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Post by Rich Curilla on Aug 3, 2010 17:40:01 GMT -5
It does indeed cause one to conjure up images of Travis and the garrison spending a sleepless night March 5-6th. preparing to march before first-light, and the assault beating them to the punch -- and the prairie. But, if true, how could we have absolutely no other primary account mentioning it. Joe even has them men entrenching half the night.
But I do trust the validity of de la Pena's comment. Rumors then were like rumors now. Wasn't it he who also said that it was rumored that the Texians had mined the walls?
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Post by Allen Wiener on Aug 3, 2010 19:18:10 GMT -5
And why were most of them, including Travis, asleep near dawn and thus taken by surprise when the Mexicans attacked? Makes no sense.
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Post by pawbear on Aug 3, 2010 19:45:46 GMT -5
This reminds me of the extended discussion on the old sight. To cut to the quick. Travis had men reinforceing the fort for part of the night. The Mexicans were marching troops past the east wall between the form the hill to the east. He had sentries out outside of the posts. Wouldn't he had sentries on the largest corners of the for itself. Wouldn't rockets signaling an attack against you, rise your curiousity?
Why wouldn't he plan an escape for as many men as possible with some holding the "line" against the Mexicans? Why wouldn't this escape be to the east since all the other directions were not feasible and that is where the principle roads were and, oddly, in the northeast corner when of the weakest areas of attack?
I don't think the escape was so much a choice but a plan. Deny the enemy his goal of total annihalilation of the fortress.
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Post by jesswald on Aug 3, 2010 19:58:35 GMT -5
I see a couple of possibilities, beyond the obvious one that de la Pena was misinformed or fabricating: 1. Maybe Travis said that if no help arrived on March 5, they would either surrender on March 6 or else attempt to escape on the night of March 6. They would decide which to do on March 6. 2. Or maybe Travis said that if no help arrived on March 5, then he would either attempt an escape the night of March 5th or else surrender on March 6. He then decided to surrender on March 6th, so everyone (except possibly Louis Rose) bedded down for the night. (But then why wouldn't de la Pena have learned of this subsequent decision.) Whichever it is, if de la Pena was accurate, then we have a variation on the Alamo myth which to me seems far more controversial and explosive than the "Exodus" that Tucker makes such a fuss about. For the one thing that Travis insisted upon, and the one thing that we learned to admire since we were children, is that the Alamo garrison decided to die rather than surrender. Jesse Waldinger
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Post by Chuck T on Aug 3, 2010 20:28:30 GMT -5
Jesse: I have heard these surrender and or escape stories for years. They all seem to revolve around the magical date of 6 March.
Why would Travis surrender? If he saw his mission as one of buying time why not try to buy more? I don't think there was any doubt in any defenders mind the fate that awaited them either in fighting or surrendering. You get killed just as dead by a musket ball in battle as you do in front of a wall by execution.
I don't think Travis was much of a soldier. I have stated that before. I have also stated that I think he did remarkably well considering. I do think he was quite intelligent though and had he ever entertained thoughts of a breakout screened by a covering force, he would have not waited until the jig was up to put forward such a plan.
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Post by marklemon on Aug 3, 2010 22:15:13 GMT -5
One of the challenges we face in trying to get inside the minds of the garrison in general, and Travis in particular, is that too often we use a 21st century thought process to analyze a 19th century mind. What may seem to us today as simple practicality and common sense, especially in this era of "me first," would be looked upon as base cowardice by 19th century standards, steeped as they were in Scott and Byron. Travis in particular was arguably obsessed with the Romantic Age and its heroic themes, and, yes, even under the real-world stress of the moment, would have, I think, abhorred the thought of surrender, especially if it meant being stood against a wall and shot. His mind would have said, "If I am going to die, I'd might as well die fighting." The only way I believe that Travis would have entertained the thought of surrender, was if he perceived he was being offered terms amenable to him, and I am not aware of any evidence that he was. So IMO, if he was leaking the news that he was possibly ready to surrender, I think it was either a ploy to buy time, or he thought he was (or he really was) offered terms under which he and his men would live, or that he and other officers would be held (and killed) and the remainder of the garrison paroled.
