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Jacales
Jun 25, 2008 22:49:49 GMT -5
Post by marklemon on Jun 25, 2008 22:49:49 GMT -5
What I cannot agree to, is a subsequent leap of logic, to then place a banquette, or wooden firing platform, atop, or behind this structure. There just is no evidence of it whatsoever. But I am not suggesting this. All I am saying is what I believe Jameson is saying. That the east side of the buildings was lined with "stakes on end and rocks and dirt between." This wrapped around the north end to protect the weak houses. LaBastida depicts an "exterior ditch" doing exactly this. You have on your model, perhaps correctly, presented this as a ditch to supply dirt for the earth embankment against the northeast corner (an embankment not depicted by LaBastida) that begins to complete Sanchez-Navarro's reinforcement cribbing (also not shown by LaBastida). This interpretation makes sense to me, but isn't it still a "perhaps?" For the sake of argument, I contend that LaBastida was depicting (rather ambiguously) the same detail that Jameson was describing but without the pickets, just as he failed to depict Sanchez-Navarro/de la Pena's north wall cribbing. Again I will point out that I am saying nothing about a palisade parapet atop the east wall buildings, just a picketed protection outside a weak (perhaps adobe) east wall. This could have been what LaBastida was showing and what Jameson was referring to. Since you do concede the possibility, then doesn't that mean that you also concede the possibility that the "doby" structures were just that -- adobe -- and not palisade jacal construction? Mark, I am by no means trying to prove you wrong. I'm only finding that, even after your fine conjecture, Jameson's wording still means the same to me that it always has. Gee, Rich, give me some credit for doing some serious research, and not just pulling this stuff out of my rear. I'd like to think that 10 years of intense scrutiny on every detail of the compound, and then a final four years collating this data, cross-checking every piece of information available with the best minds out there on the subject, is something a little more than "fine conjecture." Maybe it is just that, but if you are going to refute it, you're going to have to be very compelling. The matter of the north extension houses is not new to me, and is an area into which I have put much study and consultation with persons such as Rick Range, Craig Covner and Jake Ivey (who, by the way, agrees with my depiction of the jacales as being extremely shabby in condition, and most likely a combination of adobe and traditional jacale construction.) To reconstruct the condition of this, or any portion of the place, you have to put it in perspective, and in the continuum of the Alamo's history. In other words, the how, what ,when, where and why something came to be. This area of the mission was built mid to late in the Mission Period, apparently of adobe against either a stone or adobe wall. By the time of the Compania Volante's occupation of the mission early in about 1803 or thereabouts, the primary concern, other than security, was berthing. The officers resided, with their families, in the west wall houses, while the enlisted men moved themselves and their families into those rooms in the long barrack which were habitable. Also, the southern low barrack was constructed, apparently as mass-berthing for the unmarried troopers. Keep in mind that flat roofed Spanish Colonial houses were habitually leaking, and their roofs required constant, constant, constant attention and upkeep. This was all the more true with adobe structures, and, by the time of the Compania Volante's occupation of the place, all construction on the mission had ceased about 40 years earlier. I don't have to draw you a picture of what these northern extension structures must have looked like by, say 1803 or 1805. Again, remember, about 40 YEARS of neglect. Roofs during the mission times were failing after only a very few years of existence, and needed to be repaired constantly, according to the inventories. It is a very safe bet that at least some of them had begun to collapse (starting with the roof, of course). So, what to do with these crumbling houses, if you're the cavalry commander, who needs more space for his men? Rebuild them. Now, the question is, how did they rebuild them? There are really only two serious options: with more adobe, or with the jacal method. I contend that at least some of these structures were rebuilt with upright jacal-type posts, or "pickets." Why? Simple expediency. It was a good bit easier to quickly shore up these structures with jacale, and thatch (tule) roofs, than it would have been to make the adobe brick, (or find a ready supply somewhere), and, more importantly, build that labor-intensive flat, poured concrete roof on some six houses. By the way, archeology at the west wall has already shown that this method was known, and used in this area, as the northernmost room of the Pedro Charli house, had been rebuilt in this exact manner. (I'll not even mention the very real possibility that when Jameson said "all around" he really meant "ALL around." ie: all around the structures, both outside and inside the compound. That's as good an interpretation as anyone else's) In any event, the depiction of these structures as jacale/adobe hodge-podge combinations is the best thought out, most likely version (barring any real archeology up there) as we're likely to get. My