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Post by marklemon on Jun 23, 2007 15:55:56 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 Jim, The short answer is no. As Jake Ivey has pointed out, we'll never be able to dig in this area bacause of the obliteration of the earth down many layers past the Alamo level as a result of building and basement construction. So all we have to go by is written, or drawn accounts. As no known written accounts refer to outerworks on the west wall, we are left with Navarro and Labastida. As Labastida has been the more reliable draftsman, the safe bet is to go with his depiction of ditches and their location, or the lack thereof. Not to mention we should already be suspect of Navarro because the ditches he shows us at the southwest were not found by archeology. Mark
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Post by Jake on Jan 3, 2008 15:11:10 GMT -5
Mark, I have to thank you for so faithfully echoing my arguments, speaking for me while I was not part of this unruly mob, and making clear where we differ and you're talking about your ideas. I feel the urge, however, to add a caution to the one you quoted, about following the evidence.
In many places among these discussions you've said something about how I have a much stronger tendency to follow Labastida than you think is healthy. Let me expand on that: Labastida's schematic has been shown by archaeology to accurately portray the defenses of the Alamo at the time of the battle -- and it's the *only* plan that has managed this.
My approach to Alamo research is not one of a "fan" -- it's simply one of the most complicated and intriguing puzzles available to an architectural historian like myself (in spite of the fact that I was at the Alamo Theater in 1956, was it?, for the world premier of "Davy Crockett"). One thing I've noticed is that Alamo studies suffer (to put it mildly) from too free a use of speculation, not enough care with evidence. So my approach to Labastida is: "assume what he shows is correct, unless you have a sound, supportable reason to differ with him." He's all we've got as a dependable source, so why casually disagree with him? He's our only trustworthy guide to areas now destroyed. It's because he's so trustworthy where we can check on him that I'm so adamant about trusting him elsewhere, where we can't.
Even our disagreement about the tambour isn't about Labastida -- we both agree to start with what he shows. Where we go after that is up to us. As to gun platforms for the stockade gun or the two he shows on the west wall, without platforms ... as you know, I think of these positions as even more schematic than his other depictions, virtually symbolic rather than representative, and I'm ok with accepting low platforms at these locations, although not altogether happy about it.
You've remarked on my willingness to use "informed speculation." When we run out of evidence, we have to make a call based on the pattern we see up to that point. That's our job, that's what the others who don't have the time or opportunity to spend so many hours on this expect of us -- and that's where informed speculation comes in. But you never do that without holding up the "Speculation!" flag (like the "Joke!" flag my relatives want me to get -- dead-pan humor doesn't work all that well these days, Steven Wright notwithstanding) -- always indicate where you move from evidence to speculation. Otherwise we'll begin to forget the difference ourselves.
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Post by marklemon on Jan 3, 2008 17:36:19 GMT -5
Mark, I have to thank you for so faithfully echoing my arguments, speaking for me while I was not part of this unruly mob, and making clear where we differ and you're talking about your ideas. I feel the urge, however, to add a caution to the one you quoted, about following the evidence. In many places among these discussions you've said something about how I have a much stronger tendency to follow Labastida than you think is healthy. Let me expand on that: Labastida's schematic has been shown by archaeology to accurately portray the defenses of the Alamo at the time of the battle -- and it's the *only* plan that has managed this. My approach to Alamo research is not one of a "fan" -- it's simply one of the most complicated and intriguing puzzles available to an architectural historian like myself (in spite of the fact that I was at the Alamo Theater in 1956, was it?, for the world premier of "Davy Crockett"). One thing I've noticed is that Alamo studies suffer (to put it mildly) from too free a use of speculation, not enough care with evidence. So my approach to Labastida is: "assume what he shows is correct, unless you have a sound, supportable reason to differ with him." He's all we've got as a dependable source, so why casually disagree with him? He's our only trustworthy guide to areas now destroyed. It's because he's so trustworthy where we can check on him that I'm so adamant about trusting him elsewhere, where we can't. Even our disagreement about the tambour isn't about Labastida -- we both agree to start with what he shows. Where we go after that is up to us. As to gun platforms for the stockade gun or the two he shows on the west wall, without platforms ... as you know, I think of these positions as even more schematic than his other depictions, virtually symbolic rather than representative, and I'm ok with accepting low platforms