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Post by sloanrodgers on Mar 27, 2012 22:02:14 GMT -5
SKR Your'e the Ranger expert..I'm in the learning mode and passionate on the subject and new to the forum. So If I repeat old subjects..just guide me in the right direct. I don't mind doing the homework. John Glanton...Wow what a history! See ya in the Ranger section. High praise, but I don't claim to be an expert on any ranger, but one. I am very knowledeable on Jack Hays' company, its storied members and miscellaneous rangers from other eras. Glanton was a killer and a mad dog when cornered, but he should defanged at little. ;D
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Post by jamesg on Mar 27, 2012 23:26:35 GMT -5
Devil Jack.... I also admire the brillant Fearless Combat Commander
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Post by sloanrodgers on Mar 28, 2012 16:31:35 GMT -5
Devil Jack.... I also admire the brillant Fearless Combat Commander The Devil Jack name was a testement to Hays' bravery, bestowed by Chief Flaco and the Lipan Apache. It was not an insult used by the Mexicans and Commanches as some have surmised. I've never heard Hays' enemies refer to him as Devil Jack in contemporary sources.
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Post by dukecrockett on Apr 28, 2015 6:55:56 GMT -5
I see this debate has been going on a while, but I'll offer my opinion anyway.
I think the 2nd reinforcement may well have actually occurred. Although, perhaps not the way TRL indicates.
I can see where people would have trouble with Crockett "leading" this expedition. However, him volunteering to go as one of a few men is not so farfetched. Remember he told Susanna Dickinson how much he hated being "hemmed in" and would much rather "march out and die in the open". This was his chance to stretch his legs, as billy Bob put it. So, maybe Crockett was there, maybe he wasn't. Doesn't really matter, and doesn't mean somebody else didn't lead in 60 more men.
The biggest reason I tend to buy into a secon reinforcement on or about March 5, is that it would go a long way towards explaining Santa Anna's decision to attack. Most people seem to settle for the fact that Santa Anna was simply pompous and wanted his victories to come soaked in blood. And while he was certainly pompous and sometimes foolish, in this instance I think he may well have been forced to act. Thirty two men had already snuck into the Alamo. The arrival of sixty more would certainly make Santa Anna uneasy. Perhaps Houston was just out over the low hills with a few hundred more men. Enough to make the assault quite bloody, indeed.
Thus, His Excellency decides not to wait on his artillery and attack immediately before enough reinforcements arrive to hold the fort for months. Time was running out.
Anyway, that's my speculation. I think a second reinforcement is believable. The specific facts might not add up, but the actual event does. In my mind at any rate.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Apr 28, 2015 11:28:52 GMT -5
I see the possibility of more men than 32, but not based on Lindley's thin conjecture or Crockett leading them in (or fact, as he seemed to regard it). He based it all on Crockett's X on some document that was sent from the Cibolo (or something like that). Crockett always signed his name in full, and IMO even being ill wouldn't have changed that (as Tom suggested).
My reason for accepting the possibility of more men (not sixty more) comes from the fact that R.M. Williamson's letter to Travis (written on March 1st. and sent with Bonham) said, "Sixty men have already been sent..." Thus I could agree with 32 of them getting in and the rest either getting in later of not getting in -- but then what happened to them? So my fudge factor would be 28 more.
My other feeling (and that's all it is) is that the primary Anglo letters of the moment and all the Anglo reports and conjectures shortly after make no mention of a larger Gonzales relief force or of a second group going out. Thus, who were they, why don't we have a list or even mention of them anywhere except the Williamson letter. All comments from the convention, from Joe, from Susanna, fail to say more than 183, 185 or 200. Doesn't seem plausible that 28 men -- or 60 men -- could just disappear from immediate acknowledgement.
