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Post by Herb on Mar 24, 2009 11:17:50 GMT -5
Texas T posted some interesting information on Wade's site.
According to museum documents in Mexico, Santa Anna sent two flags captured at the Alamo, one flag is of course the Greys, and the other flag has been lost and there is no description of it.
The two-star flag was obviously flown over the Alamo in March as was the Grey's and probably Travis' five dollar flag.
Interestingly, to me, as I mentioned above, the 1824 Tricolor was approved by the Council, on November 24, 1835 and had flown over the Alamo at least until January 1836.
On April 9th, 1836 interim President Burnett, after independence had been declared and the tricolor was clearly inappropriate, decreed that the Texas Flag would be identical to the Stars And Stripes except that it would have but a Lone Star in the Blue Field (Jordan, page 48). While this is clearly, a month after the Alamo fell, it's still a possibility that this flag may have already become popular among those who were fighting for independence.
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Post by stuart on Mar 24, 2009 11:50:51 GMT -5
I’d be interested to see exactly what was written about two flags going down to Mexico City, as I recall Santa Anna himself referred only to one.
Nevertheless, there’s no doubt one of them was the Greys flag (a) because it still exists and (b) because it’s the one Santa Anna refers to.
We don’t, however, have the 1836 flag because James Grant took it with him when he went down to the Rio Grande – and Urrea then captured it at San Patricio
On the other hand we do have the tricolour with two stars and plenty of written evidence as to its flying above the Alamo - it may also have been the same one Travis paid 5 bucks for – and if it went to Mexico City, even in pristine condition, it probably didn’t have the same impact as the Greys’ one, being a bit nondescript and easily overlooked
I’d be dubious about the lone star version of Old Glory going south – like the Greys’ flag it would have been pretty good evidence of American involvement and Santa Anna would have made the most of it.
BTW – just an idle thought occurs to me amidst cries for repatriation. Where was the Greys’ flag when the US Army captured Mexico City 10 years later?
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Post by Herb on Mar 24, 2009 11:59:13 GMT -5
BTW – just an idle thought occurs to me amidst cries for repatriation. Where was the Greys’ flag when the US Army captured Mexico City 10 years later? That's something, I've wondered, too!
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Post by stuart on Mar 27, 2009 10:46:16 GMT -5
I'd be interested to know something of the post-battle provenance of the flag. I'm not casting doubt on its authenticity, but rather wondering at what point Americans/Texans first learned that it was still in existence and in Mexican hands.
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Post by Kevin Young on Mar 27, 2009 11:52:58 GMT -5
I have always wondered about that as well. There were apparently a lot of Texas flags that had been taken during the Revolution and the republic that should have been somewhere in Mexico City when the US occupied. They certainly turn up years later. I have seen an 1880-1890 photo of a Mexican military museum where they are all hanging from poles along the top of the walls. The NOG flag is the first one in the photo.
There was also a referece to the NOG flag in an article done in the SW Historical Quarterly concerning the Mexican view of the Texas Revolution in which an 1836 Mexican account mentioned that when Santa Anna's Alamo victory letter was read to the Congress, the members of that body all stepped on the flag as a sign of loyality...
I will try to run down both the photo and the referenced article.
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Post by TRK on Mar 27, 2009 17:48:10 GMT -5
The New Handbook of Texas has an article on revolutionary flags, and states, "Arriaga Ochoa, former director of the National Museum of History in Mexico City, stated in 1965 that Mexico seized several flags besides the Greys flag during the Texas Revolution, but these flags were burned or discarded when the old Museum of Artillery was dismantled in 1917." I know from my own research that the Museo de la Artilleria was located in the Mineria, or Palace of Mines. I don't know if the revolutionary flags, or even the N.O. Greys, flags were in the Mineria before the mid- to late-19th century. I've read various descriptions of the Mineria in the context of the mid-19th century and never noted any comments on Texan flags housed there.