at these locations, although not altogether happy about it. You've remarked on my willingness to use "informed speculation." When we run out of evidence, we have to make a call based on the pattern we see up to that point. That's our job, that's what the others who don't have the time or opportunity to spend so many hours on this expect of us -- and that's where informed speculation comes in. But you never do that without holding up the "Speculation!" flag (like the "Joke!" flag my relatives want me to get -- dead-pan humor doesn't work all that well these days, Steven Wright notwithstanding) -- always indicate where you move from evidence to speculation. Otherwise we'll begin to forget the difference ourselves. Jake, Clearly, you have much more time on your hands now....are you retired? Anyway, I see that participating in a back and forth dialogue with you will be, while invigorating, a time consuming endeavor. Please forgive me if there may be, from time to time, a lag between one of your posts directed at myself, and my answer, as life, a wife, a job, and a four year old can really get in the way of speedy reparte.' I have no trouble whatsoever with going, even fatihfully, with whatever Labastida shows and labels for us. It's when we stray off the path and begin to extrapolate, "get into his head" as it were, that we allow, even subconsciously, our own prejudices to enter the picture. So while I am with you almost all the way on the matter of Labastida, I have to part ways, for my own good reasons, with you when it comes to your "speculation" as to what he is showing us in a completley unmarked feature (lunette). If it weren't for Sanchez-navarro's two (really three) drawings of his observations at the Alamo in 1836, I may, just MAY, go along with you. But to me, as an old CI (criminal investigator) I see that, yes, even Sanchez-Navarro (like Labastida) is trying to show us something...not once, from above, with indistinct characteristics, but THREE TIMES, even gives us an elevation so we won't be confused. And to me, this fact, and others, have to me the "ring of truth."He clearly, with no question, shows us an embrasured position, and even shows us what looks very much like a palisaded extension, which has in part been confirmed by archaeology. So he must have seen SOMETHING like this.Again, the "ring of truth." And he not only gazed at the Alamo from afar, but was a participant in the battle (unlike Labastida), and had many occasions to view the place both inside and out. You cannot perceive the "fading to the surface" lunette to palisade ditch from across the river. Nor can you see the interior trenching the defenders dug (and verified by DLP). It strains credulity to think that a man can get so much correct (yes, he made some mistakes), and not at least be on to something with this specifically depicted lunette. "Ring of truth.." Now Jake, surely you must appreciate that this is not some pet theory of mine. I really could personally care less, embrasure or barbette, but I see BOTH the archaeological evidence as well as the graphic evidence, and I must conclude that there's something to this. (remember, S/N was poo-poohed for a long time, and artistic depictions for years, even generations, showed the lunette as little more than a pile of dirt with maybe a cannon behind it-suddenly, with the digs there, the true configuration matched S/N's version very closely). For us to dismiss Sanchez-Navarro out of hand, when he got so much right, is almost criminally negligent. In any event, as you mentioned, I was happy to (hopefully accurately) "have your back" in discussions when some of your data was discussed. But since you have all this free time now, you can fend for yourself!
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Post by Jake on Jan 4, 2008 12:30:36 GMT -5
Mark: Christmas season and everyone is out of the office except me -- they all took two weeks and my wife had to be back by Jan. 2.
Yes, I know what you mean by "ring of truth," and I accept that as a basis for "informed speculation." Use it myself, all the time.
In fact, what I was trying to get from you on the barbette argument was a statement to the effect that, no, there was no direct evidence for a stockade wall along the inside of the parapets, but S-N showed embrasures [you said that part], but the look of the structure as you work it out in your mind and begin to see what the builders had in mind, begin to figure where they're going to go next, that happens when you've become completely immersed in a question like this, especially when you're building the model, actual physical replication of the 3-D space, that this is what they intended -- you begin to see the "design intent." I'll accept "apparent design intent" as a good reason to take a position on how a place looked and was used. I think what I wanted was to clearly define where the facts ended and the informed speculation began.
For me, looking at Labastida's depiction of the south gate defenses, I go for the simplest explanation that produces the pattern he drew. You, willing to include S-N's depiction of this area, go farther. So I mis-stated where our differences lie -- in reality, they lie in our differing willingness to accept the S-N images.
It's funny for me to be receiving lectures from someone on being willing to accept evidence from S-N when not many years ago Jack Jackson and I were defending him against charges of the whole thing being forged.
