Manuel Loranca Account

[TRK]

This is a spinoff of "The Breakouts" thread. In June 1878, the San Antonio Express reprinted an article from the Corpus Christi Press relating the story of Manuel Loranca, as translated by D. M. Hastings of Corpus Christi. Loranca claimed to have been a second sergeant in the Mexican Army during the 1836 campaign; his unit wasn't specified.

I have no independent evidence that Loranca did or did not see combat at the Alamo. While some of his statements seem credible, his account--whether through his own faulty memory after forty-two years, or erroneous understanding of the battle, or translator error--is riddled with errors. Here is a recitation of some of them:

Loranca stated that the Alamo was “defended by eighteen pieces of artillery” Gen. Ampudia’s report of Mar. 6, 1836, inventoried 21 mounted pieces of artillery captured in the battle. (Admittedly, a manuscript account by Santa Anna written a couple of years before Loranca's article, which Loranca probably would not have had access to, stated that the Texans had 18 artillery pieces.)

Loranca gives the date of the Mexicans’ arrival at Béxar as “the 26th of February, 1836.” He was three day off.

He makes reference to “Generals Cos and Filisola when they capitulated to the Texans at the Mission de la Espada,” evidently in reference to Cos’ surrender at Béxar in December 1835. The capitulation didn’t occur at Espada, and Filisola was nowhere near the scene.

”The bombardment [of the Alamo] was effectually commenced on the 27th of the same month [February].” According to Travis, the bombardment began Feb. 23 and continued without letup. Almonte’s diary reports the Mexicans fired “4 grenades” at the Alamo on Feb. 23; on the following day, they “kept up a brisk fire” from “a new battery…on the bank of the river”. Depending on how you interpret “effectually commenced,” you could say the bombardment for all intents began either on February 23 or 24.

Loranca: “On the 4th of March the President Santa Anna called a council of war to consider the mode of assault of the Alamo, and they decided to make the assault on the 6th, at daybreak” According to Almonte, the staff meeting of March 4 ended with Santa Anna “not making any definite resolation [resolution]” as to the date and circumstances of the assault.

Loranca’s version of the deployments for the final assault: “On the north, Col. Don Juan Baptisto Morales with the Battalion "Firmas," of San Luis Potosi; on the west, Col. Don Mariano Salas, with the Battalion of Aldama; on the south, Col. Jose Vincente Minon, with the Battalion of Infantry; on the east, a squadron of Lancers, flanked by a ditch, to cut off the retreat at the time of the assault. These Lancers were commanded by Gen. Don Joaquin Ramires y Sesma.” Loranca (or the reporter/translator) made a complete mess of the order of battle: Morales attacked from the south; Minon was actually vice Morales; the San Luis Potosi Battalion was actually in Duque’s column, which isn’t mentioned; the Aldama Battalion was actually in Cos’ column, which similarly isn’t mentioned…and on and on.

“The assault took place at 3:30 a.m. on the 6th” Loranca had the start time about ninety minutes to two hours too early.

Loranca said that the signal for the attack “was to be given from a fort about a cannon-shot to the east of the Alamo, where the President Santa Anna was with the music of the regiment of Dolores and his staff to direct the movements.” According to his March 5 orders, the bugler signaling the attack was to be at the battery north of the Alamo. If Santa Anna adhered to his own orders, by implication the north battery is where Santa Anna was at the commencement of the attack.

Loranca: At the close of the battle, upon entering the compound, “the first thing we saw on entering a room at the right was the corpses of Bowie and Travis.” There’s no evidence that Travis’ body was in a room, let alone in the same location as Bowie.

Loranca specifies that the only survivors were “a negro and a woman having a little boy about a year old. She was said to be Travis' cook.” The references seem to be to Joe and Susannah and Angelina [not a boy] Dickinson. There were numerous other survivors.

Of the Texans who “sallied from the east side of the fort,” Loranca states that “Only one of these made resistance; a very active man, armed with a double barrel gun and a single-barrel pistol, with which he killed a corporal of the Lancers named Eugenio. These were all killed by the lance, except one, who ensconced himself under a bush and it was necessary to shoot him.” This is quite contrary to Sesma’s characterizations in his after-battle report, where he wrote of the “desperate resistance” of the first breakout group, and the “vigorous” stand of the second breakout group, which Sesma “feared” would repulse the force he sent to thwart them, as they were “resolved to sell their lives very dearly.” Sesma mentions one of his troopers killed during the actions of March 6, and it isn’t a “Eugenio,” but Jose Hernandez. There in front of the fosse were gathered the bodies of all those who died by the lance, and those killed in the fort, making a total to two-hundred and eighty-three persons . . . and here they were ordered to be burned, there being no room in the campo santo or burying ground, it being all taken up with the bodies of upwards of four hundred Mexicans, who were killed in the assault.”
While the figure of 283 Texans may be somewhat in line with recent reassessments of the total number of the garrison, 400 Mexican dead is most likely much higher than the actual number.

