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Post by ronald on Jan 4, 2015 9:38:04 GMT -5
It seems a shame that more interest was not taken in the history of the Texas revolution and the Alamo when it was still fresh on their minds. So many of the people who could have told a story were not asked until 50 or so years after the fact. I can not remember his name but the guy who left for help the last night who lived a long life and was a judge and mayor did not leave a single word.I can not think of his name? Its like nobody had much interest until around 1900. But I guess they were building a country then the Civil war ect.
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Post by ronald on Jan 4, 2015 10:06:12 GMT -5
Allen is his name, I have a question , are there any written storys from John Smith or books that contain his story?
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Post by Jim Boylston on Jan 6, 2015 23:26:03 GMT -5
Allen is his name, I have a question , are there any written storys from John Smith or books that contain his story? There are some articles on John W. Smith and others in the "Other Couriers" section of Todd Hansen's "Alamo Reader." Unfortunately, I understand that now the Reader is hard to come by. If I recall, most of the info on John W. Smith at the Alamo is from the Sutherland account, which is also in the Reader but may be available elsewhere. Jim
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Post by texagg04 on Jan 8, 2015 22:37:08 GMT -5
Sociology. The first generation was too busy settling the frontier to worry much about commemorating or memorializing. The 2nd and 3rd generations only later, after things settled could waste cultural energy worrying about remembering what happened, then a certain longing set in.
Happens in EVERY phase of history. Those who take part in events don't ever bother to consider the significance, because to them it's just life. The modern era excepting, with the rise in technology that allows our generation to literally document the present as though it were history and revel in it the same. But before I start on a rant on narcissism, I'll end it there.
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Post by Riley Gardner on Jan 9, 2015 0:19:54 GMT -5
It's important to remember that at the time period as well, the Texian people were hardly living above subsistence farming and very little specialization was allowed to occur. People's day to day lives were primarily feeding and supplying their families or trying to make a spot of money here or there. Many had come from the South as well where education was sparse and, in many cases, available primarily to the wealthy. People in those days simply didn't think about historical documentation or preservation. It wasn't in the common mindset. Hence why the Alamo was allowed to be nearly demolished before it was saved and changed to the current Alamo grounds.
At the same time, quite a bit of Texas had been decimated in the war. A majority of Texan colonies were burned or abandoned, and quite a bit went back the states as well. By the war's end, society had to focus on rebuilding lost communities or creating completely new ones. The population had dropped and so many people had lost everything they owned. The war today is seen as a major historical event with heroes and glory for liberty and freedom, but in reality it was a traumatizing event for many people. The civilian survivors of the Alamo were even more-so traumatized, and for more to open up about their experiences was a painful event they'd rather forget.
This always reminds of survivors of the Titanic disaster. Many of them went on to have children after, and there were numerous cases where children and grandchildren only discovered their grandparents had been on the Titanic after their death. They simply did not speak of it and moved past it, as it was something they attempted to forget.
Not only that, once Texas had rebuilt and begun to grow the Civil War itself broke out, and while Texas didn't suffer the destruction of Georgia or other states, the economic hardship in the area was extreme until the 1870s/80s. You've also got carpetbaggers and other northern folk moving south and setting up industry in Texas on a large scale (such as journalism) as well as an increased population and new generation which had yet to experience anyone with first hand experiences in the war. With new people and new generations, the myth of heroic stature of the revolution began to shape more than it had to it's common themes. People were wanting to know about their history and a growth in educated population is what led to that.
Many events post late 1800s are typically well documented, while those beforehand tend to be mostly by oral tradition or first person accounts. Society sure has changed quite a bit.
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Post by alamonorth on Jan 9, 2015 17:33:51 GMT -5
Actually many people were interviewed within the first decade if not sooner. As Bill Groneman points out in his Eyewitness to the Alamo (pages 60 -63) several authors such as Newell and Stiff were in contact with participants of the Texas Revolution. And lets not forget Reuben Potter who was interviewing Mexican survivors of the Texas campaign as they crossed back into Mexico at Matamoros.
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Post by Paul Sylvain on Jan 10, 2015 16:54:13 GMT -5
Of course, we're looking at the Alamo story in different eyes than back then. This just me speculating a bit, but folks about the town were pretty used to seeing various armies come and go, battles fought (and let's not forget the frequent Indian raids). We recognize the Alamo as a significant event for Texas and as a shining example how a handful of defenders willingly gave their lives for the ideals of freedom and liberty. Did it mean the same thing back then? Or was it "just another stinkin' battle" among many? I'd also venture to say that while there were survivors among the people inside the Alamo, all of defenders present on March 6 were killed. Those who did survive, were mostly inside buildings and did not see what was going on outside.
I have a feeling then (as now) the majority of people in Bexar really didn't care less. They just went on with their lives.
Paul
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Post by Rich Curilla on Jan 10, 2015 23:44:56 GMT -5
I like your avatar. Who did the painting? It must be from other images and not from visiting the site, since the pole with the bell is in reality the corner post of the wooden stairs waaaaaaaaay over on the low barrack to the right. No matter. The painting rocks.
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Post by estebans on Jan 12, 2015 15:32:25 GMT -5
John W. Smith died so soon, 1845, that if he wasn't interviewed by that first set of historians mentioned above, he didn't last long enough to make to the 1870s, when so many Texans seemed to draw a deep breath and start writing memoirs. It's too bad if he didn't talk to Mirabeau Lamar when Lamar started interviewing people from the Texas revolution and republic. Smith seems like he was well insinuated into the pre-revolution power structure in Bexar, and then took up with the newcomers who arrived in Texas after San Jacinto, but didn't live to enjoy the proceeds of guessing correctly about which way the wind was blowing.
