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Post by Jim Boylston on Aug 10, 2010 17:08:15 GMT -5
Stuart wrote:
It would seem that Santa Anna's promise of a complete campaign report was premature. When would he have compiled the document? The campaign was still ongoing, at least until he was so rudely interrupted at San Jacinto. After that...
Jim
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Post by Allen Wiener on Aug 10, 2010 17:33:56 GMT -5
Are there reports from Urrea to Santa Anna on his operations during the campaign?
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Post by alamonorth on Aug 10, 2010 17:49:27 GMT -5
Ramon Caro in his account of the Texas war makes this rather intriquing note, "I have not the documents which I am citing. ...These documents will be found in the private papers of His Excellency which were in his baggage sent to Veracruz together with mine. By this time His Excellency must have disposed of these documents as he saw fit." As I posted above, Santa Anna's personal archive was destoyed during the Mexican war.
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Post by alamonorth on Aug 10, 2010 18:04:33 GMT -5
Just a point of clarification. Caro was specifically refering to some Urrea documents, but this does not mean that Alamo documents were not also present.
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Post by Herb on Aug 10, 2010 18:06:22 GMT -5
Jim, pretty good summary.
But, let me go back to the beginning, this basically began over why other reports like Sesma's have not been found in the Mexican Archives. While I only chose to address the official relevant correspondence, the after action reports and the unit journals/logbooks, that would contain in depth information about the Alamo battle, there is other information ie personal files (which have been found in the archives) that include nuggets of information, but not the depth of information that could be found in these official records.
The overwhelming evidence is that the majority of this information was lost by the Mexicans at San Jacinto, and while I said it was probably burnt in the accidental fire that consumed a large portion of the Mexican baggage two days after the battle. There are other possibilities, Gary's reminder about the Texas' Capitol's burning is another very strong possibility. A far lesser possibility is that these records ended up in private hands, Houston's aide, Hockley, for example , and may yet be found in some attic.
What is unlikely is that for these particular units they ended up the Mexican Archives. This is where the debate becomes somewhat arcane. So bear with me. Armies usually follow some fairly strict procedures in handling paperwork, but not surprisingly the procedures in any given age are generally very similar between armies. Since we are talking about two different types of paperwork there are different procedures.
Let's look at the unit journals first. Unit Journals as used by the Mexican Army in 1836 were primarily a daily record of the events that individual Battalions experienced each day. At present, there is a copy of the San Luis Potosi Journal of the Texas Campaign included with the DLP papers in Austin. This journal includes some great information about the battle of the Alamo and the Texas Campaign as a whole. Of the five battalions, the Aldama, Toluca, Matamoros, Jimenez, Zapadores and San Luis Potosi that attacked the Alamo only the San Luis and the Zapadores were not at San Jacinto.
As these unit journals were primarily used as daily logs, it makes no sense at all that they were left behind in San Antonio. With the entries after the Alamo in the San Luis' case we know for a fact that it was not. Filisola, recorded in the non English version of his memoirs the loss of the Aldama Battalion's Journal in a river crossing (see Dimmick). So we know that two of the five Battalions involved at the Alamo followed standard operating procedure and had their journals with them at time of San Jacinto. To assume otherwise without providing some sort of evidence/proof is an invalid assumption and violates the known facts and the existing evidence that the Mexican Army was following it's own procedures. This leads to the conclusion that the logs of the Toluca, Matamoros and Jimenez Battalions were either destroyed or captured (and later lost) at San Jacinto. LOOKING for them in Mexico is probably a waste of time. It would appear that the Zapadore Bn maybe the only unit journal that might still exist in Mexico.
The After Action Reports are a different matter entirely. None of the original after action reports currently exist that we know of (Sesma's after action report is basically a certified copy of the original written five months after the original, which he verified by his signature). This is a significant fact in itself, in that it strongly implies that the original had been lost and had to be replaced.
