Palisade wall question

[marklemon]

"There is a report of many years ago that describes the excavation of a circular cypress-and-cedar palisade on the Alamo grounds, its "posts closely united." '

Where was this "circular palisade" located in the Alamo compound?

[garyzaboly]

Working on a large Alamo treatise myself...and said particular documentation will be presented therein, fully sourced and illustrated.

[marklemon]

No real argument here. I have always said that various types of timber were used, and have cited the various types in earlier posts. I did stress that cedar was the material of choice when longer sections of wood were required. My only real specific point regarding mesquite vs cedar is that mesquite tended to be a shorter, and more irregular tree, which resulted in much shorter straight line sections which could be cut from it. Thus, your reference to "small mesquite boards." In the same reference, one may note the use of cedar logs for repairing roofs. This resulting from the much longer, straighter sections which could be cut from cedar, when compared to mesquite. Cypress, also was a taller, straighter growing tree, and could reasonably be substituted for cedar for the same intended purpose.

Today at 11:14pm, garyzaboly wrote:
Working on a large Alamo treatise myself...and said particular documentation will be presented therein, fully sourced and illustrated.


hmm...sounds intriguing. But again, I note that the wood used in the "circular palisade" was cedar and cypress, no mention of mesquite. This no doubt due to its not being available in long-enough sections.

[garyzaboly]

Don't discount the construction capabilities of mesquite, when they're of sufficient size and girth. Mesquite timbers built Fort Richardson, Texas, in 1867. As for mesquite used as Alamo palisades, there were more than two "palisade" formations in the Alamo, and they all varied in size and shape and extent.

[marklemon]

Apr 8, 2009 14:33:36 GMT -5 @garyzaboly said:

Don't discount the construction capabilities of mesquite, when they're of sufficient size and girth. Mesquite timbers built Fort Richardson, Texas, in 1867. As for mesquite used as Alamo palisades, there were more than two "palisade" formations in the Alamo, and they all varied in size and shape and extent.

I fully acknowledge that mesquite was likely used at the Alamo. But to put it simply, it just was not found in straight enough, or long enough sections to be used, in any substantive amounts, in palisaded defensive works. Remember that any palisade had to be buried at least 2 to 3 feet deep in order to hold securely. This means that there must be another, say, 5 to 8 feet above ground, to be effective against ground assault. And so it follows that one must go out and scrounge for mesquite trees with straight line sections from 7 to 11 feet in length. Good luck on that one. And why bother, if cedar and cypress, as well as several other species with much straighter configurations, are found in abundance, especially along a major river? If a fort was built of mesquite, and only mesquite, I'll wager that this was out of pure necessity, as it was likely out on a prairie, where there were no other, more suitable trees available for the purpose, at least in large numbers. Mesquite is like a weed in the prairies of Texas, and grows everywhere. It's hardy and weather resistant. But is suitable for only a limited variety of uses, due to its not commonly being found in straight enough sections for jobs requiring long sections of wood, such as vigas for ceilings and roofs, or palisades.

[Herb]

I hesitate to post, but there's a couple of things that jump out at me.

First is what we see today in Texas, of dense scrub mesquite choking out the prairres wasn't all that common north of the Nueces in the 1830s. The native grasses were surprisingly resistant to mesquite until they were destroyed by the cattle and cotton industry in the mid 1800s. Writers of the time quite often mention "groves" of mesquite along rivers & streams which provided great camp sites - very clearly not the scrub so common today.

That said, I wonder if time and labor may have prevented utilization of much mesquite (other than what may have been pulled down or confiscated) in the fortifications as it is a very hard wood to work with. The opposite side of that coin is because it is so hard, it is remarkably durable and adds great strength (thus the road pavers mentioned earlier).

What we call cedar in Texas, like mesquite can grow pretty big, but it's most commonly found also as scrub. It's relativily easy to cut and work, and its real easy to find 1 - 2" diameter posts, which is why you still see a lot of it used on ranches for fences. 4" - 6" can get problematic. While the heart of cedar is very strong the outer layer can splinter pretty easily.

Personally, I would much rather stand behind a palisade made of mesquite than cedar, but if I was cutting down the trees and trimming them - I'd much rather be working with cedar.

Given the years of settlement, along this portion of the river, I wonder how much of the timber close to the town/Alamo had already been cleared for fires and building? How far did the Mexican Army have to travel to cut down fresh wood for fortifications?

Remember the Wagon Box fight in 1867? The wood cutters were some 6 miles from Fort Phil Kearny and that Fort had only been established a year earlier.

[stuart]

Apr 8, 2009 20:12:07 GMT -5 Herb said:

Given the years of settlement, along this portion of the river, I wonder how much of the timber close to the town/Alamo had already been cleared for fires and building? How far did the Mexican Army have to travel to cut down fresh wood for fortifications?

Remember the Wagon Box fight in 1867? The wood cutters were some 6 miles from Fort Phil Kearny and that Fort had only been established a year earlier.

Which may be behind Everett's statement in 1847 that "southern pine" had to be imported from Bastrop to help reconstruct barracks for the U. S. Army at the Alamo, "timber suitable for the purpose not being obtainable nearer."

[texast]

Those also jump out at me wolfpack. The area was a lot different then in growth as it is today and although the mesquite for an example is feasible for some fortification purposes there was not that much available in the area at the time that was appropriate to use for speed sake unless it was actually taken from existing structures. Again remembering the depth that the Palisade wall had to be to begin with and the height for it to be affective not to mention the fact that through the excavation finds mesquite was not used there as a defensive tool.