research of history, backed by examinations of thousands of photographs or real architectural structures, places, and things has clearly shown me that reality is almost always more shabby and dingy that our minds want to picture it. A clean row of adobe houses? No way. I take exception to Stuart's statement that these structures were torn down by the Mexicans before abandoning the place. Why on earth would they do this? Nowhere else in the entire compound, did they tear down ANY houses, EXCEPT those utilized as gun (cannon) emplacements. They only destroyed gun emplacements, ramps, and filled in ditches, and pulled down single walls (reports, as well as visual data, indicate that they did not even pull down these single walls completely down to the ground.) Why, they even left the old Reyes house, complete with it's own jacale, standing, a few feet away from the northern extension houses. So why they would go to the trouble to tear down these houses makes no sense to me. They had much more taxing, and important work to do elsewhere in the fort, and even in these areas, they did not finish the job. If, as Stuart suggests, the Mexicans saw this as a "single wall," then why did they not tear down any other houses built against other single walls? And if they did, indeed, see this area as a single wall, it is more likely that they did so because the houses built against it were practically falling down, and presented them with little impediment when trying to reach that single wall. But the best scenario is that they were already well on their way to being dilapidated, and fell down on their own, or were torn apart by locals for wood or other materials. They must have either almost gone, and in very poor condition a few years after the battle, for when surveys were done in this area, and deeds granted, no one expressed any interest in them. Is this "fine conjecture?" ...maybe. But I stand behind my research, and feel comfortable with what I have shown. Remember, the earth from the outer ditch (at least that portion where the ditch was completed) was banked up against the OUTSIDE of the palisade revetment, making this revetment more or less invisible. So, if someone chooses to visualize this revetment behind the earthen embankment shown here in my book, be my guest.
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Jacales
Jun 26, 2008 20:10:14 GMT -5
Post by Rich Curilla on Jun 26, 2008 20:10:14 GMT -5
Well, all I can say is that you are beginning to convince me. Thanks. That's a lot more information regarding sources and research than you presented in your book, which starts out, "Of this section of houses at the northeastern end of the main plaza, we know almost nothing."
And I give you an incredible amount of credit for serious research. I just know that we all get so locked into our particular point-of-view that we sometimes don't see the forest for the trees, and it is important that we keep that objectivity. My goal in life is to make Alamaniacs thing even harder about their conclusions. Thanks for clarifying.
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Jacales
Jun 26, 2008 20:37:11 GMT -5
Post by marklemon on Jun 26, 2008 20:37:11 GMT -5
Well, all I can say is that you are beginning to convince me. Thanks. That's a lot more information regarding sources and research than you presented in your book, which starts out, "Of this section of houses at the northeastern end of the main plaza, we know almost nothing." And I give you an incredible amount of credit for serious research. I just know that we all get so locked into our particular point-of-view that we sometimes don't see the forest for the trees, and it is important that we keep that objectivity. My goal in life is to make Alamaniacs thing even harder about their conclusions. Thanks for clarifying. Well, it's true that we know very little about this sector. But I didn't have the luxury of leaving this portion off the model. So I had to dig as deep as possible into what we do know, and then engage in some "fine speculation." Or as Jake calls it, "informed opinion," a term which in this case is rather misleading, as the end result was arrived at by a lot of real data on what we do know from other sectors, as well as in other areas locally. (Personally I'd rather call it "informed reasoning, " as opinions are like, well, you know....) Actually, we know things peripherally about this area, such as how long, or rather briefly it lasted,(about 70 or 80 years) about when it was constructed (roughly 1750's), when it disappeared (late 1830's)and of what material(primarily adobe), configuration (single story, one bay deep)and what the houses were primarily used for (shops, then berthing). Utilizing this data, we can then factor in 2 generations of neglect, and bring these facts to play to fit the most likely scenarios, and arrive at the best conclusion by deductive reasoning. It's a lot like a mathematical equation with an unknown variable, where you try various variables until the right one becomes increasingly apparent.
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Jacales
Jun 26, 2008 21:29:04 GMT -5
Post by Rich Curilla on Jun 26, 2008 21:29:04 GMT -5
Well, all I can say is keep up the good work. Without you and your model (and book), I never would have even begun to speculate about these buildings and would have no doubt continued to visualize them as the 1930's redos at Mission San Jose -- obviously what Alfred Ybarra used in his design for the Waynamo. Thanks for the rebuttal.
