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Post by Jim Boylston on Feb 10, 2012 18:30:57 GMT -5
Robert, the "crown of the head" is technically the back part of the top of your head. Someone could sustain a wound there if they were facing the door of the church (from the inside) and fire was delivered from the Fortin De Cos area. The wound doesn't have to have been delivered from directly above.
Jim
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Post by Hollowhorn on Feb 10, 2012 19:25:10 GMT -5
Cheers, Jim, I went and checked anyway & it seems you may well be right. I took the 'officer's' meaning to be fire from above. I love this forum.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Feb 10, 2012 22:55:25 GMT -5
But what would be outstanding enough about a wound in the back part of the head in a battle. That's why I always thought he meant from straight above. That would be worthy of an outstanding memory.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Feb 10, 2012 23:04:21 GMT -5
Friendly fire? It's possible.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Feb 10, 2012 23:05:29 GMT -5
Not saying it couldn't be, Rich, just that it doesn't have to mean that considering the crown of your head is the top back part. Plus, someone getting the top of their head blown off right next to you would probably be memorable no matter where the shot came from.
Jim
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Post by Jim Boylston on Feb 10, 2012 23:13:27 GMT -5
Friendly fire? It's possible. Probably not in this context. There's no way to really know on this one, it's just going to be guesswork. If there were riflemen at the front of the church it might have been one of their shots or it might have been someone on the cannon platform. Who knows? The story is second-hand and Potter didn't mention who said it as far as I know. Jim
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Post by Rich Curilla on Feb 11, 2012 3:05:06 GMT -5
Yep. Futile argument. We'll never know. Of course, what isn't when dealing with the Mo?
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Post by garyzaboly on Feb 11, 2012 4:29:29 GMT -5
Potter was very specific about his sources when it came to the battle:
"Of the foregoing details which do not refer to documentary authority I obtained many from Gen. Bradburn, who arrived at San Antonio a few days after the action, and gathered them from officers who were in it. A few I had through a friend from Gen. Amador. Others again I received from three intelligent Sergeants, who were men of fair education and I think truthful. One of them Serg. Becero, of the battalion of Matamoros, who was captured at San Jacinto, was for several years my servant in Texas. From men of their class I could generally get more candid statements as to loss and other matters than from commissioned officers. I have also gathered some minor particulars from local tradition preserved among the residents of the town."
That's a very credible summary of how he arrived at many details for which we may not have confirming accounts. To have expected Potter to write up a scholarly, footnoted treatise is pushing the reality envelope. In fact, for a mercantile-trained businessman, not professional historian, he did a commendable job considering the scattered bits of evidence he had to laboriously collect in the four decades following the battle.
Aside from Potter's sources, there was Mexican veteran Felix Nunez, who recalled that the soldados "received a deadly fire from the top of the roof" of the church as they assaulted it. Gentilz, who also had access to Bexareno testimony beginning less than a decade following the battle, put riflemen atop the front of the church.
As for NOT placing riflemen on the top of the church facade, facing the interior of the compound after enemy troops have overrun the walls in great strength and are now frontally threatening the last "bastion" of the fort...that would be absurd.