There is evidence, found in Almonte's Journal that Sesma's (c avalry)original report along with Romero's (east) was submitted and received by Santa Anna's Headquarters in the week after the fall of the Alamo. While there is no evidence that I have found that the other column commanders were required to report, it would have been a serious deviation from established procedures for them not to do so. Now there are some possibilities here that need to be considered, Morales (the south) left San Antonio on March 11th and moved to join Urrea, it is very possible that he may not have submitted his report to Santa Anna - it may indeed have found its way into the Mexican Archives. Duque (north) is wounded in the hospital and probably did not write a report, but his second in command should have. Cos (east) is the only General Officer that commanded a column and is technically part of Santa Anna's Headquarters. Since at this point he was with the HQs, he may either have not yet submitted a report, or as it would have been an internal document it's receipt may not have been recorded.
Reports were submitted to the next higher commander, in this case Santa Anna. He would use them to write his own report, if he regarded the Alamo as a significant action he would probably write a report dealing specifically with the battle, however, if he regarded is as only a "small affair" he would include this information in his report of the overall campaign. They would not be forwarded to Mexico City in either case until he submitted his own report.
There were two ways that the report could travel to Mexico City. One way would be through staff channels to be stored as historical records this would usually not happen until after the overall commander's report was officially received (and usually published in the capital's newspapers). This procedure would almost always be the primary way reports reached the capital. The second way, they would reach the capital is if the commander included them as part of his report. This normally, happened in three particular ways, the commander liked what a subordinates had to say and wanted it published, the commander wanted to bring special attention to a certain subordinates, or the commander was particularly pleased with a subordinates report and basically used it as his own report and endorsed the subordinates report in lieu of submitting a separate report of his own.
Now obviously there will be occasional exceptions, but they are rare, and usually involve the death of one of the key individuals. The important point is that these subordinate afteraction reports would remain with the commander's headquarters until he submitted his report. That doesn't mean Santa Anna carted a bunch of papers around in the 1836 his adjutant was responsible for this. And an 1830s Adjutant was far different from todays adjutant. In the 1830s, the adjutant basically served as the senior staff officer, a personal secretary and the operations officer.
If the Mexican Army was following its standard procedures, these afteraction reports were being maintained by Santa Anna's Adjutant at San Jacinto, as these procedures are indeed a fact and not an assumption, the burden of proof is not to prove that procedures were followed, but that they weren't.
This again means that these documents were either captured and subsequently lost or accidentally destroyed in the fire of April 23rd.
This brings us back to Sesma's certified copy of his report. Five months after the Alamo, the Mexican Army had finally returned to Mexico. An efficient War Minister, would be trying to reconstitute not just the army but it's lost records as well. There are possibilities that reconstituted reports from Morales and the commander of the Zapadores may yet be found. But the other units reports were the same place as their commanders in the hands of the Texians.
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Post by Chuck T on Aug 10, 2010 18:44:07 GMT -5
Jim: As far as I am concerned your review of the bidding in on the mark.
Herb: Thank you also for a complete and concise restatement of position.
The whole argument over AAR's and unit journals comes down to this in my mind. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, one would expect that normal standing administrative procedures were followed. No one can know for sure if any of these documents escaped destruction, but that was never the point.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Aug 10, 2010 18:55:08 GMT -5
The Richmond Enquirer of March 28, 1837, published a letter from Santa Anna to the Mexican Minister of War, dated February 26, 1837. Italics mine.
An excerpt:
This seems to indicate a couple of things. Almonte was bringing back reports about the officer's captivity following San Jacinto (the bulk of the letter concerns the post San Jacinto incarceration), and Santa Anna had not yet submitted a full report of the Texas campaign. The forthcoming report to which he referred in this letter, was the Manifesto that was published in 1837 (Hanson, page 343-347).
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Post by Kevin Young on Aug 10, 2010 19:32:01 GMT -5
Herb-great summary, which is easy to follow, and gives some clarity to things. Your point about an 19th century adjutant being different from current military is well made.
Also, thanks for giving a better understanding of what the Sesma report is and when it was written.
We should all probably remember that following Santa Anna's return to Mexico there were all sorts of offical efforts to figure out what went wrong. Note that there was an inquiry into the Goliad executions...so, along with all the "personal" accounts there were offical reports generated as well...
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Post by Allen Wiener on Aug 10, 2010 20:14:20 GMT -5
Thanks Herb; great summary, clarification and recapitulation. I think it is an historical given that many documents are lost, for whatever reason. While there's always that 1-in-a-million chance that we'll find some of them in an attic or moldy library drawer somewhere, inevitably some are just lost forever. Someone once told me about the number of Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks that were lost over the years, which seems nearly criminal, but there it is.
