Alamo History vs. Myth: Defenders in Buckskin

[davidpenrod]

One of my favorite illustrations of the final assault on the Alamo is on the original dust jacket of Robert Penn Warren's "Remember the Alamo!" Created by the book's great illustrator, William Moyers, it depicts two buckskin-clad Americans in front of the "Army" façade of the church (one swinging a Kentucky rifle, the other with Bowie knife in hand) and a Mexican soldado (his shako-topped noggin about to suffer a crushing blow). Its a classic depiction of how most folks envision the Alamo's defenders: Anglo-Americans in buckskin breaches and jackets.

So I have a few questions:

Did any of the defenders actually wear buckskin?

Did any wear headgear vaguely resembling a coonskin cap?

If not, where did this idea come from? "Davy" Crockett by way of Nimrod Wildfire?

[Allen Wiener]

Good question, David; I've often wondered myself. Those who are more knowledgable that I am about the clothing of the period seem to think that the 2004 movie got closer to reality than other Alamo representations, which typically default to the scene on the cover of Warren's book.

As to Crockett, I think his association with fur caps began with the Nimrod Wildfire character, who was depicted wearing an animal-skin hat. That image seems to have stuck and appears in other Crockett-inspired dramatizations, including Frank Mayo's play and sheet music for "Col. Crockett's March" that appeared around that time. I'm not sure what role the Crockett Almanacs played in this; I recall that some did carry images of Crockett with fur caps, but there are other images of him that bear no resemblance to that.

I'm only making a wild guess here, but I suppose it is possible that later images of Alamo defenders simply expanded on the Crockett image and conceived of all of them as frontier types who wore that kind of clothing all the time. Interestingly, Daniel Boone also became associated with buckskins and coonskin caps too, but apparently never or rarely wore either. Chester Harding's portrait of Boone from life has him holding a soft had with a brim, just as Chapman's full-length of Crockett does.

Incidentally, I think the Robert Penn Warren book was my first Alamo book and I still have it, along with Enid Lamont Meadowcroft's Crockett book, which I got around that time. I must have read each of them 50 times!

[davidpenrod]

Alan, Warren's book was also my first Alamo book, too. I was only 8 when I first read it but its still my favorite, actually.

Many years after first reading "Remember the Alamo," I learned that its author was the same man who had written one of our nation's greatest novels, "All the King's Men." Robert Penn Warren won a Pulitzer Prize for that effort. He received a second Pulitzer, this time for poetry, in '58. He received a third in '79.

Warren published "Remember the Alamo" in '58, the year he won his second Pulitzer. His Alamo was the first of three novels for children. The second was "The Gods of Mount Olympus" in '59. The third was "How Texas Won Her Freedom," also in '59, which is about Sam Houston and the Battle of San Jacinto.

So here we have Robert Penn Warren, possibly America's greatest man of letters, writing children's books about the mythic Gods of the Greeks and the Defenders of the Alamo. I wish I had access to his notes to learn what he was thinking - had he linked the two?

[mjbrathwaite]

Daniel Boone also became associated with buckskins and coonskin caps too, but apparently never or rarely wore either. [/quote]

My mother once told me I shouldn't wear a hat as it would lead to baldness. As "evidence" she said that Daniel Boone was bald under his coonskin cap. Although I followed her advice, my hair is gradually disappearing anyway, and I've since seen an article in the "National Geographic" showing a portrait of Boone as an elderly man with a full head of hair, and stating he didn't wear a coonskin hat.

[Allen Wiener]

Boone died with a full head of hair. My mother kept saying the same thing to me because I wore a cowboy hat all the time, well into my late 20s! She turned out to be right! I was bald as a cue ball by 30, but I really think it had more to do with her genes, since baldness is typically inherited from one's mother. My maternal grandfather and all of my uncles on that side were completely bald at an early age, too. I have no idea if they wore hats or, if they did, what kind. They all thought I was nuts for wearing a cowboy hat all the time.

David - I had exactly the same experience regarding Robert Penn Warren. I had never heard of him before I read "Remember the Alamo," but later learned that he was one of our most celebrated authors. It gave me a lot more cred with adults when I tried to get them interested in the Alamo. After all, if Warren wrote a book on the Alamo, it must be a worthwhile subject! I recall doing a book report in school on "Remember the Alamo" and my English teacher never mentioned the fact that he'd was so famous and had won a couple of Pulitzers by then.

[loucapitano]

I'll never forget the day I opened the cardboard box that contained the Landmark Book Club's latest edition and saw the thrilling and inspiring cover of Robert Penn Warren's "Remember the Alamo." I think it was 1958 and it was the 7th or 8th in the series that up until then had mesmerized me with Alexander the Great, The Monitor and the Merrimac, Custer's Last Stand, The Secret Service, Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, and dozens more. I still have every book, but alas, the action packed paper covers for the Alamo, Custer and many others disintegrated over the years from numerous readings. I credit those books with making me the history buff I am today.
I still come across copies of the series in antique book stores and flea markets and gobble them up for my collection.
My Mother managed to dump my baseball cards and comic books but thank God I caught her before she gave away my Landmark Books. I am staring at my collection on a book shelf in my "Man Cave" as I write this. I will treasure them forever and can't wait for my two grandkids to be old enough to enjoy them as my kids did.

By the way, it seems as long as there is cold weather, people are going to wear fur caps. Since much of the Texas revolutions took place in Winter, why the fuss over what headgear some people wore? Perhaps Crockett just wanted to keep his head warm after being in the saddle for a month. I've got a silent film about the Alamo where every defender is wearing a coonskin cap. It looks ridiculous. Stereotypes can really wreck havoc on historical accuracy.

