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Post by jrboddie on Feb 13, 2009 5:51:04 GMT -5
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homer
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Post by homer on Feb 13, 2009 9:20:41 GMT -5
Im not sure how accurate they are but i have seen a couple of maps showing a branch breaking off the east ditch running thru the cattle pen north east corner. If not correct, it certainly would have been a good idea. I think the missionary s would have done that, horses and cows tend to drink a bit.
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Post by elcolorado on Feb 13, 2009 9:51:32 GMT -5
jrboddie,
I can't vouch for the accuracy of the acequias but they appear pretty darn close. The flooded area behind the church looks about right. I'm sure Mark will chime-in. Nice job!
Glenn
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Post by elcolorado on Feb 13, 2009 10:11:43 GMT -5
For myself, I can't recall seeing a branch going into the convento courtyard...interesting but I don't believe it to be accurate. Remember, when the mission was built the purpose of the courtyard wasn't to house livestock. That portion of the mission was used as an apartment complex of a sort (convento cloister) for the purpose of housing either Indians, monks, or both. It wasn't utilized as a "cattle pen" until well after the mission had become secularized in 1793.
Glenn
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homer
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Post by homer on Feb 13, 2009 11:29:07 GMT -5
i'll try to find the drawings, but it seems like 1 was potter or maverick.s. I don,t doubt it was a cattle pen before secularization, but cos probably had quite few horses needing water and the man power to dig a ditch in a day or two. Seems alot easier than going out every day with buckets to water the critters. Now that i think of it the map was from the 40,s , maybe that was done after the battle.
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Post by Herb on Feb 13, 2009 11:52:56 GMT -5
I think you "probably" should use the word muddy instead of dry. Rereading the sources, the attempt to cut off the water was made on Saturday, February 27th so even if the acequias had totally emptied, they probably wouldn't qualify as dry - but they should have dried out enough that the mud wouldn't have been a significant obstacle in itself. The sources are unclear (surprise) on how successful the attempt to cut off the water was. Filisola says it failed, but Texian sources say the water coming through the original acequia inside the Alamo dried up! We know a lot about the acequia vic the SW corner, this was excavated as part of the Radio Shack Dig that Jake Ivey participated in. But I don't know of any digs that were done on the Acequia Madre running east of the Church. I wonder if Jake's conclusions about it's depth and width are based on other locations along its length then the area we're concerned about? I bring this up because of Mark's speculation that part of it's length in this area may have been actually above ground and controlled by walls, and that it was the deterioration of these walls that caused the ponds. If this speculation is true, I wonder if the destruction of the walls wasn't deliberate. That the Mexican Army tore them down in the fall of 1835, to use the material as part of the fill for the cannon batteries inside the Alamo. Of course the deliberate destruction would serve the double purpose of providing material and creating the ponds as obstacles. The resulting ponds wouldn't be a few inches deep as I've posted elsewhere, but a couple of feet. This means the ditch of the acequia wouldn't be five foot deep but perhaps only three. Speculation, but something else to think about.
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Post by jrboddie on Feb 13, 2009 12:56:08 GMT -5
My impression was that the branch running inside the plaza had not been used for a long time but that originally, it was lined with limestone and ran from the north branch to the south branch to the river.
The western branch (outside the walls) was recently constructed and unlined. During the siege, the water was cut off from the northern branch which would also dry up the western branch. (Muddy--yes, probably.)
AFAIK, the acequia to the east was stone lined and continued to flow.
This is my understanding from reading these forums. I don't have any other source on this.
BTW, I also recall seeing a drawing with a branch of the acequia going through the cattle pen somewhere but can't locate it at the moment.
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homer
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Post by homer on Feb 13, 2009 13:59:10 GMT -5
Found one of the maps, darn if i can copy it, its jamesons, maybe it was just one of his plans
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Post by Herb on Feb 13, 2009 14:03:13 GMT -5
I agree, with all you said. I was simply pointing out that Filisola said the effort to block the water failed, while Texian accounts said they suceeded.
Reading Almonte, according to him the effort was north of the Zambaro Mill, which is significantly north of where the the acequia north of the Alamo splits off from the Acequia Madre.
I think that our understanding of what happened is probably correct, but the sources are contradicting each other.
Now that you all have mentioned it, I too, seem to recall one sketch that show a branch of the acequia flowing into the corral. Makes a lot of sense. But, if that was the case why the skirmishing on the 26th to get water from the Acequia Madre?
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Post by jrboddie on Feb 13, 2009 14:20:02 GMT -5
... Reading Almonte, according to him the effort was north of the Zambaro Mill, which is significantly north of where the the acequia north of the Alamo splits off from the Acequia Madre. ... So that would make the acequia just to the east of the walls (Acequia Madre?) dry also?
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Post by Herb on Feb 13, 2009 15:08:21 GMT -5
... Reading Almonte, according to him the effort was north of the Zambaro Mill, which is significantly north of where the the acequia north of the Alamo splits off from the Acequia Madre. ... So that would make the acequia just to the east of the walls (Acequia Madre?) dry also? Yes, if that effort suceeded.
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Post by marklemon on Feb 13, 2009 17:55:30 GMT -5
I think that we should put very little faith in what Jameson shows in his (second-hand) plats of the Alamo. He was not only showing things as they were, but things as he planned them to be. Some of them were pretty outrageous, such as the half-moon batteries at the north and south of the fort. Her also showed a branch of the acequia running into the compound, but if I'm not mistaken, he labeled this as a planned change, not something which already existed. The acequia to the east most definitely had low-lying land around it, as evidenced by the long-existing ponds, shown from the 1830's (Labastida) to Charles Edward Lee, James Gilchrist Benton, and Seth Eastman, 1840's-1850's). The water which formed the ponds undoubtedly came from the acequia, which, if built according to the acequias at other missions in San Antonio, had stone retaining walls when they ran through such low ares. The height of these walls does not have to be extremely high, maybe a foot or two, depending on just how low the surrounding areas were. Just how or why the walls failed, is not known. They may have just deteriorated, as a result of lack of maintenance after secularization of the mission, or they may have been deliberately damaged. I doubt though that they were demolished for building materials as Jake Ivey has calculated that the existing stone from the Alamo itself, primarily the demolished Convento cloister, would have given them enough stone to work with.
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homer
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Post by homer on Feb 13, 2009 18:15:58 GMT -5
im just looking for the truth mark, how can you cut down jamesons map. which i think is off, but claim labastista? map correct, when it shows the mo twice the size of san antonio
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Post by alamonorth on Feb 13, 2009 18:53:54 GMT -5
We also have to remember that Santa Anna had to be very judicious in his attempts at blocking the acequias. As Felix Almaraz points out in his book, The San Antonio Missions and Their System of Land Tenure, the delivery of water to the missions and people south of San Antonio was often a contentious issue.
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Post by elcolorado on Feb 14, 2009 0:13:38 GMT -5
I looked at the Jameson map and he did sketch a proposed ditch (letter "x" on his map key) that would have entered the Alamo compound via the small east gate and exited out the southwest corner. But nothing that ran through the convento courtyard or the "cattle pen," as far as I could tell.
Glenn
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