I have wondered what degree of survivor's guilt afflicted those who were able to leave the Alamo. It seems to me that the issue of why they didn't "die in those trenches" made those guys ambivalent about the physical Alamo itself, much as Sam Houston seemed to have avoided the place. Even if you'd left for a legitimate reason, the chapel and compound stood there and shamed you; it was a symbol for other people to use rhetorically, not something you were comfortable with. I really think that was a factor in the nineteenth-century treatment of the compound: the Bexar oldtimers had either left or collaborated, and there wasn't an Anglo oldtimer who could step up and champion the place with a wholly clear conscience, even if they'd fought at San Jacinto. Maybe I'm being ungenerous, but that's a reason why I wonder what John W. Smith would have said about that period.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Jan 12, 2015 19:29:45 GMT -5
I would think that Sam Maverick is an exception -- or an example -- of what you are saying. He left legitimately a few days before Santa Anna arrived, but he seems to have had an unnatural passion for the place in later years. He built his home and business along the ruins of the west wall with a seeming passion to live on the site of his embarrassment. He also bought up all the land outside the north wall -- where most of the enemy's assault had come from (of course, it is unlikely that he knew that then). Could he have had a severe guilt complex or was he just the very first "Alamo Buff?"
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jan 14, 2015 14:57:16 GMT -5
Has anyone ever found any authenticated statements by James Allen, who is said to have been the last courier out of the Alamo? He wold be one of the more interesting interviews as he would have been able to provide accounts of the last days in the Alamo, Travis' reported drawing of a line, and what Travis told him before he left the fort. Also, do we know what was in Travis' final letter that Allen reportedly carried? I've seen Travis' letters, but I'm not sure which one was the last. It may have been one where he referred to his bones haunting those who failed to aid the Alamo.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Jan 14, 2015 23:13:23 GMT -5
Allen, the only account of... Allen.... is a very sparse latter-day second hand account of someone who knew him. As a college student, one would think he would have written a very intelligent account himself, but he did not. As I remember, it is how we know of him and why we know he left on a bareback horse on the night of the fifth after being chosen from two boys by drawing straws. It was shown that way in ALAMO: THE PRICE OF FREEDOM, but the straw-drawing scene was cut.
Travis' last letters that are extant were the two that he sent out on March 3, and it is one of these that has the comment you mention. However, there is a letter from a week or so later from a member of the Goliad garrison that makes reference to a letter they just received from Travis reporting that "every shot goes through" the walls. This might be referring to a letter he sent out with Allen, since his letters of the 3rd. say that the walls are still "generally proof against cannonballs." Things clearly changed over the next two days. Thus far, no one has tracked down this letter, causing me to guess that it might be in the Mexican archives, having been captured at Goliad, or ended up in the Sea of Mud with some officer's saddlebags.
Another very annoying error that still abides among historians is the reference to James L. Allen being a boy of sixteen. That boy's 21st. birthday was on March 2, in the Alamo. I would guess that he might have suffered the unwarranted shame of having left the Alamo while all his friends stayed and died there and thus never talked or wrote about it. To us, it is all a wonderful adventure. To them (as alluded to above), it was a moment of horror (whether experienced or just imagined) that nobody liked to revisit.
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Post by Herb on Jan 15, 2015 0:28:15 GMT -5
Two points, I think apply. First is when you live through something historically or personally very significant most of us never see the importance of writing our memories down as we will never forget those details that are so branded on our soul. But over time, we do indeed forget details and regret that we didn't write the story down when it was fresh.
The second is tied to the first. "Everybody" (at the time) knew so much more that was never recorded simply because "everybody" knew it. And, over time this knowledge became lost or evolved into legend or myth or very rarely was recorded by somebody like Potter or Sutherland.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jan 15, 2015 14:21:19 GMT -5
Thanks for the info; very interesting. Re: Herb's point, we were just discussing this at my history book club meeting last night. Reading a lot of history, it becomes frustrating at times that more was not put down on paper by the participants and witnesses, but Herb is right. How many who were either involved in or witnessed 9/11 actually sat down and wrote details about what had happened that day. Our family was completely preoccupied with the fate of my brother-in-law, who was in the North Tower. He made it out safely, but we didn't find that out until much later in the evening, which made for an extremely emotional, stressful day. I've never heard him speak a word about it, other than to say that the fire fighters were "the real heroes that day" and that he and his group would never have made it out of the building without their help. We don't really think that we are living through historical events, although we often are; we just think we are living. Historians have to do their best with the accounts that do survive, weigh them in total, and try to establish what most likely happened.
Incidentally, and really off topic, I'm finishing a book called "A Peace to End All Peace" by David Fromkin, which traces events in the Mid East during World War I and is the very best source I've found that explains much of why the region is the way it is today. Much of it is from the British point of view because the British were the prime movers in the region at the time and called a lot of the shots, frequently with the poorest intel or understanding of the people who lived in the region. The Foreign Office in London often held very different images of the place than the British officials in Cairo and India. Later, many "official" documents were either destroyed or rewritten to reflect more positively on the people who were involved, so that history was actively being destroyed or altered. Nonetheless, the author managed to find out most of what had actually happened. Although it's quite long and often gets way down in the weeds, anyone interested in the Mid East today really ought to read this book. My former boss at the Dept. of Transportation volunteered for 2 one-year civilian tours in Iraq and worked on transportation infrastructure rebuilding. He told me that everyone who was sent there was told to read that book.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Jan 15, 2015 17:43:26 GMT -5
Amazing, Allen. History isn't history until people want to think about what happened, and then it's too late to know for sure -- if it's ever possible. : /
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