[Phil Riordan]

Hi Davidpenrod,
On various occasions, David Crockett was described by his contemporaries as having worn a fur hat. One man related how he visited Crockett at his home to find him wearing a hat made of animal fur. This was well before the "Nimrod Wildfire" era.
Crockett's daughter recalled watching him prepare to leave for his trip to Texas in late 1835 wearing a hat made of fox skin with tail. Mrs. Dickinson related how she saw Crockett's lifeless body after the Alamo battle with his "peculiar cap" laying nearby.
Based on what I've read, I'd guess that David Crockett wore a brimmed hat during the warmer months and a fur hat during the colder months. He left for Texas at the onset of winter, so he probably brought along a raccoon or fox skin cap to wear at least part of the time. The night air in the early morning hours of March 6, 1836 was described by Mexican soldiers as being pretty cold, so your guess is as good as mine as to what Crockett was wearing.
What would you be wearing?

[davidpenrod]

Phil (and the rest of the crew): given that raccoons and foxes hibernate during the winter, are their furs warm in the winter? Or is that a stupid question? Given that most animals that provide "winter" fur also hibernate? Probably a dumb question, but maybe I can put it this way: would raccoon fur provide effective heat retention? Was it as thick and warm as other fur as readily available to frontiersman in Crockett's time?

[loucapitano]

As a Scout leader 20+ years ago, I always wore a coonskin cap on all our Winter campouts. (I told the troop I trapped it during a "snipe" hunt!) Anyway, it was warm and dry in the coldest sub-freezing weather and other boys and leaders began wearing them too.
Then again, did the French fur traders wear skins or those colorful stocking caps?
Anyway, if anyone has an answer, my hat's off to you...

[Allen Wiener]

No idea. No doubt people wore fur in cold weather, but hardly year round. All those furs the French were trapping seem to have gone to makers of tall hats, not the kind of fur caps we usually see on images of frontiersmen.

[tman56]

Lou,

There is a lot of both documentary and pictorial evidence that the French militia during the French and Indian War wore knit caps (although the exact style is debated). There are several early 19th century illustrations of voyageurs in knit caps and even top hats. Not much on fur caps, so Allen may have a point - the furs were worth money. There was a popular style of cap that had a sort of wool skullcap with a band of fur around the bottom, called a Canada cap, which was fairly popular. Just the other day I found two or three references from the Upper Great Lakes area that all the Canadians wore head scarves instead of hats or caps, but that was probably just in warmer weather. In any case, there may have been some fur caps worn in the 1700s (and not just by Ben Franklin in Paris), but other types of hats and caps seem to have been more common.

Terry Todish

[sgtstryker53]

Although I am far from an expert on clothing of the period, it seems to me that if I were enlisting my services to be in the field fighting a war, I would not wear my Sunday go to meeting best clothes. I would wear the most durable outfit possible, which may have been buckskins or linsey woolsey or whatever I had. I can see the officers wearing finery, but not the enlisted men and volunteers. I think the 2004 movie had it wrong and Wayne's version was probably closer to the truth, although a little stylized.

[loucapitano]

Allen, Terry and Stryker have added to this discussion and made valuable points.
With fur so valuable, it's likely trappers saved their pelts for trade and sale. Of course, whatever varmints they accumulated might had a good chance of becoming dinner and outerware. With beaver top hats so popular and costly, the market must have been tremendous until man-made hatters put them out of business.
I'm glad someone is of the opinion that Wayne's costuming may have been more accurate in some ways than 2004. That sounds like a hot debate topic.
Anyone care to add to it?
Lou from Long Island

[tman56]

One thing that was good about Wayne's movie was that the characters had multiple sets of clothing, not just one costume. This is mostly notable with Crockett and Bowie (Travis, of course, just had one spare set of clothes, so he said, and we never saw them), and Crockett's Tennesseans. It's a nice touch that they have "buckskins" for the trail, and "fooferaws" for in town. However, there's probably too much buckskin. Gary Zaboly has an illustration in "Texian Iliad" with the note that the "Leatherstocking" character was well known in Texas (based on a quote from the time). The frontiersman has buckskin clothing and a fur cap.

But wool and linen clothing were arguably more common, even in Texas.

One of the minor mysteries of the Alamo, and this could have been one of the considerations for the 2004 movie, is how much clothing, etc., were those who were living in Bexar able to bring with them when they moved into the Alamo. They probably had dressed in their "fooferaws" for the fandango the night before, so were they able to change into, or bring with them, work/trail clothing?

One type of clothing that I think is conspicuously absent (with one noteworthy exception) in the 2004 movie is the classic caped/fringed hunting shirt. These were very common all over the country, and the only one I remember seeing in the movie is the one Houston wears in a couple of scenes.

However, one thing we have to keep in mind is that movie costuming, like all other elements, is primarily designed to enhance the overall effect of the film, and is affected by the "mood" the director wants to achieve. In Wayne's case, the mix of clothing reflects Wayne's desire to present the garrison as a collection of individuals from many different backgrounds coming together for a common goal, so there are frontiersmen, townsfolk, military, Tejanos, etc. In the 2004 movie, Hancock, from all I've read, wanted to create a different look and feel from other Alamo movies, and his "dirty Dickens" approach to the costuming was part of this effort.

In the end, I think both movies have good and bad points about their costuming.

Terry Todish

[Allen Wiener]

Terry, how accurate do you think the Osprey books are in this regard? They have volumes on both the Texas Rev and the Mexican War.