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Post by elcolorado on Feb 25, 2009 9:27:13 GMT -5
Jim,
Just wait, by the time you leave San Antonio you'll be enlightened! And did I mention my subtle coercion techniques involve alcohol at "Earne's" ;D
Glenn
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Post by elcolorado on Feb 25, 2009 10:23:03 GMT -5
George,
I'm glad you're enjoying the debate. Keep in mind that Potter wrote his narrative without the benefit of interviewing Joe or Mrs. Dickinson. But that is understandable since both were unavailable when he was conducting research. And this is what apparently got John Sutherland worked-up. Sutherland complained that Potter's work was based mainly on the testimony of Mexicans who weren't even present during the siege (Juan Bradburn). This compelled Sutherland to write his own narrative based on his experiences and those of other eye-witnesses.
I wonder if Potter was aware of Sutherland's criticism and decided to respond by seeking out sources who were considered eye-witness and revising his earlier work? Anyway, Potter comes across Ruiz's old Texas Almanac story, reads it and decides to accept it without question or properly verifying the claims. An error by Potter, IMO.
Here is a bit more info on Potter: He was taken prisoner at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 by Crockett acquaintance, Ben McCulloch. He was paroled and returned to Washington where he was assigned quartermaster duties in New York. He was promoted to Captain in 1866 and retired from the military in 1882. Potter died in 1890 in New York and was buried in Woodbridge, New Jersey. He may have returned to Texas for a visit at some point because he cites Juan Seguin as a primary source for his revision.
Glenn
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Post by Herb on Feb 25, 2009 12:12:39 GMT -5
It is a huge assumption, that Potter got the Ruiz account solely from the Texas Almanac. While the Potter Account certainly doesn't specify that he got the story directly from Ruiz - it certainly reads that way. To assume otherwise and then state it as fact is a huge error - imo.
And as Jim has repeatedly pointed out the additional letter that Potter wrote clarifying Crockett's death, points out that Potter had far more information on Crockett then came from the Texas Almanac version.
As George, rightfully points out, it comes down to which account Ruiz or Dickinson, you trust. As Dickinson in other accounts claimed to have witnessed Crockett's death, that he was killed inside the Church, that she saw his body between the church and hospital, and that she thought Crockett was killed - her testimony simply conflicts too much for me to accept it as Holy Gospel.
Then when you add in the facts that the palisade was unattacked, and that it was the primary exit point for defenders fleeing the Alamo - it makes even less sense for Crockett to have been there.
The challange to me, seems to be, that most people want to give to Crockett an exaggerated role ie 2d in command after Bowie became sick. And, that therefore Crockett had to be in the opposite location from Travis. Even if this exaggerated opinion were true, locating Crockett at the palisade makes absolutely no sense. If Crockett were the 2d in command why would he have been in the most remote and isolated position in the whole Compound? where he had absolutely no ability to influence the battle?
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Post by Jim Boylston on Feb 25, 2009 12:56:22 GMT -5
See Glenn. See Glenn leap. ;D If Potter corrected his original 1860 account because of the Ruiz testimony, it's unlikely he did so "without question." He obviously considered the Ruiz testimony more reliable than his earlier source, or he wouldn't have made the change.
