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Post by marklemon on Jun 7, 2007 13:12:19 GMT -5
Another related, but more important point is this: Because of its recent construction, this portion of the acequia would have been all but devoid of the heavy brush that invariably grows up along any waterway, meaning that this stretch would have net had very good cover and concealment. Of course, it does not preclude someone from actually entering (Brrrr!) the waterway itself. Mark Well, speaking as someone who spent a lot of time in my younger days crawling around on my belly (never mind hands and knees) in and out of water, I do have to say that humans who spend all their time walking upright badly underestimate the amount of cover afforded the smallest dips, folds and ditches. To follow the route suggested Seguin must have gone into the ditch and presumably the water as well because otherwise he would have been silhouetted against the pale adobe/stone walls of the Alamo Stuart, I as well have spent many, many misreable hours huddled in mind- warping cold water in order to stay concealed, so I know exactly what you speak of. In fact, the key in my mind, to survival in this (Alamo siege) situation was the water (acequia). It led both to and from the compound, and was a natural low-point, which, even if there were no heavy brush lining some of its course, would have still afforded cover and concealment to the person with enough "sand" to brave what must have been bitterly cold temp's in Feb/Mar. On a somewhat related issue, I have wondered in the past what I would have done, specifically, if I were there at the last few moments, and wanted to save my life. I invariably go to the acequia, and then to the river on the west side. I feel that if I could have made it to the river there, I could have made it. By staying in the water as much as possible, I would have hudded it's banks and followed its course southwards until well out of town. I think that the one fatal mistake the poor fellow made who was found by the washer woman lurking under the (Commerce St?) bridge, that he waited too long, until there was sufficient light for him to be spotted by the Mexican woman doing her laundry. Hit the water, and move, move , move...quiety, of course. Mark
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Post by Herb on Jun 7, 2007 13:20:17 GMT -5
Good point, but I've also wondered if that man under the bridge might have been one of the three picket's?
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Post by TRK on Jun 7, 2007 13:39:12 GMT -5
I have always considered it a possibility (without evidence) that the acequias, when close to the mission and/or in the plaza, might have been lined with rock or contained in rock walls. I'm drawing on long-ago memory here, but I recall in the mid-1980s reading an architectural report on excavations of the Alamo acequia. Can't recall if it concerned the excavated section they found just east of the Alamo chapel, or the one they located in Hemisfair Plaza. However, I have a memory of reading (and possibly seeing photos) that the floor and walls of the acequia were lined with cut stone. It impressed me, because I had previously assumed the Alamo acequia was simply a ditch in the ground.
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Post by TRK on Jun 7, 2007 13:41:38 GMT -5
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Post by elcolorado on Jun 7, 2007 17:30:20 GMT -5
Piggybacking on Mark's comments about escaping from the Alamo - I strongly agree. As someone who use to teach escape-evasion-survival in the military, Mark's strategy for "getting the heck out of Dodge" is pretty sound but not without it's dangers. From the "West Wall" to the "Acequia" to the "River" is the best route to follow. Once you make it to the river, you would have to choose to go either North or South. If you select South, you could cross the river at the ford and head toward the bridge. Hugging the riverbank and moving through the trees and brush (the more dense the better) not only offers optimum concealment but negates some of the Cavalry's strengths. Now comes the tricky part. Following the river South takes you very close to La Villita on one side of the bank and a cannon battery on the other side. If you move, as Mark suggests...quickly and quietly and can make it past this point you should be in the clear as long as you don't panic and compromise your position. If your choice had been to go North instead, you would find a few "tricky" spots there as well. Initially, the riverbank heads West before it turns North...leading you past a battery and to the edge of town. Now, here is an interesting option. If I am familiar with the layout of the town and know of a friendly (and brave) Tejano, I might be tempted to sneak into San Antonio and hide in a "safe house". Risky...yes, but the advantages are worth consideration - food - water - protection from the elements and probing eyes. If hiding in town isn't an option, then you would have to very carefully creep along the riverbank and safely past the battery positioned at the Vermendi's home. If you can get past this point and continue to avoid open areas, your chances of getting away are pretty good. Of course, if you lingered too long and lost the advantage of darkness and/or Santa Anna was thoughtful enough to have the riverbanks patrolled, then I think your odds of survival are poor.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Jun 7, 2007 17:42:08 GMT -5
Have any of you read Steve Harrigan's "Gates of the ALamo" novel? I read it a few years ago, but if I recall correctly, his protagonist escapes from te Alamo in a manner similar to the one you describe. I'll have to give it another look when I get home, but you might want to give it a glance just for grins. Jim
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Post by elcolorado on Jun 7, 2007 19:49:49 GMT -5
Yes, Jim. I read "Gates To The Alamo" two years ago - fine book! I'll have a look see myself. Thanks for suggestion. - Glenn
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Post by Jim Boylston on Jun 22, 2007 18:59:24 GMT -5
Is there any hard evidence that there were any lunette type structures along the west wall as depicted in some illustrations? Jim
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Post by Herb on Jun 22, 2007 19:46:15 GMT -5
I'd like to say so, because of the Sanchez-Navarro Plats - I'm particularly attached to the first one because of the information it provides. But, Mark Lemon has convinced me otherwise.
Mark is the best one to give an exact answer. His model at this years symposium shows some ruins south of the Trevino House (Travis' HQs) alongside the West Wall, but no lunettes on the wall or the SW corner.