As an ancillary note, I ran across the Fall 1998 edition of the excellent Journal of the Alamo Battlefield Association yesterday, which contained an article edited by Kevin titled "The Siege of the Alamo: A Mexican Army Journal," translated by David McDonald. This is a day-by-day account that is part of a journal kept by an officer of the Battalion Activo San Luis Potosi, which was discovered by the ever-reliable Jim Crisp during his research on the de la Pena documents.
Allen
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Post by marklemon on Aug 10, 2010 20:48:53 GMT -5
On the other hand, decades later the Texas Archives experienced a devastating fire, and much was lost. So who can say how many official Mexican campaign papers were saved, or destroyed---and who can say how many remain hidden, even today, in Texas (not to mention Mexico). Exactly the point I was trying to make Gary, though I failed to allow for their possibly being somewhere in Texas...the point is the same. My underlying point, really, was that they may still exist somewhere, that's all....There are just too many variables to be even close to being sure about this one.
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Post by Kevin Young on Aug 10, 2010 20:51:18 GMT -5
.
As a note to that article, we only published the Alamo section (which in retrospect, we should have done the whole log book). David did translate the whole thing. Also had wished that we had thought about publishing the Spanish as well with copies of the original so that one could have all three in hand. Since 1998 I have come to strongly believe that one should provide the Spanish and a copy of the original so readers and researchers can compare. Anyone wanting a copy of the above can just drop me a PM.
And thanks to old friend Jim Crisp for turning me onto it and David for all his hard work.
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Post by glforeman on Aug 10, 2010 21:01:12 GMT -5
In a very recent conversation with my old friend and scholar Rene Chartrand, he advised all of us to look at the records and archives at Churubusco, not Mexico City. GLF
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Post by Allen Wiener on Aug 10, 2010 22:28:41 GMT -5
. As a note to that article, we only published the Alamo section (which in retrospect, we should have done the whole log book). David did translate the whole thing. Also had wished that we had thought about publishing the Spanish as well with copies of the original so that one could have all three in hand. Since 1998 I have come to strongly believe that one should provide the Spanish and a copy of the original so readers and researchers can compare. Anyone wanting a copy of the above can just drop me a PM. And thanks to old friend Jim Crisp for turning me onto it and David for all his hard work. I agree; I've learned the same lesson. You really need the original Spanish with any English translation so that the translation is completely transparent. It is interesting in that it provides additional documentation about the siege and battle, and evidence that de la Pena did, indeed, collect first-hand information from other participants in composing his long memoir. Allen
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Post by Herb on Aug 11, 2010 4:02:45 GMT -5
Are there reports from Urrea to Santa Anna on his operations during the campaign? Allen, I haven't done any real work on the southern campaign, perhaps Kevin, or Stuart will chime in. But, yes Urrea was sending reports to Santa Anna. Almonte records them in his journal. Don't forget though, that Urrea retreated with the Mexican Main Body back to Matamoros, and presumably still had his letter book with copies of all his correspondence.
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Post by garyzaboly on Aug 11, 2010 6:55:05 GMT -5
Where was it written that Mexican military documents were consumed in a fire at San Jacinto?
According to Col. Pedro Delgado, of Santa Anna's staff, on April 22nd the Texians brought together "the army stores, clothing, baggage, and all the spoils of our camp." Most of this was afterwards sold at auction to Houston's men.
On the 23rd, again according to Delgado, the Texians brought in "seventy or eighty loads of ordnance stores...together with piles of loaded muskets and of cartridge boxes." These were piled together "in close proximity to our camp," he added. These piles caught fire, but the fire was eventually extinguished so the stores weren't ENTIRELY consumed. But the key point here is that we must distinguish ORDNANCE and firearms/munitions stores from the other camp "spoils." And the latter would include official documents and journals, etc.
No good commander, or other officer, would be so incompetent as to NOT gather together, as soon as possible after a victory, the papers of the enemy in order to know what he had done, and what he had intended to do, in his campaign.
Thus, it seems apparent---unless this can be contradicted with real evidence as opposed to earnest but misleading supposition---that the Mexican military papers in Santa Anna's San Jacinto camp WERE captured and saved by Houston and his officers.
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