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Post by stuart on Jun 9, 2007 14:13:57 GMT -5
That was helpful, although as I said I didn't reckon and height difference in the two to be significant to the story.
Both were "high" insofar as they were elevated above ground level and that gun which Juana tripped over.
What is important is their layout: Teran, aka where Travis got his was presumably open on three sides with just the north wall parapet in front of it. I forget how many guns were there but as they were ranged side by side we have essentially a longish open shelf - as viewed from the inside.
The Fortin de Condelle on the other hand will have been pretty well enclosed by the walls of the former house or room which was partially infilled to provide the base for the gun platform.
The two would therefore have appeared to be quite different in character when Ruiz was floating about, hence his use of the term battery to describe Travis' resting place and fort to describe Crockett's
That, so far as I'm concerned, isn't an issue. The question is which fort?
And here the combination of Ruiz' original statement that Crockett was found to the west of Travis, and his later one as reported and interpreted by Potter that he was on a high platform, where he was (probably) posted as a sharpshoot, point to the Fortin de Condelle rather than Juana's place.
I know I've said this already but I just want to restate it clearly.
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Post by marklemon on Jun 9, 2007 14:19:29 GMT -5
Care to weigh in on your interpretation of Ruiz, Mark? Jim Jim, This may sound a bit strange, but you'll understand more when you read my book in Feb. I am very aware of all of these issues and controversies, and occasionally have formed preliminary opinions on some of them. The trouble with me is that my mind works very simplistically (perhaps too much so). I don't feel myself qualified to seriously discuss these things such as who went where, or who did what, until I study enough about the physical space of the action involved. The stage upon which the players act. Then and only then, when everything about the emvironment is known to me, can I try to form an hypothesis. In other words, would the reality of the space they inhabited PERMITTED them to do what is speculated? This is why I am obsessed with door and window placement, or wall construction...it really AFFECTS what could have happened...was there access to this or that point...could this or that place be actually seen from this or that position, especially in the dark? This is the method to my very real madness..that before I can expect to come close to knowing what happened,there, I first need to REALLY know all that can be known about the "there." On a similar note, I should mention here that (again, according to all available data) two of the Fortin de Teran guns at Travis' supposed position were 9-pounders. These guns can still be located at the "rear" entrance to La Villita. If one can overlook the garish gold-painted muzzles, an interesting fact can be noted. Each gun has been spiked. Big heavy spikes of apparently early manufacture..Now of course, I realize this could have been done at any time, but the Mexicans would not have had the need to do this, if the trunnions and cascabels had been bashed, as they were. And why would anyone else after the gun had been already ruined, found the need to spike these pieces? This leads one to speculate that this was done at the time of battle, when there would have been a very real need to spike the guns..... Now, with this in mind, a somewhat different picture of the action at the north wall emerges... I'll let you guys hash this one out.. Mark
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Post by Jim Boylston on Jun 9, 2007 15:00:31 GMT -5
Mark, your question is intriguing, and I suspect will spark debate. I don't want to move off topic, but have you any idea how many men may have been quartered along the west wall? I think this is pertinent to the flow of battle. Again, as you say, it's about understanding the space. Jim
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jun 9, 2007 16:39:30 GMT -5
d**n! I went over to La Villita several times last December and again in March, but never saw the guns! All I saw were a lot of craft shops. Also, the Juarez Plaza is over there. Oh well; next time.
AW
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jun 9, 2007 17:16:38 GMT -5
I know I'm probably off here, but I'm looking at the two-page illustration of the Alamo at the time of the battle in George Nelson's book. There is a canon located around the center of the west wall right behind a semi-circular earthworks/redoubt that is outside the wall. Could this be the position Ruiz was talking about? I realize that this is really south, not west, of Travis's location, but I just wondered. I don't have it in front of me, but in his article "How Davy Probably Did Not Die," I recall Davis mentioning something about that being one of a few possible locations where Crockett could have died.
AW
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Post by stuart on Jun 9, 2007 17:33:48 GMT -5
I believe it is conspicuously absent from the archaeological record
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jun 9, 2007 23:48:44 GMT -5
I'm looking at the Jose Juan Sanchez Navarro map/plat (p. 71 in "Alamo Images"), which does show two such redoubts outside the west wall, the other one being at the southwest corner. The one located where Nelson shows it also has the canon.The caption notes that it was made after San Jancinto and "differes greatly from later Texan plats in both shape and arrangement of buildings as well as in completed outworks."
On the facing page is version of Green B. Jameson's plat, "several generations removed from [his] originals, which have not been located." There's no redoubt. but there does appear to be a gun platform about halfway down the west wall. But some of Jameson's plats included things he planned or recommended being done, but which may never have been constructed.
Finally, on the next page (72) is the Labastida map, which does seem to show west wall canon emplacements, but no outside fortifications. The map was prepared for Santa Anna's use during the siege and may have been based both on observation and knowledge the Mexicans already had about the interior. The caption says that this one "shows clearly the hand of an experienced cartographer...."
AW
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Post by stuart on Jun 10, 2007 2:47:05 GMT -5
Mark will be able to explain more fully next time he's around, but as I recall on another thread in a galaxy far far away, I suggested that the semi-circular feature might have been an obstacle to protect the gunnade position now described in "Where's Juana" - on account of it being at ground level rather than up a height.