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Jacales
Jun 26, 2008 23:03:12 GMT -5
Post by marklemon on Jun 26, 2008 23:03:12 GMT -5
Rich, You're welcome, and thank you for asking thoughtful, penetrating questions. I do not pretend to know everything, not by a long shot, and am still learning myself. I wish I had a dollar for every time I had to wipe the slate clean and go back to the drawing board. Thankfully, that kind of massive revamping is getting more and more rare, but I still sometimes get a nasty surprise. Mark
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Jacales
Jun 27, 2008 19:36:55 GMT -5
Post by Rich Curilla on Jun 27, 2008 19:36:55 GMT -5
Don't we all! I just found out Daniel Boone didn't die at the Alamo!
Actually, this was one of the questions my DRT friend from the sixties, Mrs. R. G. Halter, got from tourists during her fifteen years as THE hostess-historian in the Alamo Church.
She also fielded a drunk who asked for his birth certificate, a woman who wanted to know where General Custer died and a U. S. Military man who said he was a g-g-g-g-grandson of Santa Anna and wanted to see a picture of him. To this, she answered in a sweet seventy-year-old Texas accent, "We wouldn't be likely to have a picture of him around here, but, if you look over there, you'll see a picture of Gen. Sam Houston. He whipped your granddaddy at San Jacinto!"
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Jacales
Jun 27, 2008 21:22:48 GMT -5
Post by billchemerka on Jun 27, 2008 21:22:48 GMT -5
[rlcgtt: I just found out Daniel Boone didn't die at the Alamo!
Actually, this was one of the questions my DRT friend from the sixties, Mrs. R. G. Halter, got from tourists during her fifteen years as THE hostess-historian in the Alamo Church. quote]
Interesting and funny.
In fact, "did Daniel Boone die at the Alamo?" is the fourth most asked question at the Alamo.
[For a complete list of all 20, see The Alamo Almanac & Book of Lists]
Now back to the topic at hand....
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Jacales
Jun 27, 2008 21:29:44 GMT -5
Post by Allen Wiener on Jun 27, 2008 21:29:44 GMT -5
Rich,
I am so glad that you mentioned Mrs. Halter! I may still have (somewhere) letters she wrote to me when I was a kid mesmerized by Fess Parker and just beginning to learn about the Alamo. When I finally got to Bexar in 1961, during USAF boot camp, I got one day off to head for town, and I spent most of it you-know-where. Mrs. Halter wasn't there and may have been retired by then, but I was able to reach her by phone and had a wonderful conversation with her. She was probably relieved that I didn't ask her where Gen. Custer was buried!
Thanks for the memories!!
AW
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Jacales
Jun 28, 2008 12:21:05 GMT -5
Post by elcolorado on Jun 28, 2008 12:21:05 GMT -5
I have to admit some lingering skepticism as well as my own personal points of view. The issue of the jacales, their existence and construction, has been hard for me to adjust to. But facts are what they are and they can't be denied. And Mark makes an almost air-tight case for his findings. In a paragraph I have not noticed before, Jameson states that: " I would recommend that the doby houses, letter H, be torn down and stone houses be erected in their stead" (Hansen - pp 576). This piece of evidence validates, at least for me, the decrepit condition of the structures along the northeast wall. Obviously, these buildings were in such bad shape they garnered Jameson's attention and he wanted to tear them down and replacement them with something stronger. So continue to stand by your findings, Mark. We're coming along. Sometimes slowly. Sometimes kicking and screaming - but we're coming. Glenn
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Jacales
Jun 28, 2008 15:54:05 GMT -5
Post by stuart on Jun 28, 2008 15:54:05 GMT -5
In a paragraph I have not noticed before, Jameson states that: " I would recommend that the doby houses, letter H, be torn down and stone houses be erected in their stead" (Hansen - pp 576). This piece of evidence validates, at least for me, the decrepit condition of the structures along the northeast wall. Obviously, these buildings were in such bad shape they garnered Jameson's attention and he wanted to tear them down and replacement them with something stronger. Glenn Well we still have "dobe" houses rather than jacales and in such poor condition that Jameson wants to have them torn down, which explains why the palisading was necessary, as he describes - just as the north wall was patched up with palisading rather than replaced with new stone or proper earthwork.