Jim
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Post by Jim Boylston on Feb 25, 2009 12:58:21 GMT -5
I'll take Ruiz over the heavily edited and mangled Dickinson accounts any day. Jim
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Post by elcolorado on Feb 25, 2009 14:26:37 GMT -5
This just keeps getting better. It's unfortunate Potter didn't reveal his source on that claim. Maybe it was Senora Eulia Rianez whose questionable account was highlighted in the most recent copy of Alamo Journal. She is suspected of borrowing information from none other than Madam Candelaria. Rianez also claimed to have seen Crockett with a chest wound. I never claimed Dickinson was the "Paragon of Accuracy" or that her statements are, as Herb says, "Holy Gospel." She has certainly made her share of errors, no disagreement here. But I do feel the criticism she receives is a little over-the-top. And the statement of Crockett being killed "she believes" had been convincingly pointed out on this forum many times to be a reference to Bonham, not Crockett. That gaff appears to belong to the interviewer and not Dickinson. You gents are certainly welcome to believe whatever or whoever...that's your prerogative. As for me, I'm more inclined to believe individuals who were undisputed eye-witnesses rather than a someone who writes an account that looks to be completely contrived; replete with erroneous statements, gross exaggerations, and whose own presence in San Antonio during the battle is undocumented and unknown. But that's me. Hey, you guys remember when Columbus was told he was wrong? Glenn
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Post by Jim Boylston on Feb 25, 2009 15:43:11 GMT -5
But that's one of the problems with Dickinson...she was there, but probably didn't witness a lot of what's been attributed to her. Did she really see Crockett's body, or was that answer prompted? She didn't see any of the action outside the church, but in one report she claims to have seen Crockett killed. The parts of her testimony that seem to hold up are the ones that had a lasting impact on her...seeing a young man bayonetted and saying goodbye to her husband for the last time. She's consistent on those details, but not much else. A lot of Sutherland's account would also be inadmissible if judged by the same standards you'd like to apply to Potter and/or Ruiz. I'm betting a lot of his Crockett info was added to build reader interest. Jim
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Post by Allen Wiener on Feb 25, 2009 16:14:20 GMT -5
I wonder how much of the Dickinson accounts come from her actual recollections (seeing her husband for the last time, the deaths she witnessed) and how much she was either prompted to say or felt she was expected to say, especially in later years as Alamo legend grew. This argument has been made regarding Mexicans who mentioned Crockett after being captured at San Jacinto, especially the Crockett execution accounts. Since Crockett was the most well-known Alamo defender, it was natural for people to ask about his death. Eventually, Dickinson would have anticipated such questions and may have felt obligated to say something about Crockett.
I have never had the feeling Dickinson did this to get attention (ala Madame Candelaria) or that she ever sought to discuss the Alamo. Given her later checkered history, she may have preferred not to be noticed or questioned too much. When she was, it would have been natural to steer conversation away from herself. Either inventing or embellishing stories about Crockett might have been a way to do that.
Now, how's that for a leap!!
AW
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Post by stuart on Feb 25, 2009 16:43:46 GMT -5
I don't get the impression she invented or embellished anything about Crockett. The striking thing about Dickinson's testimonies is that as Jim and Allen say, she never really talked about what happened at all. Everything we have from her is answers to specific questions put to her by strangers, who interviewed her once and rushed off to write up what they thought she said or ought to have said.
The only way to really get to the bottom of what happened is to talk to someome over a long period of time, teasing out information and getting them to make sense of it themselves, clarify what they mean and fill in the gaps. In short no-one ever debriefed her properly which is why none of the surviving testimony is complete and why there are so many inconsistencies and contradictions. None of her testimony is reliable, not because she was untruthful or overly imaginative, but because no-one ever took the trouble to listen to her properly
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Post by stuart on Feb 25, 2009 16:48:05 GMT -5
And Crockett...? She was asked questions about him by people who knew what they wanted to hear but not how to ask. I don't think her interviewer misunderstood her at all when she said she thought the Colonel (Bonham) was killed. I believe the interviewer asked her what happened to the Colonel (Crockett) and she thought that he was talking about Colonel Bonham
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Post by marklemon on Feb 25, 2009 19:12:51 GMT -5