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Post by dukecrockett on Apr 28, 2015 12:44:33 GMT -5
I'd have to go back and re-read "Traces", as its been a while, and it's the only book I know which addresses a second reinforcement in detail, but weren't there hundreds of men gathered in Gonzalez waiting on Houston's arrival? Couldn't any of them have marched off for San Antonio? It seems like throughout the war people were coming and going without ceremony. Think back on the Siege of Bejar where men seemed to come and go at will. It was, after all, a fairly unorganized army. I could see fifty or so men leaving to reinforce the Alamo and it not being mentioned, or the letters which detailed their departure being lost. I mean, I am spit balling here, but it just does not seem that farfetched to me. Like most things Alamo, I guess we'll never really know...
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Post by Jim Boylston on Apr 28, 2015 16:49:16 GMT -5
I'd have to go back and re-read "Traces", as its been a while, and it's the only book I know which addresses a second reinforcement in detail, but weren't there hundreds of men gathered in Gonzalez waiting on Houston's arrival? Couldn't any of them have marched off for San Antonio? It seems like throughout the war people were coming and going without ceremony. Think back on the Siege of Bejar where men seemed to come and go at will. It was, after all, a fairly unorganized army. I could see fifty or so men leaving to reinforce the Alamo and it not being mentioned, or the letters which detailed their departure being lost. I mean, I am spit balling here, but it just does not seem that farfetched to me. Like most things Alamo, I guess we'll never really know... The idea itself isn't as farfetched as the Crockett connection which is, IMHO, pure fantasy. A lot of post mortem Alamo story tellers attempt to wedge Crockett into any theory they conjure, and I don't think this tale is any different. TRL's thesis lacked any real tangible evidence. The document that DC allegedly signed with an X is not extant and the only mention of it is from an affadavit signed by a third-person party who stood to gain something if the document was legally recognized. As to the comment attributed to Crockett about feeling hemmed in and dying out in the open, in a different interview Mrs. D attributed the remark to another defender. Her memories were often unreliable; unsurprising considering what she'd been through. Personally, I think if one tracks the second reinforcement story chronologically, the simple answer is that 60 some odd volunteers went to reinforce the Alamo but about half of them, for one reason or another, elected to bow out along the way. As for why Santa Anna decided to attack when he did, I think Herb True ran the dates and determined that the attack coincided with SA receiving intelligence about his forces that were still in the field (Urrea, etc.). I'm mentioning all this from memory, though, and am not home to check my library to post citations, so caveat emptor! Welcome to the forum, Duke! Jim
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Post by Rich Curilla on Apr 29, 2015 9:52:48 GMT -5
Personally, I think if one tracks the second reinforcement story chronologically, the simple answer is that 60 some odd volunteers went to reinforce the Alamo but about half of them, for one reason or another, elected to bow out along the way. Exactly what I believe. Perhaps some of these men were part of the carefree lot who were in Texas but under no formal military or militia and thus basically unidentified. The "Immortal 32" all had families in Gonzales and were essentially defending their homes, thus were listed, mourned and remembered. The rest of Williamson's 60 just wondered in -- and wondered out. They may also have been ordered (or chose) to stay at the Cibolo Crossing and link up with Fannin before coming in. Obviously, Williamson didn't know, when he wrote the letter to Travis on March 1, that Fannin had turned back, therefore these men probably didn't either. If they found out while still encamped at the crossing -- after the 32 had already left for the Alamo -- then it would have been obviously futile to "throw themselves into Bears" and they chose not to. All conjecture.
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Post by Herb on Apr 29, 2015 18:57:36 GMT -5
There are a lot of rabbit trails to follow in trying to track the various attempts to reinforce the Alamo. In my digging I came across 4 main attempts. 1. Fannin 2. The Gonzales 60 (yes 60) 3. John W. Smith's second attempt and 4. LTC Neill's attempt. We all know what happened with Fannin. The Gonzales 60 however is still somewhat obscure. Both Williamson's letter and Albert Martin's obituary mention that the force consisted of 60 men. CPT Martin was their leader and the force apparently consisted of two companies the Gonzales Rangers under LT Kimball, and the men from Martin's old company (from the siege of Bexar) that had returned home, under LT Jackson. Enroute to the Alamo this force split in two, but in typical Texan fashion not along company lines. One force of 32 men led by Martin and JW Smith entered the Alamo. The other force moved to the southern Cibolo Crossing to link up with Juan Seguin and the men he was raising and to link up with the approaching (they thought) command of Fannin. This second group fell back on Gonzalez when they learned Fannin was not coming. Upon returning to Gonzales again as a messenger from the Alamo, JW Smith organized another force consisting of many of the men who had been part of the original "60". This force was probably the advance guard for the larger body organized by LTC Neil, the actual Alamo commander. This advance guard reached the Cibolo Crossing again where they bivovac'd while JW Smith scouted ahead. Smith determined that the Alamo had fallen and this group also returned to Gonzales. Somewhere along the way they encountered Mrs Dickinson and joined her escort.