This seemed a pretty sensible reading of it to me, until Mark weighed in with evidence that it didn't actually exist...
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jun 10, 2007 8:22:11 GMT -5
I wish I knew more about these plats, but I do vaguely recall the discussion you refer to. It does seem that some of the features in these plats were plans for possible improvements or just plain inaccuracies. They clearly do not all agree. Would there be any sensible military advantage to putting those earthworks outside the walls? Other than as obstacles or to shield gun emplacements from snipers, would you really want to put some of your very few troops outside in these things?
I've also often wondered where the Alamo piquets were posted (we typically read that they were quietly elminiated by the Mexicans and/or fell asleep at their posts).
Like everyone else, I found Mark's "Where's Juana" article very enlightening and also tantalizing; can't wait to see the book and I'm hoping we all get a chance to see that model.
AW
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Post by Herb on Jun 10, 2007 13:15:05 GMT -5
Well, I finally received my AJ, and Mark, it was an excellent article. There were things I couldn't really grasp in the Alsbury account previously, that I think you nailed. It sure blows my speculation that they were staying in a room of the Trevino House, totally out of the water! ;D
I was waiting to read the article, before commenting on the current debate on Ruiz. I'm glad I did. Mark's interpretation to me reinforces the belief that the small fort (English words we don't know what originally was said) was the remains of this northernmost room. There are two key elements, both found in Potter, that lead me to this conclusion. First, is the point that you have already debated, the statement about the center of the West Wall.
The second is Potter's statement that the defenders turned this cannon onto the Mexicans coming over the North Wall. I just don't see at the point in time that Mexicans were pouring over the North Wall, that any surviving defenders at the NW corner, at that moment in time, would take the time to turn a cannon onto the wall. If there were any survivors, they were probably too closely engaged at this point in time.
Mark's reasoning that this cannon was being prepared to fire on the Long Barracks seems pretty logical to me, from Alsbury's account. It certainly argues the possibility that the defenders had earlier turned the gun on the North Wall.
There are two other points, I'd like to make, one we're arguing semantics (nothing wrong with that ;D) about the Ruiz Account, an account that doesn't exist in it's original format. The second point was made by Jack Edmondson, all three accounts, Ruiz, Potter, and the Magazine Account are probably based on Ruiz, while internally collaborative, they don't add up to multiple collaborations that Crockett's body was located "toward the west of Travis". Still Ruiz did get, Travis and Bowie right, so I tend to give it considerable weight.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Jun 10, 2007 15:05:23 GMT -5
Just one other point about the Ruiz account; it does conform to what Joe said. I agree about the canon being turned by the Texans themselves, if, as Juana said, a Mexican officer told her they were about to fire it. At that point I'm guess the Mexicans could not have been in the fort all that long and may not have had time to turn it themselves, but that's just speculation.
It's interesting that this gun was not spiked, but, according to Mark, those on the north battery (where Travis died) were.
Does anyone know why those guns ended up in La Villita instead of at the Alamo?
AW
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Post by marklemon on Jun 11, 2007 2:21:47 GMT -5
Just one other point about the Ruiz account; it does conform to what Joe said. I agree about the canon being turned by the Texans themselves, if, as Juana said, a Mexican officer told her they were about to fire it. At that point I'm guess the Mexicans could not have been in the fort all that long and may not have had time to turn it themselves, but that's just speculation. It's interesting that this gun was not spiked, but, according to Mark, those on the north battery (where Travis died) were. Does anyone know why those guns ended up in La Villita instead of at the Alamo? AW I was told that it had something to do with the Maverick family (the guns were found buried on the Maverick property up near the northwest corner, probably in the acequia) and their connection to La Villita. I believe one of the Mavericks was mayor of San Antonio at one time, and he had the guns placed there for some reason. I have no earthly idea why someone in power does not move these guns back where they really belong. These guns may be two of the more interesting piecess that defended the Alamo, as I believe they may have been the only ones that were seemingly spiked by the defenders. And the current research places them at the north wall (Fortin De Teran). Mark
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Post by stuart on Jun 11, 2007 2:40:31 GMT -5
Unlike Allen I did get a look at those guns when I was over - but lost the photos when the card crashed.
I was intrigued to recognise them instantly as "long nines" (naval guns - 9lbrs), but what's the evidence placing them on the Fortin de Teran?
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Post by marklemon on Jun 11, 2007 4:57:05 GMT -5
Unlike Allen I did get a look at those guns when I was over - but lost the photos when the card crashed. I was intrigued to recognise them instantly as "long nines" (naval guns - 9lbrs), but what's the evidence placing them on the Fortin de Teran? Stuart, I have been speaking extensively to Rick Range (who's doing his own book due out probably next year) about the Alamo's specific layout, but also about the gun placement. Unfortunately I cannot locae my notes on his gun-layout data. I'll get in touch with him and get back to you on this. But he did make a strong case for being able to locate most of the guns pretty specifically as I recall. Mark
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Post by stuart on Jun 11, 2007 6:04:31 GMT -5
Look forward to it. I'm not disputing the identification - just interested
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