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Jacales
Jun 28, 2008 16:35:21 GMT -5
Post by marklemon on Jun 28, 2008 16:35:21 GMT -5
I have pointed out before, that not only in the local area, but in the Alamo compound, the practice of shoring up, usually across the front (but possibly elsewhere), an adobe house with the simpler, faster jacale technique, was a fact, not speculation. This was due to the fact that the higher number or apertures in the wall at the front (usually one door and one, or two windows) made this side weaker structurally and when the roof fell, and one of the walls went with it, it was usually the front wall. So, as I just said, repairing an adobe house with wooden posts, even in the Alamo itself, was a fact, not speculation, and is proven by archeology. And where adobe houses are deteriorated, and then repaired with another technique, such as jacal, as long as the primary structure is adobe, it would most probably still be called adobe. So there is no conflict, at least in my mind, about Jameson calling them by that name. And, as Glenn points out, their condition was bad enough for Jameson to recommend them being torn down. I would not be at all surprised if this section of the mission didn't look even worse than I depicted it. One's sense of logic may rebel at the idea of a wall being so vulnerable, but the simple fact is that the Mexicans were clearly in the process of beginning to address this area, when events overcame them. As for the Texians, well..... In any event, one must remember that this was only ONE of a number of areas that were "open" and undefended by a parapet, or banquette. Why this one area should trouble some folks so much is a growing mystery to me.
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Jacales
Jun 28, 2008 17:59:34 GMT -5
Post by elcolorado on Jun 28, 2008 17:59:34 GMT -5
Well, for me, I would have to say my "trouble" falls into the category of "fear of change." Like most people, I dislike change. It's just not...well...comfortable. If it doesn't feel right, look right, or sound right, I'll turn my nose up at it. As absurd as it may sound, I confess to experiencing some hesitation when it come to embracing new ideas. I know...it's a character flaw. I guess this means I'm set in my ways and I'm getting old. Hey, anybody for a round of "Ensure" at Ernie's? Glenn
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Jacales
Jun 29, 2008 3:47:58 GMT -5
Post by stuart on Jun 29, 2008 3:47:58 GMT -5
In any event, one must remember that this was only ONE of a number of areas that were "open" and undefended by a parapet, or banquette. Why this one area should trouble some folks so much is a growing mystery to me. That's a rather surprising comment given that this was precisely the area which was supposed to be assaulted by Romero.... that's exactly why it troubles me and others.
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Jacales
Jun 29, 2008 13:43:22 GMT -5
Post by marklemon on Jun 29, 2008 13:43:22 GMT -5
In any event, one must remember that this was only ONE of a number of areas that were "open" and undefended by a parapet, or banquette. Why this one area should trouble some folks so much is a growing mystery to me. That's a rather surprising comment given that this was precisely the area which was supposed to be assaulted by Romero.... that's exactly why it troubles me and others. Are you saying the the northern extension is precisely the area Romero was to assault? If so, that's news to me. . .Santa Anna's General Order for the attack does not indicate the point of attack of the columns. We know from others, such as de la Pena, that Romero was to attack "the east front,"but that is all. Filisola, who admittedly was not present, said nothing about precise points of attack, but did call the move to the north "unorganized." We may never know if a precise plan existed for Romero to assault, feint, then oblique to the north, or if it all just happened in the fog of war. But I don't really see how this matters at all. Are you saying that, because Romero was tasked to assault the east side of the mission, that there MUST have been a properly thought out and constructed parapet at the northern extension? Why? Because the Texians should have forseen this area's vulnerability? There were many such areas in the fort that the Texians, for whatever reason, did not address. Why are they any less important then this area? And by the way, remember that the front of the northern extension would have been covered in enfilade by riflemen atop the granary. For all practical purposes, the northern extension of the Long barracks was part of the north wall, not the east, as it was effectively cut off from any realistic effective communication from the eastern courtyards. And don't forget that the flooded acequia acted as a sort of ersatz obstruction, if not barrier, to an assaulting force. So we have to ask ourselves: Knowing that the Mexicans knew the place as well as did the Texians, at least, that is, they knew its condition as of the previous December. So they must have known that that area, when they left it, had no real defenses. They also knew that the Texians could have reinforced it, but barring any data from a spy, they had to guess. To me, this all works out as a wash, with no real indicator in any direction. Do we have any indication that Romero