But back to the original question: I still see no reason why the line would not have been drawn. It may seem to us in our uber-sophisticated and cynical modern minds as being ridiculously over-sentimental, and it has recently become fashionable to pooh-pooh the notion, but as I have pointed out, literally crossing a line was de rigeur in the early 1900's, especially for volunteers. It even happened before Bexar was taken in December of 1835.
Not only does the act smack exactly of Travis' sense of both himself, and the era in which he lived, we should remember that every Alamo survivor told of the drawing of the line. You'd think that if it was a lie, at least one of them would speak up and say: HEY, wait a minute, that never happened." No one did..
I am not emotionally wedded to the line, but I just see it as absolutely possible.
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Post by pawbear on Aug 3, 2010 22:18:35 GMT -5
Then when do you do it? Travis was in a spot, reinforcements are coming, they're not coming. The key here is the line of inner defense of the fort running north to south, from the low barracks through the hospital to throught the fontin in front of the church (all fortified) and the palisades running through the church to the east.
As I said in the old days, some of these men had prior military experience, also planned escape routes were common for defenses against the Indians.
I think he picked March 6 was picked because it was March 6 meaning, the northwall was overrun, Travis was dead and the surving leadership with a prearranged plan of denying the enemy his ultimate goal, exercised it.
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Post by Tom Nuckols on Aug 4, 2010 0:10:51 GMT -5
Travis in particular was arguably obsessed with the Romantic Age and its heroic themes, and, yes, even under the real-world stress of the moment, would have, I think, abhorred the thought of surrender, especially if it meant being stood against a wall and shot. His mind would have said, "If I am going to die, I'd might as well die fighting." I am not emotionally wedded to the line, but I just see it as absolutely possible. I agree about both Travis' character and the possibility of the line, but imagine this scenario: Travis wants to stay and fight. But after two hungry, sleepless weeks in the cold, groups of men in the garrison start talking amongst themselves about either trying to escape or surrendering. Travis learns this and realizes that those men may start going over the wall at night if he doesn't do something. He musters the men on the 5th and convinces all but Rose to stay just a few more days before deciding to surrender or flee. Rose tells the Zubers this story. W.P. Zuber "morphs" the real story it into the "cross the line and go down fighting" legend. Possible?
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Post by garyzaboly on Aug 4, 2010 6:17:12 GMT -5
Ben Milam supposedly drew a line in the dirt with the butt of his rifle and asked the volunteers in 1835, "Who will go with old Ben Milam into San Antonio?" So the concept of the "line in the sand" was evidently seen as useful when push came to shove.
Travis was definitely a hardcase about holding the fort, but I don't think he wanted to take the rest of the garrison with him if THEY felt it was hopeless, that their only option was to die in place. The propect of reinforcements was the only glue holding the Alamo together on March 5th. Failing that, to paraphrase Laurence Harvey, it could not hold.
There were a lot of things that Joe left out in his testimonials. But had he mentioned anything about Travis contemplating surrender or breakout, I wonder if his Texian listeners would have wanted to dissemminate that in the press.
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Post by Herb on Aug 4, 2010 9:39:35 GMT -5
The surrender question is an interesting one and there is some collaboration for DLP's version provided by Dickinson.
Even given Travis' personality, I don't think death was his preferred option. Surrender, especially with the honors of war, was always consdiered honorable. Even Texas politicians, said that the Alamo should be held "unless in the last extremity". While the last extremity of a fortified place was generally considered to have been when the walls had been breeched - the Alamo was so close to that point that it's irrelevant.
Travis tone of defiance changed very much to one of reproach and resignation in his letters with the March 3rd arrival of Mexican reinforcements. I think the story of the line is indeed probable (and almost required to inform the men) anytime after that date.
Travis had met his duty - holding the Alamo until the last extremity. He also had a duty to his men. In this light I see the line as even more probable.
I don't think Travis would ever have surrender unconditionally (with discretion) but would fight (as would his men) unless he could receive terms. By this time this was an honorable option.