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Post by marklemon on Jun 22, 2007 20:38:40 GMT -5
Is there any hard evidence that there were any lunette type structures along the west wall as depicted in some illustrations? Jim This is one of those subjects that Jake Ivey warned me about when he said: "don't believe in something because you LIKE it..follow the evidence.." Personally, I'd LOVE to think that there were outer works (other than the lunette, and circular ditch at the northeastern corner of the eastern courtyard), but the archeological evidence doesn't support them. Sanchez Navarro is a tricky case, since I feel sure that he actually DID see the Alamo, and DID get some things right. Unfortunately, he drew the place from imperfect memory after San Jacinto. Jake believes that when Navarro depicted the outer ditch, especially at the southwest, he was looking from ground level at a distance, and mistook the acequia for an outer defensive ditch. Add several months and an unclear memory, and the imaginary ditch emerges. Ivey found absloutely no trace of any outer defensive ditch in the area of the southwest corner during his excavations during the Radio Shack dig. HOWEVER, there was and remains no chance of ever excavating to the north along the west wall to verify the possible presence of any such works to the north, as all this area has been obliterated by the building of buildings with deep basements. SO....what we have is a predicament: do we believe that Navarro saw SOME outer works, and just drew one or two too many? Or did he just THINK he remembered seeing outer ditches, and actually saw the acequia from a low aspect, which from that angle, looked like a defensive position. I should remind everyone that the OUTER acequia had only recently been dug by Ugartachea's men, and would look very raw to the eye, with a good bit of dirt still lying along it's edges. This would really tend to look like a ditch or trench especially from a distance. Ivey comes down pretty firmly on the side of NO outer ditches other than the Lunette and northeast circlular ditch. This is based on his digs on the southwest corner which found nothing, and his experience in finding the Labastida plat to be extremely accurate in depicting defensive works, at least those constructed by the Mexicans. In light of the fact that we cannot verify by any other source, any of these works on the west (or north) as shown by Navarro, we have, I think, to say they most likely we not there.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Jun 22, 2007 21:27:10 GMT -5
Mark, didn't Jake Ivey verify trenching around the palisade? Jim
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Post by marklemon on Jun 22, 2007 23:49:49 GMT -5
Mark, didn't Jake Ivey verify trenching around the palisade? Jim Jim, No, not exactly. The ditch that leads from the lunette towards the palisade gets only about 20 feet past the western end of the palisade, then quickly gets shallower and shallower until it blends in with the surface. Obviously, the Mexicans were only able to get that far until the approach of the Texians in the Fall/winter of 1835 caused them to stop digging. So only about 20 feet of the 115 foot long palisade on the western end had its outer sheathing of earth which this section of ditch provided. This is also true of the north wall. I failed to mention this in my earlier post. The Mexicans had begun the exterior ditch at the northeast angle of the north wall, and had progressed about 70 feet westward from the eastern corner. They also had dug about the same distance down the eastern side of the northeast corner. These sections, some 70 feet on the northeast, and 70 feet southward from the northeast corner, had exterior ditches, and sections of corresponding earth banked against the walls there. This ditching is pretty clearly shown by Labastida.
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Post by billchemerka on Jun 23, 2007 8:07:56 GMT -5
As Jake wrote in "Archaeological Evidence for Defenses of the Alamo" in issue #117 of The Alamo Journal: "In fact, only the Labastida plan shows all the trenches on our archaeological plan of the Alamo [see cover illustration of issue #117], and does not show ditches where we found none. As a result of the archeology, then, we can say that the Alamo defenses followed the standard military field fortification practices of the 1830s, and that they were fairly accurately recorded by the Labastida plan, but not on any other known map."
Jake's excellent article, the keynote address of the Alamo Society 2000 Symposium in San Antonio, is currently reprinted in Alamo Anthology: From the Pages of the Alamo Journal (Eakin Press, 2005). Jake's "Alamo Map" appears on p. 88.
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Post by marklemon on Jun 23, 2007 10:55:58 GMT -5
This may be an appropriate time to insert a cautionary point about Labastida's map in particular, and all early Alamo maps in general. While I completely agree with Jake that Labastida's plat is by far the most accurate, and shows the layout of the mission with it's defenses more correctly than any other known map, it is not without it's problems. For example, he rather severely truncates the north-south length of the plaza, perhaps by 1/3, and in doing so, creates problems when we try to decifer what he is trying to show us along the west wall. In addition, he shows only one courtyard to the east, while all other early maps and surveys show clearly that there area two (Convento and "cavalry"). He shows no embrasures on the palisade, two gun positions on the west wall, and the lunette, when it is highly probable, even certain, that they existed. (While it may be that Labastida is correctly depicting the inner defenses as reported to him by Ugartachea's officer's, he does not show the abatis, or inner defensive two-gun position inside the main gate. This may simply be because these are two of the very few measures that the Texians took, and were not done by the Mexican's. Labastida may have drawn this map primarily from descriptions while, for example, seated in a house in Bexar, and not entirely from personal observation during the siege. ) Jake and I have amicably debated a few points about Labastida's map, him wanting to strictly adhere to everything that is shown, and me saying that the known mistakes in the map should preclude us from doing that. The process is a maddenly long, tedious and frustrating one. When something is shown, or not shown, you have to dive into all the other known sources to either validate or refute the point in question. That being said, I do feel that we have now, more than ever before, a very good idea of what the Alamo looked like during the battle in 1836.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Jun 23, 2007 11:00:57 GMT -5
So Mark, is there anything other than the south gate lunette you feel would qualify as an "outwork"? Specifically, is there anything to the west that meets that description? Jim
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