BTW, that Handbook article also states that onetime Texas attorney general John A. Keeling "found" the Greys flag in the National Museum of History at Chapultepec Castle in 1933. Later that year, representatives of the Texas Highway Commission tried to persuade the Mexicans to return the flag to Texas. And on it's gone....
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Post by Kevin Young on Mar 27, 2009 18:50:27 GMT -5
Now I have to find that photo because it was an image of the NOG Flag and several others hanging in the old Museum of Artillery.
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Post by TRK on Mar 28, 2009 8:57:44 GMT -5
There is good documentation for the history of the flags Santa Anna captured from the Spanish under Gen. Barradas at Tampico in 1829. Santa Anna brought the Spanish flags to the City of Mexico, where they were exhibited with much fanfare from the principal balcony of the Palacio Nacional on October 4, 1829. The festivities included artillery salutes, a mass of thanksgiving in the Metropolitan Cathedral, and illuminations throughout the city. Later, the flags were exhibited for a while in the Chamber of Deputies in the Palacio Nacional, and subsequently they were on display for a long time in the Santuario (Sanctuary) de la Virgen de Guadalupe, on the northern outskirts of Mexico. By 1906, they were part of the collections of the Museo Nacional de Artilleria.
It's also a fact that the Spanish flag that flew over the Castle of San Juan de Ulua at Veracruz at the time of its capture in November 1825 was placed on permanent display at the Santuario de la Virgen de Guadalupe the following month. Hidalgo's battle flag was also exhibited there.
I'd look into the sanctuary as the possible repository of the New Orleans Grays flag in the late 1830s-1850s time frame.
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Post by TRK on Mar 29, 2009 8:37:41 GMT -5
I just dug out some notes I made at Special Collections Library, University of Texas at Arlington, 20 years ago, and there is a copy of a print (looks like a lithograph, probably late 19th century) titled "Recuerdo de la Guerra con los Estados Unidos." It is a composite still life, with a monument to los Niños Heroes (military cadets at Chapultepec) as the centerpiece, surrounded at the bottom by a display of captured flags. At the bottom left is distinctly visible the New Orleans Grays banner. (At least six other flags, ostensibly captured from the time of the Texas Revolution through the Mexican War, are also in the display, but they are arranged in staggered fashion, so only parts of them are visible. One appears to be a U.S. flag; another, according to my notes, was that of the Galveston Invincibles, taken at Lipantitlán in 1842; one has a placard "Westward Ho!!" on the field, and on another, you can make out "Fayette".)
I'll see if I can get a couple of pics of the print posted later today.
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Post by Kevin Young on Mar 29, 2009 11:15:43 GMT -5
Robert Maberry has the illustration in his book, Texas Flags but it would be worth it to have it posted here. He goes into some detail on the id of each flag. I have a copy of the print I got from the Institue of Texan Cultures, and I believe it was published in a book in the 1880's. I will have to look it and double check.
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Post by garyzaboly on Mar 29, 2009 14:15:22 GMT -5
I've drawn the New Orleans Greys flag above the Alamo walls, too---quite often in fact---but I am now convinced that only one flag flew over the walls, and that is the one depicted by Sanchez-Navarro, viz., two stars in the central white of a tricolor field (and mentioned by Almonte in his diary). Travis' letter of February 24 confirms this: "our FLAG [my emphasis] still waves proudly from our walls." It was not 19th century military custom to wave more than a single flag from a fort. Doubtless there have been exceptions to this rule, and in field encampments it wasn't uncommon, but in terms of a fortress the Greys flag was a unit color and not a garrison flag. And Santa Anna's point in sending the Greys flag, rather than the tricolor one, to Mexico City is obvious: the tricolor represented the Mexican states of Texas and Coahuila, as well as displaying Mexico's national colors, whereas the Greys flag was 100% "North American," and signified the territorial "piracy," as he would have put it, of those "invaders." What happened to the tricolor remains unknown, but of course bears investigating.
