous "Grass Fight" put Mexican KIA at 65, for basically a minor skirmish. If we accept these Alamo figures as final, we can only assume that the Mexican army executed a solid plan very well, while the Texians basically, did not have a good plan, were poorly led, or did not execute. We would honor them, I guess, for their final sacrifice and for their devotion to duty, rather than for their actual battle prowess. Unless, of course,Pablo's estimates are the correct ones! Am I off base here?
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Post by Jim Boylston on Feb 18, 2009 13:43:17 GMT -5
Greg, I tend to agree with your assessment, though a lot of people disagree.
I think the majority of KIAs probably did come from one blast, and I doubt the defenders were able to utilize the rest of the cannons much to their advantage.
I also believe that the majority of the garrison was asleep, and by the time they got to the walls, the Mexicans were already massed at the foot. As you know, the thickness of the walls was an obstacle to delivering fire down into the masses, and defenders that mounted the walls were silhouetted targets for skirmishers.
Frankly, I don't think the casualty figures are that off base, all things considered.
Jim
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Post by Herb on Feb 18, 2009 14:36:24 GMT -5
Greg,
Personally, I think the offical reports of the Mexican Army are a little low, but that they are the closest we're going to get to the truth. The Barsena & Bergara numbers - I think are the actual accurate ones, but that they reflect the total casualities not the number killed - the way they've come down to us.
Filisola, provided a number of muster numbers by battalion throughout the campaign. What I would like to see someday is the charts he provided all placed together in a sequential order.
So that the effects of the various battles can easily be tracked.
You look at what Gregg Dimmick included in his Sea of Mud and you can easily see the dramatic effect San Jacinto had. A similar Before and After shot of the effects of the Alamo would be great.
Still, I would emphasize that Filisola seemed to think that Andrade's numbers were pretty reliable as he included them in his account.
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Post by gregl on Feb 18, 2009 15:34:47 GMT -5
Wolfpack,
Barsena and Bergara. They were they first two who reported the fall of the Alamo and the results of the action to Sam Houstan. Their numbers are quoted in the Alamo reader as something like "523(?) killed and a like number wounded." These numbers are also amended in the Alamo reader, if memory serves me correct, to 523 total casualties. Was this just Hansen's correction or is it a historical correction by Barsena or Bergara? Also do we have a more detailed history on these two. They were both Tejanos, and, actually witnessed the battle , correct? Wasn't one a Mexican army deserter? I agree with you that their testimony is crucial and could be the most unbiased around. The lower total casualty number is right in the ball park and they did not have the time to be influenced by all the various other reports. I wonder how they got their numbers. Mexican camp talk, estimates from their own observation? Sorry for all the questions but I am currently out of town, and away from my Alamo "library."
Greg
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Post by stuart on Feb 18, 2009 16:47:21 GMT -5
Leson one: the good guys invariably overestimate the number of casualties inflicted on the heathen. If I remember correctly Cos reported his casualties from the Grass Fight as something less than 10.
70 dead in storming the Alamo sounds pretty impressive to me. That unlucky cannon-shot which wiped half a company of the Toluca can't have accounted for much more than about 15 men, allowing an average of 20 to 30 for a company. As I said above, considering that there were only around 200 Texians' killing 70 of the attackers is pretty good going, especially when you consider how quickly they themselves must have been going down
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Post by stuart on Feb 18, 2009 17:08:32 GMT -5
Having summoned the energy to get my own book off the shelf I can confirm that Cos only admitted to losing 3 dead in the Grass Fight rather than the 60-odd claimed by the Texians
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Post by Allen Wiener on Feb 18, 2009 21:54:35 GMT -5
Ah, yes. The ever-variable casualty figures.
Stuart -- I don't have the stuff in front of me, but are we sure there was but one cannon shot from the north wall? There were three cannon on the main position, as I recall, and more than one of them could have gotten a shot off, no?
AW
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Post by cantador4u on Feb 20, 2009 14:34:21 GMT -5
There is a summary of all the different casualty reports at the following URL, www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/adp/history/1836/the_battle/the_texians/casualties.html I can't vouch for how complete it is as it seems to be lacking Mexican Army unit reports, and there are numbers from people who would certainly have to have gotten their numbers from someone else (eg. Lon Tinkle, Stephen Hardin, Walter Lord) There is a low of 311 and a high of 2,000. Just for grins and giggles I totaled all the different reports and found the average was just a little over 1,000. Texan casualties ranged from 182 to 600. I would tend to put more reliance on official Mexican Army unit reports of that time than estimates. Although there is a tendency to over report enemy KIA, it's more difficult to under-report one's own KIA numbers what with having to make daily musters, etc. Is there a place where one can find each Mexican unit's figures for KIA, wounded, deserted, death by illness, etc? I'm wondering what the overall attrition rate was for the entire 1836 Texas campaign, by both sides. I'm pretty sure that the best we'll ever be able to do is give a numerical range that IMHO would be in the hundreds, not thousands. |
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Post by Wade Dillon on Feb 20, 2009 15:11:38 GMT -5
Ah, yes. The ever-variable casualty figures. Stuart -- I don't have the stuff in front of me, but are we sure there was but one cannon shot from the north wall? There were three cannon on the main position, as I recall, and more than one of them could have gotten a shot off, no? And was the damage inflicted by grapeshot, scrap, or shell? Or all three? I'm curious to know if any muster rolls of the Mexican Army exists. I don't believe I've seen a list. |
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