I don't have a dog in this hunt, and must admit that I don't really care where Crockett died, any more than I do any other member of the garrison. I'd love to know where EACH of them perished...So that being said, I do have an opinion about "eyewitnesses." They are well known in law enforcement to be the WORST source of reliable data, especially when they are non-combatants, unused to the violence of battle, who try later to recount traumatic events (and I can't think of anything more traumatic than being an unarmed civilian sequestered in a dark room while a battle was raging just outside, and getting closer by the minute)....add to this the knowledge that your spouse is out there getting killed, your baby has just been orphaned, the terror of seeing Warner being killed in front of you, and the Fuqua kid holding his jaw on while trying to give you his dying declaration, and what you have is a terror-stricken non-combatant basket case in a state of shock. Now, can we really expect that she, as she was being led out of the church (and being shot in the leg in the process, no doubt adding to her condition), had the clarity of mind to make clinical observations on specific body locations? In my opinion, what she saw was just a series of hazy random glimpses. And only when she was being asked about it later, did she try to put the pieces together. This is about the worst way to get at the truth. As a result, IMO, the Dickinson testimony must be evaluated in light of her rattled condition. In the final analysis, Dickinson may have seen Crockett just exactly where she said she did, but if so, it would be a miracle of observation. Mark
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Post by Herb on Feb 26, 2009 11:32:59 GMT -5
[quote author=elcolorado board=alamohistory thread=41 post=6894 time=1235589997[
And the statement of Crockett being killed "she believes" had been convincingly pointed out on this forum many times to be a reference to Bonham, not Crockett. That gaff appears to belong to the interviewer and not Dickinson. [/quote]
Glenn,
I don't think that theory was ever "conviningly" proved. It did provide a reasonable explanation for Dickinson's statement about Crockett coming in at night with two other men. But, personally I believe that theory has been shot down for two primary reasons.
First, as mentioned elsewhere on the forum - Crockett lived in the same house as the Dickinsons from when he arrived in Bexar until February 23rd. In other word she would have been extremely familiar with Crockett and very unlikely to confuse him with somebody else (another point against her multitude of accounts for Crockett's death).
The second point is that since that theory was developed, we have found several other accounts to include one dated March 6th, 1836, that mention the same incident. The March 6th document, the San Luis Potosi Journal also identifies Crockett by name.
While some may want to believe that she confused Crockett with Bonham - in light of what we have subsequently found - I personally do not believe thatit is any longer a reasonable theory.
The account where she says Crockett was killed she believes also happens to be one of her few official statements and one which includes little if any embellishments by the author.
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Post by stuart on Feb 27, 2009 6:22:02 GMT -5
I’m still not entirely convinced on whether Crockett went out or not and still think there’s a very lively possibility that Dickinson, or rather Dickinson’s interviewer may have confused him with Bonham.
Nevertheless, I do have an open mind on this and no longer regard the apparent conflict between statements that he (Crockett) was killed “she thinks” and remembering seeing his body and his “peculiar cap” are necessarily exclusive. As we’ve just been discussing she was, through absolutely no fault of her own, a thoroughly unreliable witness.
Now, that being said, we come here to the real point of this argument. In a real sense an obsession with establishing just how and where Davy Crockett died is both irrational and pointless in so far as we do know that he died, along with upwards of 200 other defenders in or immediately outside the Alamo early on the morning of March 6. Why therefore should we be so concerned about his fate over that of any of those others?
Legendary status aside, I think that there is in fact some justification for pursuing this particular hare. The precise fate of Travis is important because we know that as a result of his being killed in the opening exchange of shots, the command structure was almost literally decapitated at the outset of the battle.
Consequently a hardy perennial has been discussion of who, if anyone, succeeded him, with Baugh frequently coming up as a prime candidate and just a frequently being knocked down again on the grounds that as adjutant he wasn’t a line officer. A more likely candidate therefore might be William Blazeby, the senior infantry officer and at one stage a politically active one who convened the meeting to try and prevent Grant going south with his Federal Volunteer Army. Thereafter, however, Blazeby pretty well disappears off the radar. He may have been in a position to “take over”, but he really doesn’t stand out to any degree at all. Ask anyone to name as many Alamo defenders as they can and I’m pretty sure he’ll come well down the list.