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Post by marklemon on Mar 29, 2009 19:49:19 GMT -5
There are a number (too many!) issues concerning the Alamo in 1836 which tantalize us with scraps of data, many times conflicting each other. This is the case with the Alamo flag, or flags, flying over the place during the siege. This is one of those matters about which it is very difficult to responsibly be convinced about one way or the other. It is certainly debatable whether or not the Greys' flag was flown during the siege. While it is true that the unit was only one group of several making up the garrison, they were on the other hand a highly motivated bunch, and would chaffed at not fighting under their own banner. Doing so would not necessarily separate them from their comrades from other units, and would certainly not refute their allegiance to an over-arching "Flag of the Alamo" supposedly, or presumably, carried into Bexar by Travis (the "5 dollar flag"). I do think that the strong possibility exists that there was more than one flag at the Alamo. The following from Santa Anna: "The bearer takes with him ONE (emphasis mine) of the FLAGS (emphasis mine) of the enemy's Battalions, captured today. The inspection of it will show plainly the true intentions of the treacherous colonists, and their abettors, who came from parts of the United States of the North. " This does not, however, rule out the possibility that the flag was found folded in some trunk in the Alamo, but this scenario just does not seem to match the strong unit-identification and motivation of these men. Also, one thing which must always be remembered is the time factor. A flag which was flown on one day, may have been lowered and replaced by another on the next. The Greys may have hoisted their flag early in the siege, only to have had it ordered down by Travis at some later point. Also, while Sanchez-Navarro certainly shows the two star tricolor flying above the church's SW corner, it may be possible that this was the state of affairs at the beginning, or even (less-likely) the end of the siege. The possibility exists, of course, that the two-star tricolor WAS the Travis flag, and that it was the one flown over the church as the "Flag of the Alamo." In fact, I have chosen to depict this in my book, as , after all, it is the ONLY documented flag to have flown over the church, at that spot, during this time. It's just the most responsible choice an historical artist can make. The only thing that makes me a bit leery of this is the fact that Travis' revolutionary, "firebrand"character would have balked at adopting anything resembling a Mexican color, especially when there were other, more "palatable" (to a pro-US revolutionary, at least) flags available in Texas. Travis and his sort (not meant disparagingly) would have wanted nothing short of independence, and would have wanted nothing whatever to do with anything Mexican in form or design. I tend to agree with Dr Hardin in that the so-called "Star and Stripe" flag would seem to be the most logical choice of someone like Travis, looking as it does much like the US color, and also being a very common "revolutionary" flag in Texas at that time. Of course, this then begs the question that if, as it appeared, Santa Anna wanted to show the involvement, or at least the influence of, the United States in the revolution, he seemingly would have sent along this "US-looking" flag as well. There always is the possibility that the Star and Stripe flag was present and was destroyed in the battle, thus rendering it unable to have been transported to Mexico as a trophy. As the reader can probably tell at this point, this issue is far from settled, and is rife with well-meaning speculation on every side. Perhaps, and hopefully, the truth is yet to be found. MHL
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Post by garyzaboly on Mar 30, 2009 6:07:52 GMT -5
I think the evidence for the two-flag tricolor being the only flag flying over the Alamo is more than compelling: we have Sanchez-Navarro's drawing of the fort as seen from the west. What details did he add?---in his rather horrendous draftsmanship he added the most important ones, from the tall pecan tree, to the acequia, to the places of ingress into the west wall, etc. (which critically relate to his Plano in terms of Cos' points of entry). And above the church, standing very large, very visible, is THAT FLAG. There is no other flag in view. This is not a speculation: it's the only eyewitness drawing of the fort made depticting its condition during the siege. That the flag corresponds precisely and inarguably with Colonel Almonte's journal description of the Texians' flag briefly raised in Military Plaza on February 23 as "a tricolor with two stars, designed to represent Coahuila and Texas," is more than compelling evidence: it is concrete evidence. Obviously