Most of the mesquite again was usually pieced together and may have been used in some platforms (more probable for strength) or other areas. Neither the Mexicans nor the Texans had the real luxury to go too far from the Alamo or Bexar for wood collection nor did they really have the luxury to fine tune the workmanship.

I have no doubt that many various types were used but most would have come from nearby or from other buildings stripped for the purpose.

Do we also know if or what type of wood supplier/seller or stock yard may have been in Bexar at the time? it could be some wood was also requisitioned from such a place also. So many options but so few real choices.

[Kevin Young]

J.C. Clopper's Journal amd Book of Memoranda for 1828 (SWHQ Vol..13, July 1909-April 1910) notes that between the Cibolo (which he spells Seawully) and the Salado (which he spells Salou) on the San Antonio/Gonzales Road there is a area called "Musquite prairie." He notes that "this is a very thin soil a short delicate nutritious grass-the Musquite tree seems to be a species of the honey locast, bearing a resemblance in the leaf and producing a long delicate thorn-also a sweet pod, in the shape like that of a small black-eyed pea-the trunk and growth of the branches are more the form and appearance of the peach-and indeed at a distance the whole prairie or country seems like one immense peach orchard-now on the decline having outlived Earth's giant race who strode over this region dropping a seed at every 10-yard-stride. The first appearance of this tree in travelling westward from the states is at Peach Creek near Gonzales-" (Clapper, pg 69).

Clapper also mentions that upon entering San Antonio from the east one enters "a regular avenue of huge cotton wood trees" which would be the Alameda.

In describing some of the buildings on the outskirts of town he notes that they were "formed of branches of the Musquite tree set up end ways in all the zigzag varieties of their growth having the interstices daubed with mud..." (Clapper, pg70). On other stone or abobe buildings he does mention that the rafters are made from "huge cedar logs" (Clapper, pg 71).

This discussion does pose some interesting questions: how much of the Alamo's wooden fortification features were made from wood taken from other structures and how much had to be brought in. How far out did the Mexican and Texan garrison have to go to get firewood?

[stuart]

Its also a question which has much wider implications. I don't think there's any doubt at all that the Mexican army will have used a lot of scavenged timber for the initial fortification of both the Alamo and the street barricades in Bexar itself.

While I also think the palisade in question is most likely to have been made of cedar - and no doubt a lot of that was sindeed cavenged. Some of the secondary palisading like that on the lunette on the other hand may have been mesquite or cottonwood or whatever else was available, and presumably the abatis will also have been mesquite - especially as its thorny.

However, military requistioning by the proper authority (Cos) with the muscle to back it up is one thing. The Texian position was rather more delicate, especially after Grant and the Federalistas had gone. We're accustomed to thinking of Jameson having plenty of ideas and plans for repairing and improving the Alamo defences but being frustrated by the remaining garrison's inability to get out of the cantinas.

Is it not more likely that the real problem hampering reconstruction was a lack of readily available building materials such as timber and that the garrison's lethargy was underpinned by a feeling that any work was pointless without the timber they couldn't find locally and couldn't afford to force the civpop to provide?

[Kevin Young]

Good point. Yet another question arises for the Mexican Army: wood to burn bodies after the battle?

[garyzaboly]

Many "tourists" in San Antonio, even before Willaim Bollaert's 1843 observations, and of course beyond, noted that jacales and fences and other stuctures had been built of mesquite logs, so obviously mesquite was in great abundance locally.
It is said that the earliest (1718) Spanish church in San Antonio was built of mesquite logs.
I'm not claiming it was used as the wood for the palisades. But that it was used for some fortifications is suggested by some of the evidence, especially by the fact that both the garrison and Santa Anna's men were pilfering the Bexareno huts in the vicinity.

[garyzaboly]

One of the problems I had with the 2004 film was the preponderance of stakes, pickets---whatever---mainly on the gun ramps, with sawed-off tops as opposed to axe-hacked points. Did the Mexican Army under Cos have an ample supply of saws with which to do that?

[Herb]

Apr 9, 2009 15:27:48 GMT -5 @garyzaboly said:

One of the problems I had with the 2004 film was the preponderance of stakes, pickets---whatever---mainly on the gun ramps, with sawed-off tops as opposed to axe-hacked points. Did the Mexican Army under Cos have an ample supply of saws with which to do that?

IMO, there is way too much of a finished look to the movie, and to most depictions of the Alamo. Field fortifications, which is what most of the defensive additions to the mission really were, if you think about it, are generally unpolished, dirty/muddy, with unplaned wood and that wood is generally shaped by axes.

The Dickinson account by Elgin, raises the question how much wood was actually used in constructing the cannon positions. In the Elgin account it seems that the ramp in the church had to have been largely stone or at least earth filled with stone walls.

It's pure speculation on my part, but given the plentiful stone from the ruins in the Alamo, especially in the Convent yard, and the plentiful earth from the new acequia running outside the west wall, that these were the primary building materials. Except for the actual surface on which the guns would recoil and be rolled back, I doubt if very much wood went into the construction of the cannon platforms. Too much wood was needed to reinforce the North Wall, build the Palisade, erect the tambour palisade, and then after the Texians captured Bexar build the different breastworks that Jameson wrote about and put down the abatis.

When adding the daily firewood needs of the troops it seems a whole lot of the forces at hand would have been needed just to chop down and haul the wood from wherever, every single day, until Feb 23rd.

[garyzaboly]

Samuel Maverick---stuck with Cos' army during Austin's siege---noted in his diary that on October 12 1835, "Timbers &c taken to El Alamo to fortify the quartel, & begin, on the 13th, to blockade the streets, which is finished by the 17th."

The "Timbers" are obvious...the "&c" a fascinating addendum!