concentrated his attack along the northeastern portion of the mission to the exclusion of the eastern portion initially? I don't think so. All we know is that he assaulted the eastern sector, and then, apparently due to artillery fire from the church, and perhaps the northeastern courtyard, he veered ("unorganized")to the north, taking , in the process, the eastern courtyards, and, we should assume, the northern extension, as the right of his formation wrapped around the north wall. Personally, I'd really like to know what part the flooded acequia had in influencing the troop movements in that area, especially at night. Labastida, who was a better cartographer than an architectural draftsman, showed the acequia to effectively cover the front of the northern extension. This may have forced Romero, attacking from the east, and wishing we presume to avoid this obstruction, to squeeze his men into the corridor in between the NE courtyard corner and the flooded area, follow its inner, or western edge towards the north. This would have brought his men very close to the northeast corner of the northeast courtyard, at which time they may have taken the gun at that place. But all of this notwithstanding, I still don't know why the unfinished nature of the northern extension is so hard to accept. Or maybe I do. Our minds, absent any clarifying data, rebel at the notion. I have said very often before, my study of history in detail has shown that reality sometimes, but not by any means always, follows logic. Things are rarely the way we imagine them, because the human mind craves order. We are forever tidying things up, aligning things, making things neat and tidy so that we can conceptualize them easier. This is natural. But a detailed study of historic photographs of both military and non military subjects shows that things tend in reality to be a good bit shabbier than we want to imagine them to be. Battlegrounds are strewn with trash, but it's not like in the movies, with mainly bodies and small arms lying about. There is always a great deal or unidentified trash lying everywhere, what looks like wadded or bunched rags or towels, bits of paper, all sorts of unknown debris. The same is true with architectural subjects, even supposedly well-maintained ones. Old photographs of Southern mansions invariably show them to be extremely shabby and unkempt-looking. Not like Hollywood at all. The same goes with 19th century views of the White House or Capitol building. Dirty and dingy, with the odd clapboard missing here and there. My point is that we must divorce ourselves from this impulse to have things at the Alamo (or any other old historic site) be ordered, neat and tidy. Just because this place is shown in some Alamo movie as a nice- flat topped adobe house, has no bearing on reality whatsoever. I realize that in the absence of readily available, precisely worded source material, we then fall back to our mind's eye, and imagine neatly built breastworks, wooden parapets, or catwalks, or pristine adobe buildings. But a number of very real factors must have come into play to render this area as it was...run-down, or falling down, and undefended directly. I do not presume to have a crystal ball, and to have depicted with photographic precision, the true nature of this sector. There may have been, here and there, a flat topped adobe house with its roof still intact. But I'd wager that it was, if standing, very unstable. For the most part, the evidence indicates that this portion of the mission was a shambles, unstable adobe houses neglected for over 40 years, shored up by the quick-fix of jacal repairs, and with primarily thatched roofs. Unlike others who have recreated the Alamo in 3-dimensions, I have not depicted this area as I'd "liked" to have done, or as I think it should have looked according to sound military thought. On this model, I strictly went in the direction indicated by the evidence, not only as it existed at the time of the battle, but as it occurred in the overarching spectrum of time.
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Jacales
Jun 29, 2008 14:20:49 GMT -5
Post by stuart on Jun 29, 2008 14:20:49 GMT -5
Mark, the question is a perfectly reasonable one.
You have set out at great length your justification for your reconstruction. Your reasoning is plausible and if we were talking about a different area it probably wouldn't be an issue, but we've already looked at Romero's assault on other threads and it is indeed problematic, not least because of the water obstacle.
On the basis of the available evidence the probability - and I'll cheerfully admit its no more than a probability - it looks as though he attacked the northern end of the east front.
Your model depicts that area as totally indefensible; a handful of grannies armed with brooms could probably have got up to those jacales and bust their way in through the thatch; yet Romero bounced off. Why?
That's why this is so important. Was Romero repulsed because the defences here were in fact stronger than you have depicted - because there was indeed a stockade just like that covering the north wall. Or was he repulsed because he attacked somewhere else entirely with all that implies for our understanding of how the Alamo was defended and how that defence collapsed into the breakouts?
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