there are questions concerning the issues of Texian independence, and would Travis had really flown such a flag? etc.; yet there is the flag, staring back at us from February and March 1836, in both eyewitness art and writing, and it cannot be theorized away. History is often not logical, but if we understand the meaning of this flag it does becomes more logical. Santa Anna had recently crushed a revolt in Coahuila, and in 1834 he had also crushed the Mexican Constitution of 1824, driving out the radical liberals (including acting president Farias), and assuming dictatorial powers. If this flag was the only one Travis had with which to really spit defiance at Santa Anna, it did its job well, reminding him of a time when the Mexican states still enjoyed a certain autonomy, including the right to control their own militias, as well as a host of other freedoms. It also told the Mexican commander that among the garrison were a number of Tejanos who also defied them. Was it the perfect flag for Travis? Obviously not. But if it was the only one available that could express a causal solidarity in terms of the garrison's resistance, it was effective enough. As for the Greys flag, there is no evidence even in the texts that the Mexicans pulled down a second flag, so if we are making assumptions and hunches chances are the few surviving Greys within the fort would have kept their beautiful blue silk colors in a safe place. Other than such speculation, all we really have to work with is the abovementioned evidence from the siege and battle itself....from 1836.
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Post by stuart on Mar 30, 2009 8:47:41 GMT -5
I have to agree with Gary on this one (good to see you here); its clearly a flag, flown from a pole and therefore more than likely bunting. The Greys' flag on the other hand is silk, its intended to be carried in parades, if not into battle, but certainly not for flying atop a building. I have seen silk flags treated thus at re-enactments and if left in a wind for more than and hour or two they will tear themselves apart. There's no doubt of course that it was found in the Alamo, but not flying over it.
As to the other one however, I'm still not convinced by its identification as the flag of Coahuila y Tejas, assuming such a thing existed in the first place. For starters although the Texians were initially divided on the question of independence from Mexico they were certainly united on independence from Coahuila.
My own pet theory, which I've aired before, is that it was an otherwise unrecorded Texas flag, based upon the 1824 flag. The latter as we know was the Mexican flag which may or may not have replaced the eagle with the figures 1824 representing the old constitution (its not entirely clear from descriptions whether the date replaced or was simply added to the eagle).
Travis and his garrison, as we know were not at all in favour of sticking up for the 1824 constitution and hostile to Grant who did go off south under that banner. It would therefore be logical for them to replace the 1824 in the middle of the "official" flag with two stars, representing the white and Mexican races united in an independent republic of Texas.
Evidence? None, but I think that as a hypothesis it works better than Coahuila y Tejas to explain a flag that certainly did exist.
As to those others, I'd be real interested to see them. After all one of Fannin's units was designated the Lafayette Battalion.
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Post by mustanggray on Mar 30, 2009 8:51:41 GMT -5
I wonder if we can really say that just because Sanchez-Navarro drew the twin star flag it was really THE flag flying at the time of the siege? Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't... one thing I think is certain is the NOG's flag was not "flying" above the walls or at least on a proper flagpole since the pictures of it show no grommets or eyelets to secure it with. The NOG's flag is a unit standard and is designed to be attached to a staff and in the picture of it in A Time to Stand there appears to be a sleeve on the hoist for just such an attachment. I know I saw another picture of it somewhere that wasn't as cropped and showed more of the hoist area but I can't remember where.
The star and stripes flag seems to have been around and somewhat the "unofficial" flag of Texas at that time. It seems to me this would have been Travis' choice if he'd had one but that's a big IF.
In the end, all we really know is Sanchez-Navarro illustrated the twin star flag and the NOG's standard was shipped back to Mexico as a trophy. As to whether or not we should get it back... I certainly don't want to give up the Mexican standards taken at San Jacinto and I don't think the Mexican government should give us back the NOG's standard either!
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