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Post by marklemon on Jan 4, 2008 23:49:02 GMT -5
Jake, Well, we may be coming closer to some sort of "rapprochement", but maybe only insofar as our differences finally being clearly delineated is concerned... You are quite correct that our main source of dischord is our differing willingness to accept Sanchez-Navarro. I feel that your strict, reverential adherance , exclusively to Labastida, to the complete exclusion of Sanchez-Navarro, smacks a little of "dismissal due to inconvenient data." It cannot be denied that his drawings have errors. No need to enumerate them now..not the point. The real point is that he got alot of details RIGHT, and he was an eye-witness. Another point is that Labstida also has errors, but because his errors fall into the category of, say, style over substance, you have decided to wed youself to him to the exclusion of Sanchez-Navarro. I feel that doing this is a serious mistake. How can we just summarily discard the sketches of a true eye witness (S/N), especially since he got so much right in his plans? In doing so, we rob ourselves of a goldmine of information. What we should as researchers do is, not throw the baby out with the bathwater, and fall into lock step with one man's drawing, but WORK...that is to say, look at ALL the data, and attempt, insofar as one is able to responsibly do so, to meld the data into a workable whole. If a feature is unclear in one source, and more clear in the other, and more clear not only ONCE, but MULTIPLE TIMES, that "ring of truth" sounds pretty loudly. In this way, we take that which is most reliable from ALL the sources, not the annointed ONE. And lastly Jake, to be honest, all this dust up may be a moot point, as Labastida does NOT show, and does NOT label, the lunette as an en barbete position. This is simply your interpretation of his lack of detailing on the drawn feature. But here you may have fallen into a sort of trap. Just because Labastida drew some positions as specifically embrasured, and marked others as en barbette, doesn't strictly imply that he had to give the same treatment to the lunette. Our minds crave consistency and logic, but man rarely delivers. Labastida was a fair cartographer, but not a good draftsman, and may have simply rendered the feature too small to give any detailing which would tell us more. But then, if so, why not just mark it with a "J" for a barbetted position? If he went to the trouble to mark the northeast corner "J" as en barbette, why not give the same designation to the lunette, and save us all this grief? What you have found you must now do is speculate about Labastida's lack of designation, and there is the rub. How can one with any degree of confidence, get into another's head, and guess what he was thinking? or why he left out the "J?" It's all so tenuous that I cannot believe that you are so stroingly defending this tenuous speculation, especially in light of another depiction from an eyewitness, who drew the lunette SPECIFICALLY PRECISE, and who's accurate shape has been verified by archaeology.
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Post by Jake on Jan 6, 2008 0:58:44 GMT -5
Well, we're now having the same fight on several different threads. So Mark, you're telling me Labastida isn't showing a gun position? You're saying there were no cannon there? Or are you making the same assumption I am, that these were gun positions? Your book seems to indicate you are assuming this, just like me. Only you show stockades inside the parapets. I say no evidence for this. You're accusing me of defending a tenuous position. What tenuous position is this? No embrasures on Labastida, embrasures on your model. Where is it my tenuous speculation? You can't even just say that you put embrasures on because S-N shows them and you decided to trust him on this, because you show stockades and S-N doesn't. Where is it my tenuous speculation?
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Post by marklemon on Jan 6, 2008 1:17:31 GMT -5
Well, we're now having the same fight on several different threads. So Mark, you're telling me Labastida isn't showing a gun position? You're saying there were no cannon there? Or are you making the same assumption I am, that these were gun positions? Your book seems to indicate you are assuming this, just like me. Only you show stockades inside the parapets. I say no evidence for this. You're accusing me of defending a tenuous position. What tenuous position is this? No embrasures on Labastida, embrasures on your model. Where is it my tenuous speculation? You can't even just say that you put embrasures on because S-N shows them and you decided to trust him on this, because you show stockades and S-N doesn't. Where is it my tenuous speculation? Who said Labstida isn't showing a gun position? I'll try to make myself very clear. Labastida DOES NOT MARK the lunette position in any way. He did so to all the other gun positions except those west wall guns, and the palisade gun (which are shown as cannon symbols) WHY? We must assume two things: 1) it's a barbette, but he got sloppy and forgot to mark it with a "J" 2) it isn't a barbette position, and he failed to draw embrasures You presume to have decifered his ingenious method of marking gun positions with a mind-numbing and convoluted secret of "gun symbols=embrasures," Oh, but "unless embrasures are actually shown then no gun symbols are necessary" and " no gun symbols, and no embrasures = a barbette, and marked with a 'J" etc, etc.... Well Ok, if he had this brilliant secret code of cannon symbology, why then did he not mark his lunette in accordance with it? Jake, you are good, but I really don't think you are so good you can presume to KNOW what Labastida was thinking. On the other hand, S/N tells us very, very clearly, but I know that to you, he falls under DDID:"Dismissal Due to Inconvenient Data." It's much easier to say that he's a lousy plan-drawer, or his is a lousy schematic. No matter that he tells us much that has been independantly corroborated.
