Arms & Equipment Of The Alamo

I like the information in Alan Huffines' "Blood of Noble Men" and Mark Lemon's "Illustrated Alamo 1836".

In theory Mexican infantry should have been armed with .75 calibre British-made India Pattern muskets and .65 calibre Baker rifles. These were new when delivered in 1828 and therefore still well within their 12 year service life at the time of the Texas Revolution.

I stress the “theory” because while that was certainly true of Permanente units some of the Activos may have had older .69 calibre French/Spanish weapons. The stress laid in Texian accounts on the age and poor condition of the weapons found in storage at the Alamo after Cos surrendered may point to them being these.

The Mexicans should not therefore have had a problem with inferior weaponry, but they are reported to have had problems with the poor grade powder.

I’ve started with the Mexicans because obviously a lot of Mexican weaponry fell into Texian hands at the outset, from the stores at Nacogdoches and Bexar, and I would strongly suspect that most of the weapons in those stores were old .69 cal rather than newer India Patterns.

Apart from the possible poor condition of the weapons this wouldn’t have been an issue for the Texians because notwithstanding a clear preference for rifles amongst individual volunteers, the organised groups like the New Orleans Greys were largely armed with US Springfields, which were direct copies of those French/Spanish muskets and also .69 calibre.

Yeah, I've seen them thanks, but the point I'm making is that there were essentially two standard types of weapons in use: the .75 British imports and the .69 French/Spanish/US military musket. The Mexicans should have been using the good British stuff, but out on the frontier they actually had to make do with older ones. Aside from individuals carrying country rifles, the majority of the volunteers coming from the Old States were carrying muskets. In some cases we know they were getting 1816 patterns from state arsenals, but there was also a lot of stuff beng bought up cheap in New Orleans, hence the earlier 1808 patterns and perhaps the Short Land Patterns as well - which were definitely well past their sell-by date.

Can anyone tell me about Frank Thompson's book, "Alamo", which was released in 2005. How is it compared to the other books mentioned?

I early on explored the possibility of rockets used by Santa Anna's army in February and March 1836, and eventually found sufficient evidence to back that up. Now I have new documentation for their use in Cos' army in 1835. They evidently weren't festival-type rockets (fireworks), but the real McCoy---or real Congreve, perhaps?

Mark, I have few references on the manufacturers of rockets but a goodly number on their usage during the Texas Revolution. There are surviving lists of Mexican arms purchases from Britain (among among them plenty of rifles), but off-hand I don't recall rockets. In about half a year I will be dissecting that subject, however, studying and interpreting all the accumulated scraps I've gathered over the years.

Don't recall any reference to rockets in the inventory of supplies and munitions turned over when Cos surrendered. Grant went south with a cannon and a howitzer, but again no mention of rockets