While we know Santa Anna had no intention of ever offerring terms, the Texians did not. Perversivily, Santa Anna's sense of honor would never allow him to offer or accept a surrender that included terms and then revoke them. DLP's version of these events, may not be accurate, but it does fit into the logic of the situation.
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Post by pawbear on Aug 4, 2010 12:55:42 GMT -5
And, this is one of my reasons for accepting an escape plan as an alternative. Remember the red flag on the steeple is a reminder that surrender might not be a good option.
I think there was an initial discussion by Travis with the more experenced heads of the garrison which came up with at least one, I think three alternatives -stay, sirremder or breakout. Then one or all three alternatives were given to the garrison. If a breakout was the decision then there had to be a direction for it to go, a defensive line that chose to stay and those that volunteered to leave, neither decision being the safest position.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Aug 4, 2010 23:37:51 GMT -5
Something to remember. The original Zuber story of the Line in the Sand did not make it any kind of life/death line -- i.e. choose death by crossing it rather than life by not crossing it.
Zuber's version of Travis' speech says, "Our fate is sealed. Within a very few days -- perhaps a very few hours -- we must all be in eternity. This is our destiny, and we cannot avoid it. This is our certain doom." [Italics his]. And shortly, "Then we must die... Our business is, not to make a fruitless effort to save our lives, but to choose the manner of our death." [Italics mine]. He talks about "three modes of death" and choosing "that by which we may best serve our country." His choices were surrender and be shot, try to escape and be butchered, or "sell our lives as dearly as possible." He believed that, by the first two choices, they would simply be losing their lives, but by the third choice they would be benefiting their friends and families at home. Actually sounds a bit like Flight 93 to me. (I wonder if those guys drew a line in the aisle. ;D)
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Post by stuart on Aug 5, 2010 15:24:40 GMT -5
I agree with Mark that the symbolism of "the line" has been overstated. If a decision has to be taken its as good a way as any of letting everybody decide, irrespectively of how loud some of them might be shouting.
I'm interested by the suggestion that Travis suggested - or acknowledged - that surrender could still be an option. Santa Anna might have insisted on an immediate surrender or else at the outset, but how serious was he? It was a pretty standard opening gambit. Travis had equally properly bidden him defiance, but now after nearly two weeks and no meaningful sign of relief had the garrison not earned the right to the honours of war?
The line is important in so far as it was essential that the garrison stuck together. If you look at other examples of similar situations the most dangerous phase of the delicate business of surrendering is if the garrison either relaxes or starts trying individually to escape while the negotiations are still going on; this almost always results in the besiegers taking advantage of the breakdown in discipline to get into the fort and start plundering and murdering before the surrender is agreed and the necessary safeguards for the garrison secured.
In short, if the garrison was reaching the end of its resistance, Travis must have known that the only chance of securing terms was for them to stick together and what he would have been trying to do is not offer them the opportunity to escape or to stay and die, but appealing to them not to try to escape until he had tried to secure terms and promising in return that if he failed he would then let them try to take their chances over the wall
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Post by pawbear on Aug 5, 2010 17:42:30 GMT -5
As a lone voice on a possiblity, I think there were discussions going on among the Alamo leadership. My extension to that hypothesis is that they explored all options. Futher extension, besides the two alternatives offered by Sturat, that a planned breakout was among the options. My supporting evidence for the supposition was the fortfication of the fort internally facing west from the barracks to the chapel and considering that the southwest corner fell as quickly as it did, that there was some expectations of the defenders this would happen. This goes back to the old board when there were discussion of how much munitions there were for the 18 pounder.
I also think the defenders were trumped on time because of the attack on March 6, I would think the plan would have been for another date.
Anyways, thuts whuts I tink.
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Post by ajdrake4 on Aug 24, 2010 16:01:35 GMT -5
I've always thought that if the crossing of the line did occur, it was essentially a way for the defenders to "vote with their feet." I doubt Travis said "cross this line and die with me and become a martyr." I think it's more likely Travis presented them with the only options open to them, and allowed the men to make the decision.
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