To recap, I have no evidence to prove or disprove that Loranca was a participant in the battle (although Todd Hansen, in his commentary on the Loranca account in The Alamo Reader, finds it curious that this supposedly eyewitness account has no specific references to what Loranca himself saw or did in the battle). Loranca's statements, at least as related through a translator and two different printings in different newspapers, and at a forty-two-year remove from the actual events, are riddled with errors. While some of those may be nit-picky errors, the devil is in the details...and this account has a devil of a lot of problems. I think one has to factor them into any evaluation of this account's historical merits.

[stuart]

A useful summary, but a good example of how something useful can be buried in apparent dross.

There are as you observe a considerable number of errors, but the nature of those errors is far from fatal. Lorcana claimed to have been a sergeant and apparently belonging to a cavalry unit. We can therefore safely assume that he himself did not take part in any of the planning and is talking entirely from memory as to dates and the deployment of units. He is also, being well down the food chain, heavily reliant on what he has heard rather than seen/been party to himself. I don't for example think the story of Bowie and Travis being found dead in a room is a significant error. Bowie certainly was found thus and it doesn't take much rumour to add Travis.

What I do find both compelling and significant however is his description of dealing with the breakout - in an account published a century before Jack Davis discovered Sesma's report and at a time when it was popularly believed all of the Texians (bar seven) died fighting to the last inside the Alamo.

That is what convinces me he was there and that the account of that part of the action - which he actually participated in - is authentic, but padded out with rumour and uncertain memory.

Nor am I bothered by the apparent discrepancy between Lorcana's account of the fight outside the Alamo with the rather more serious affair described by Sesma. As I pointed out in another post in a galaxy far far away, its often forgotten that when cavalry fight infantry a lot more horses than cavalrymen get hurt and killed. I don't recall exactly, but based on the report of 1 man killed and 5 wounded, comparison with other comparable actions would suggest there could have been 20 or more horses killed or wounded besides and that places an entirely different complexion on affairs. If you imagine as many as 30 cavalrymen going down at one point or another - albeit not actually killed or wounded - then you get a picture of a nasty fight much more like the one described by Sesma

[stuart]

I’m not at all convinced that the fact Lorcana calls the dead lancer Eugenio while Sesma (more formally) refers to him as Jose Herredia is a significant discrepancy.

When I was in the army long ago (jokes about that being part of history are no longer funny) almost no-one was known by their real name except when it came to form filling. This wasn’t just a British Army thing; in the French Army I understand they used to officially record the actual names used. In Moslem countries there is a very similar situation with most people being known by names other than their official ones; an Iranian of my acquaintance for example is called Mohammed Zakeri, but since childhood has always been known as Bijan because how else do you cope in a country where every second or third man is called Mohammed?

I strongly suspect that this is what has happened here; the unfortunate Jose Herredia was known by his comrades as Eugenio in order to distinguish him from all the other guys called Jose.

[TRK]

Your nickname scenario is plausible, Stuart. And maybe someday research will show that the KIA lancer's full name was José Eugenio Martínez.

Or, maybe Loranca simply forgot or mixed up his real name over the course of 42 years, like he evidently forgot important details about the siege and battle.

Don't get me wrong: I think Loranca's account has to be considered, and he emphatically substantiates the breakouts, even providing interesting details. However, if he got key details wrong, such as the date the siege began, troop deployments for the final assault, the location of Travis' body, etc., could he have been slightly off in, for example, the direction of the breakouts: for example, to the southeast rather than his "east"?

By the way, may I assume your spelling "Lorcana" is due to an involuntary mixup of your typing fingers, rather than an arcane knowledge of the true spelling?

[stuart]

Neither… its just one of those curious fixations one gets.

I’m alive to both the obvious errors and the possibility of less obvious ones, but as I said in my initial response I’m inclined to disregard problems with dates and with information which was clearly second-hand from the outset.

There’s always, I feel, been far too much of a tendency to look too closely at some Alamo documentation, pouncing on supposed discrepancies with a theological zeal and constructing arguments over punctuation; rather than stepping back and looking at what the author in question is actually saying.

In this case, if we strip back the generalities Loranca (got him right this time) describes a body of Texians coming out on the east side and being killed pretty quickly in a fight near a ditch where they afterwards burned the bodies. If that site is in turn linked with the peach orchard then we’re talking about the location of the present fire house to the east of the Alamo. This to my mind all hangs together pretty well.

On the other hand apart from the reference to the death of Jose/Eugenio, Loranca’s account doesn’t quite chime with the mighty struggle described by Sesma; especially since as I’ve pointed out elsewhere the 1 dead and 5 wounded returned by Sesma would imply actual casualties of between 20 and 30 once the horses are factored in. However Sesma describes not one but three breakouts of which the first was dealt with very quickly – was this, rather than the main fight, the one Loranca was involved in?