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Post by loucapitano on Sept 28, 2011 15:09:51 GMT -5
The Sept. 2011 Issue #162 of The Alamo Journal contains an excellently researched article by Gary Zaboly that reevaluates the construction of the Alamo's North Wall. From the research, I learned that the North Wall was more heavily reinforced by embrasures and timber than I was ever led to believe. The question that puzzled me was a feature on the North Wall that several authors (notably Walter Lord "A Time to Stand, 1978) spoke of called a "postern gate." It apparently saw frequent use with couriers and Texan night raids on Mexican positions. In another account, a young Mexican officer claims while leading his men, he climbed over the wall and opened a door that allowed the rest of his company to enter the fort. The question is, where was this "postern gate?" I don't see it on Zaboly's excellent illustration. Can anyone help me out locating it? Perhaps it was a doorway on the Northwest corner of the West wall. Any ideas?
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Post by Herb on Sept 29, 2011 9:35:29 GMT -5
Lou, I don't think there is or ever will be a definitive answer (there are no plats with northern postern on them). The consensus opinion seems to be that the northern postern was a door in the West Wall of the Northern Castenada House.
The northernmost room had to have been filled with earth/rubble, to support the NW corner artillery battery. Leaving the center and southern rooms as possibilities. Sanchez-Navarro appears to show such a doorway in what was probably the center room.
It's far from conclusive, but it seems the best possibility.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Sept 29, 2011 11:15:27 GMT -5
I just took another look at the various plats in Nelson's book and not one of them shows anything like a doorway on the north wall. Since the compound was really a collection of buildings or small houses, particularly along that end of the west wall, it seems more likely that, once the Mexicans made it over the north wall they either cleared out one or more of the west wall buildings at that end, punched out the windows or doorways that had been secured, allowing more troops to enter that way. That also jibes with the Texians failing to spike at least one cannon in one of those buildings, which the Mexican officer warned Juana Alsbury about, telling her to get out of the way because it was about to be fired.
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