Even Herman Ehrenberg penned the report, of no discernible lineage, that placed a surviving defender atop an Alamo wall deemed "forty feet" high (!), taunting and firing at the Mexicans who were obviously almost finished with their conquest.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Feb 11, 2012 7:55:19 GMT -5
This image from Rich, showing the Veremendi and the Alamo. Attachments:
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Post by Jim Boylston on Feb 11, 2012 8:02:58 GMT -5
Another view from Rich: Attachments:
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Post by Kevin Young on Feb 11, 2012 8:36:40 GMT -5
Not saying it couldn't be, Rich, just that it doesn't have to mean that considering the crown of your head is the top back part. Plus, someone getting the top of their head blown off right next to you would probably be memorable no matter where the shot came from. Jim Amen.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Feb 11, 2012 9:49:05 GMT -5
I just opened a Nunez thread. Jim
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Post by garyzaboly on Feb 11, 2012 10:26:07 GMT -5
In 1990, Dr. Stephen L. Hardin, in "The Felix Nunez Account and the Siege of the Alamo: A Critical Appraisal" ( Southwestern Historical Quarterly XCIV, No. 1, p. 70), wrote: "The Nunez account is so clearly wrong on so many vital points it would be folly to use any part of it to support an argument." He even referred to the subject of his article as "alleged Mexican soldier Felix Nunez." Has there been any research since 1990 that would indicate that the Nunez account is any more trustworthy than Dr. Hardin painted it? Tom, Like all recollections penned years, often decades later, the Nunez account has a lot of obvious flaws, and a lot of truths. I would also say that at least half (a conservative estimate) of all participant's accounts, Mexican or Texian, can be deemed "wrong on so many vital points." But "folly to use any part of it to support an argument"? Let's see. Nunez is, in fact, the only veteran to independently confirm Filisola's description of the so-called wooden ramp in the church. Filisola called it a "level ladder," or, "flat staircase"---more accurately, a "flat ladder." Flat ladders were like gangways: timbers laid lengthwise on supporting, sloping structures, also of timber or scaffolding. Horizontal wooden cleats were positioned at intervals atop the gangway to prevent slipping. Dirt could be added to give it more traction. Very practical and strong. For decades the Nunez description of the "ramp" has frustrated everyone's attempt to understand what he was describing. However, with Filisola's help, we see he is right on-target. Nunez recalled: "The Americans had constructed a curious kind of ladder, or gangway, of long poles toed together with ropes and filled on top with sticks and dirt."Now to debate all the problems, and virtues, in the Nunez account would take longer than any of us have time here for. Furthermore, I was not saying that Nunez can be completely relied upon. (And by the way, though he is a long-term friend of mine, Steve and I don't always agree on a lot of things. And Steve will freely admit that his main interest is not in the physical composition of the Alamo). The question was earlier asked, what sources did Potter have for riflemen on the roof of the church? I gave Potter's own fairly substantial explanation for this, and I added a few quotes from different sources as additional evidence, however suggestive. I can understand the doubt re: Nunez, but no member made any comment re: the main gist of my reply. Not even a simple "aha"
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Post by garyzaboly on Feb 11, 2012 10:31:04 GMT -5
This image from Rich, showing the Veremendi and the Alamo. Yes...perfect...a perfect match for Sanchez-Navarro's drawing, no matter that he fudged in the north wall. Jose Juan was also quite safe sitting on that rooftop drawing his "Vista"---far out of range of any rifle in the Alamo, although a well-placed cannonball might have knocked him off his perch and thus saved us from expending so much finger work in trying to justify, or deny, what he left us. Chances are also good he was assisted by a telescope of some kind.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Feb 11, 2012 11:00:02 GMT -5
Come on, Gary, it's still early! ;D I've been taken to task for using Potter so many times I'm just waiting for others to weigh in. I think there's a lot of value in comparing Potter's accounts (In fact, I've spent a long time working on an article that shows the evolution of Potter's thought and compares and contrasts the accounts...maybe someday I'll finish it). He was obviously a guy who was looking for the truth and wasn't driven by any agenda, so I hold his work in high regard, problematic though parts of it might be. I'm probably like Doc in that my primary interest isn't in the physical compound, though I do find the discussions fascinating. (Sometimes...other times my eyes glaze over. But one factor that might bear discussing is the idea of the church as a citadel, of sorts. I think that a lot of these accounts tend to treat the church as such (Nunez, for example), and Sanchez Navarro's plat, arguably, shows the church as almost a castle "keep," a detail that, again, arguably, could be reinforced by the castle-like appearance of his vista. I think, however, that a strong case can be made that if anything was close to a citadel in the compound, it was the long barracks. I know that the church area was the last to fall, and that the abatis and the ability to deliver infilading fire along the palisade and in the Campo Santo area made the church a formidable obstacle. It was in the long barracks, however, that the Mexicans were reportedly met with the most fierce resistance. I'd be interested in hearing some thoughts. Jim
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