The great problem with Tom Lindley's research in Traces is he totally dissmissed Sutherland's accounts. Research by others has shown that Tom's claims about Sutherland were wrong.
Santa Anna's decision to attack the Alamo on March 6th were very unlikely influenced by any Texan attempt to reinforce the Alamo (other than Fannin). Instead it was based primarily on the arrival of the Mexican infantry battalions on March 3rd giving him the manpower needed to mount an assault. AND, learning that General Urrea had destroyed the forces of Grant and Johnson at Aqua Dulce and San Patrico. Urrea could now at a minimum pin Fannin down and there were no longer major threats to Santa Anna to his south.
BTW, welcome aboard!
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Post by Rich Curilla on Apr 29, 2015 21:55:54 GMT -5
Excellent!!!! I knew it was something like this. LOL. I am impressed by the clarity of your presentation. Thanks, Herb.
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Post by Herb on Apr 29, 2015 22:40:57 GMT -5
I'm away from my sources so I apologize for not citing anything. Collinsworth(?)of Fannin's command was involved in some of this, iirc after going to the Seguin Rancho to gather supplies for Fannin he also linked up with Seguin and went to Gonzales with him.
Imo, Tom Lindley did a pretty good job identifying a lot of the moving parts, but not necessarily their ultimate destination. Like a lot of his Alamo research Tom unearthed facts for others to build on.
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Post by Rich Curilla on Apr 30, 2015 9:30:38 GMT -5
An unmatched researcher, he was.
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Post by Jim Boylston on May 1, 2015 22:08:54 GMT -5
I agree. Tom was great at digging stuff out, but his conclusions were sometimes forced. He and I disagreed on some points, but I learned a lot from him and it was always a pleasure debating with him. Herb and I could talk with him for hours (and did!).
It's funny, Tom told me early on not to believe anything I read unless I'd seen the source material myself. He warned me about taking any historian at his word, and that included his own. He was a big proponent of looking up every footnoted source and checking it out for one's self. This turned out to be great advice.
When Allen and I researched the Crockett book, on multiple occasions we found sources cited in author's notes that were in error, used out of context or that were, in a few cases, non-existent. It was a real eye-opener.
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Post by Rich Curilla on May 2, 2015 9:55:16 GMT -5
Reminds me of J. Frank Dobie's comment, "History is something agreed to by two liars." LOL. (Check my source. It may not have been Dobie.)
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Post by loucapitano on May 2, 2015 17:42:19 GMT -5
Having been away from the Forum for several weeks (babysitting two wonderful granddaughter)I missed most of this exchange. I remember reading an Alamo novelization a few years ago that had Crockett leading about 70 volunteers into the fort around March 3rd. It seemed farfetched at the time and reading all your comments, I tend to believe it didn't happen. It just seems like too big an event to go unnoticed. If true, I'm sure it would have elated Travis, yet his slave, Joe, never mentioned it. Perhaps he was never asked. I'm mostly interested in the possible reasons SA attacked without waiting for heavier artillery. The suggestions you guys have given go beyond his glory seeking megalomania. Personally, I still think he should have waited a day or two, but I've learned over the years to be careful when attributing motives for someone's actions, unless they furnish their own first hand accounts and have no ulterior motives. I don't think that was the case with Santa Anna. Lou from Long Island
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