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Post by TRK on May 16, 2010 17:19:39 GMT -5
Thanks for posting that detailed review, Kevin!
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Post by ranger2518 on May 16, 2010 19:47:06 GMT -5
Never underestimate the ability of an exhausted soldier to sleep anywhere, anytime and in any position. Not to derail the thread, but I can attest to that. One night near the end of Advanced Cadet Training at Fort Lewis in 1985, I was at the back of my squad when we set out to find our platoon leader preparatory to a patrol. The squad leader stopped us at one point to get his bearings, then took off. After an hour of searching, they found me: standing, M16 at port-arms...and dead asleep despite 155mm simulators going off in the area.
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Post by martyb on May 16, 2010 20:46:53 GMT -5
Kevin, I really enjoyed your review.
Your calm dissection of the flaws is only matched by your cool assertion of legitimate issues to be discussed further, and as ever, your encyclopedic knowledge of your addressed subject. Bravo me lad!
Needless to say, I agreed with your analysis. Of course, I suffer from that old malady "Anyone who agrees with me is a genius."
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Post by Kevin Young on May 16, 2010 21:13:39 GMT -5
Kevin, I really enjoyed your review. Your calm dissection of the flaws is only matched by your cool assertion of legitimate issues to be discussed further, and as ever, your encyclopedic knowledge of your addressed subject. Bravo me lad! Needless to say, I agreed with your analysis. Of course, I suffer from that old malady "Anyone who agrees with me is a genius." Well thanks Marty. You shoud have seen the first draft. Had someone do some copy editing, had some peer review done and then gave it a careful read. Also don't know how encyclopedic my knowledge is-to many brain cells lost over the years.
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Post by Allen Wiener on May 17, 2010 22:17:18 GMT -5
Well done, Kevin. A very thorough and dispassionate assessment of the book.
Allen
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Post by sloanrodgers on May 17, 2010 23:17:55 GMT -5
What Tucker’s book will be good for is use in a Historiography and Methods course as an example on how not to write, research or publish history. Blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda!!! I was gonna write the exact same thing in your loooong post only with a lot fewer words. No, seriously, this was a fantastic disection of this book and I'm glad you posted it on Amazon.com as a warning to the buyers who do not have money to burn on new books. Each chapter is really hard to read with errors, repetition, Anglo- Celt hating, Santa Anna Loving, etc., etc. diatribes that go nowhere and I'm wondering if they will ever end. It's almost like digging through the chalk in my yard. D@mn frustrating, but with no positive result. Oh well, a lesson learned. PS. Where was this vast slave holding, cotton culture located prior to the revolution?? Tucker only seems to talk about small, isolated, low yield areas.
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Post by Kevin Young on May 18, 2010 6:57:21 GMT -5
I really did not try to write a review at first-more trying to read the book, see what he was trying to say and why, and make notes along the way. The problem was that I kept hitting spots where I was saying, "Did he really mean to say that?" So, the notes just kept getting longer. I felt that by the time I had done the second reading, which I had to do simply to try and understand some of the attempts at documentation, the notes turned into an essay and yes, the "yada, yada,yada" review. I felt that some in depth comments needed to be made, because the work is so padded and that he throws in so much stuff that can be debated (an example I did not mention, is your own work on Henry Warnell, who I think you have made a very strong case for not being at the Alamo).
So, sorry for the long post. I did run it by a couple of folks first, including one of the folks in charge of the ASF. I will let it stand.
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Post by sloanrodgers on May 19, 2010 4:47:58 GMT -5
I felt that some in depth comments needed to be made, because the work is so padded and that he throws in so much stuff that can be debated (an example I did not mention, is your own work on Henry Warnell, who I think you have made a very strong case for not being at the Alamo). It was great, do not change a word. Padded is a good description of what I've read so far, but I'm praying it will lighten up a little. You made me curious about Tucker's Henry Warnell observations and forced me to peek at those particular pages. Boy, he certainly had a lot to say about Warnell based on little information on this alleged defender. I've read everthing on Warnell and I have no idea how some people came up with the theory that he was a jockey and horse trader. The John Warnell claim only states that he was a good rider and enjoyed talking about horseflesh as do most horsemen. Tucker goes further and extrapolates that Henry was a con artist, rogue and outlaw. I'm surprised that he didn't denigrate him even more and call him a red-headed Irish mick. Tucker seems to 'ave a wee bit of a problem wit men that he thinks are Irish. ;D
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Post by Herb on May 19, 2010 12:43:50 GMT -5
Sometimes, it's hard to seperate emotion from a subject you're interested in. Kevin, your review, is the thorough, logical, work that was needed to provide a true picture of this "work".