Other candidates, on the grounds that it was no time to stand on ceremony or precedence could include Jameson and even, as an outside chance, Bowie; who as I’ve argued before would actually have been on his way to recovery if Typhoid-Pneumonia was following its usual course.
I think, however, that the sense of this forum is that we are moving towards the idea that notwithstanding his public protestations of being no more than a high private, Crockett was Travis’ defacto 2IC. Other than the substantial clues already discussed, there are good grounds for believing this to be the case. While he liked to play up the common man image, Crockett was very much one for thrusting himself into business. So far as the garrison was concerned he was also pretty well free of factional baggage and didn’t already have existing duties.
It is of course a theme that can be developed further, but if it was indeed the case it then prompts two further observations:
If Crockett was Travis’ second in command it would explain much more convincingly why he went out in search of the missing portion of the Gonzales reinforcement (those 28 men reported by Houston); not because his supposed scouting skills outweighed his rheumatism and his unfamiliarity with the ground, but because it came with the job.
Secondly, the preponderance of the evidence that he died resisting the Mexicans coming in over the north and north-west walls, rather than in front of the iconic church is consistent with his running up there to take command after Travis went down
In that sense therefore and in that sense alone the question of where and when Crockett died is important, simply because the circumstances help us to better understand how the battle was fought and lost.
I obviously don’t know whether Crockett was second in command or not, but it is possible to build a model on that hypothesis which answers a lot of questions
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Post by Allen Wiener on Feb 27, 2009 9:04:33 GMT -5
A couple of thoughts. Would there not have been established institutionalized hierarchies among the Texan forces that went back to the siege and battle of Bexar? Fame and celebrity aside, Crockett was a newcomer on the scene and promoting him ahead of longer-serving Texans might have ruffled some feathers, and could have damaged Crockett's popularity among the men, which was based partly on his national celebrity status and partly on his likability. On the stump, he always sold himself as a plain man of the people and he doubtless did the same among the Texans.
In his last letter Crockett tells his family that he has enlisted as a volunteer, but expresses certainty that he will be elected a delegate to the Convention ("But all volunteers is intitled to a vote for a member to the convention or to be voted for and I have but little doubt of being elected a member to form a Constitution for this province"). That did not happen either due to Crockett misunderstanding when or where those elections were to take place (he missed the election of delegates in Bexar because they preceeded his arrival there), because he had second thoughts about it, or determined he would not have so easy a time winning such an election after all. His standing for such an office might also have been seen by some as presumptuous, given his status as a recent arrival. Again, celebrity aside, he was a visitor who owned no land or held any residence in Texas and had played no role in the revolution up to that point. Also, Crockett's optimism about being elected was an example of his often overly optimistic view of things. He repeatedly wrote home from Congress that he had "no doubt" or "little doubt" that his land bill would be passed with ease. It never was and a realistic reading of the situation in Congress at the time would lead most people to see that bill as problematic.
This does not necessarily mean that Travis might not have looked to Crockett as a valuable asset and a leader who the men would have admired and followed. Crockett seems to have inspired that kind of confidence in people as early as the Creek War when his men elected him sergeant. However, bear in mind that the man was nearly 50, hadn't been under arms for more than 20 years, and had spent the preceding 15 years in and out of political office, not adventuring on the frontier. He wrote that he was enjoying excellent health in Texas; he still enjoyed the outdoor life and remained an avid and capable hunter. How much any of this plays into a military leadership role at the Alamo I will leave to the military experts, but it seems that these factors ought to be taken into account.
AW
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Post by bobdurham on Feb 27, 2009 10:05:07 GMT -5
Due to Crockett's previous experience in the Tennessee and U. S. legislatures, it probably seemed, to him, to make him an obvious choice to help write the Texas Constitution. I don't really see that as being overly optimistic. Even his assertions, while a member of the House, that he expected his land bill to be passed do not seem, to me, to express over-optimism. Listen to any present-day politician and you will hear the same certitude on any project he/she is personally committed to -- that's just being a politician.
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