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Post by Kevin Young on May 20, 2010 8:24:47 GMT -5
When you get into that section further, you will note that besides Warnell, he also uses Cannon and Murphy as eviedence of defenders who were in the rout and survived. If you read the Cannon account, as most of us have, you quickly discover the problems with it, and the Murphy account is just as bad (since it is an obit.) While the escapes, retreats, rout, or what ever you want to call it, are not in debate, it makes Turner's argument weak when he throws in these folks as sources to support his thesis.
No one is debating the breakouts...but I would debate that Warnell and Cannon were part of them and that Murphy watched them...
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Post by Jim Boylston on May 20, 2010 10:14:06 GMT -5
Both the Murphy and Cannon "accounts" are laughable, and no historian worth his salt should take them seriously. Jim
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Post by stuart on May 20, 2010 16:05:37 GMT -5
Ah do tell, I don't think I've come across them...
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Post by Jim Boylston on May 20, 2010 16:56:28 GMT -5
Stuart, check your email. Jim
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Post by stuart on May 21, 2010 4:21:23 GMT -5
If the Murphy account, kindly forwarded by Jim, is a fair sample of the evidence used by Mr Tucker then Exodus is even flakier than I’ve been led to believe by the comments so far published.
The obituary is actually straightforward, tolerably factual and useless.
For those, like myself, who have not yet had the pleasure ,Mr Murphy’s obituary in the New York Times for February 23 1895, claimed that as a young man from Philadelphia he went to Texas, signed the declaration of independence, participated in all the battles of the war and had a turn guarding Santa Anna after San Jacinto.
A quick run through the military rolls fails to find a William Murphy (or Murphee) but others may have better luck.
That aside the problem is this passage, used by Mr Tucker to evidence the breakout:
“He was one of the eighty-five Texans who at the Alamo captured the Mexican fort, which was garrisoned with 250 men. This small handful of Texans then for three days successfully repulsed an attack in which 10,000 Mexicans took part, but finally were compelled to abandon the fort. Only eight men escaped alive, Davy Crockett, the scout, blew his brains out with a revolver, preferring death by his own hand to capture by the Mexicans.”
His possessing a revolver probably came as much of a surprise to Davy as it does to us. Perhaps he was just looking at it interestedly and didn’t realise it was loaded...
Anyway to be serious, there’s obviously a fair bit of confusion over numbers here. The suggestion is that William Murphy took part in the capture of Bexar and 85 isn’t so far off the size of the initial attacking force, largely made up of New Orleans Grays. If on the other hand the 85 relates to the Texan garrison of the Alamo there are two alternatives, either Murphy left Bexar sometime in January when the garrison didn’t amount to much, or the compositor had trouble reading the reporter’s notes and rendered 185 as 85 and similarly missed another 1 to render the thirteen days of glory as just three.
As for the eight men escaping alive, you’ll recall those contemporary newspaper stories which ultimately fed into Chester Newell’s book and the infamous Lancer story, variously spoke of between six and eight fighting on till morning and surrendering only to be executed.
The point of all this being that the obituary, whether exaggerated or not, is just a very careless rendering of what was known about the Alamo in New York right from the beginning and that the eight men referred to never got away at all.
Not of course that I doubt for a moment that there was a breakout and that there may well have been survivors, but William Murphy’s obituary is a pretty desperate straw to cite as evidence and the real worry is that as Kevin suggests, by basing what are clearly intended to be provocative claims on a such flimsy and demonstrably false premise, rather than relying on the facts as contained in the Mexican accounts, Mr Tucker is undermining the truth.
We’ve seen in another place, claims that Sesma must have been lying, because the Texians would never have run away. Nonsense of course but when the “other” evidence of a breakout is so easily demolished it makes such denial so much easier.
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Post by Paul Sylvain on May 21, 2010 12:25:17 GMT -5
Kevin -- Great job on the review. It is long, but necessary to make the case you made. Most of us here know what "Exodus" is and isn't. But your point-by-point criticism should be helpful for anyone not that well-versed on the subject of the Alamo, and who is thinking of spending their hard-earned money on a good book on the subject. Your review should soundly dissuade them from hitting the "buy now" button.
Paul
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