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Post by Jake on Jan 12, 2008 14:53:43 GMT -5
We've touched on the question of why the defenses were designed the way they were, without going anywhere with it. I thought I'd pick up on that idea in this thread.
Briefly, the Mexican engineers, I suggest, designed the defenses with the assumption that they were to protect against a small force of infantry irregulars, with long-range rifles and some small cannon. Their primary offensive capabilities were cannon and cavalry. Therefore, you would expect the defenses to emphasize cannon emplacements and cavalry sortie points. However, my estimates of the length of time and manpower they had suggests that the Mexican army did not finish some of the emplacements -- specifically, I figure the north wall was incomplete, not only in the embankment of earth along its outside and firing step construction on the inside, but also in the gun positions, which I suspect were intended to be barbette, but didn't get high enough, and were made into embrasured positions by cutting through the still-too-high walls.
I also suggest that the Texans would have done better to abandon the Alamo with its defenses intact and pull back into the woods, where they could return to their successful guerilla tactics, rather than being trapped into a formal exchange of fire from fixed positions, a method of engagement that put them, inexperienced as they were in this sort of warfare, at a disadvantage greater than the unequal numbers alone would have made it. I think the only reason they stayed in the Alamo was because Travis was convinced he could force Houston to reinforce him, and if this happened, the Alamo became a viable defensive position.
Attempting to take control of the army away from his superior officer -- Mutiny, a courtmartial offense, don't you think?
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Post by Herb on Jan 12, 2008 15:28:40 GMT -5
I also suggest that the Texans would have done better to abandon the Alamo with its defenses intact and pull back into the woods, where they could return to their successful guerilla tactics, rather than being trapped into a formal exchange of fire from fixed positions, a method of engagement that put them, inexperienced as they were in this sort of warfare, at a disadvantage greater than the unequal numbers alone would have made it. I think the only reason they stayed in the Alamo was because Travis was convinced he could force Houston to reinforce him, and if this happened, the Alamo became a viable defensive position. Attempting to take control of the army away from his superior officer -- Mutiny, a courtmartial offense, don't you think? Jake, I think the answer is much simpler. Stone walls and cannon. Cannon and stone walls. To the defenders, this looked to be a far more formidable position than it was. They, probably, truly believed that given just a few more men they could hold this position until the Texians fielded an army that would defeat Santa Anna. And, given the tone of Travis' letters they continued to believe it until the Mexicans established the North Battery, and only once it began its effective fire, did they truly realize how weak and vulnerable they were.
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Post by elcolorado on Jan 12, 2008 22:39:47 GMT -5
"Cut - Slash - Run." Now where have I heard this tactic before? This really isn't a bad idea. No doubt it would have appealed to Travis who was comfortable in the saddle.
Withdrawing into the woods sounds good on the surface but I don't think the garrison would have fared any better. For the Texans to be effective in the type of guerrilla tactics required to hurt Santa Anna, I think they would have to be a very mobile force. The garrison simply didn't have the number of horses necessary to engage in hit and run strikes. And speed would be an absolute must in order to escape and evade Sesma's well trained lancers. In other words, I'd want to get out of trouble faster then I got into it.
Artillery. It's unlikely the Texans would have abandoned the Alamo's cannon and they wouldn't have been able to transport any but maybe the smallest.
The disparity in numbers wouldn't have been a big factor since guerrilla tactics are routinely carried out by smaller groups.
Although I disagree that the garrison could have been an effective fighting force by withdrawing into the woods, I do agree on the idea of guerrilla warfare for the undermanned Texans.
I think if the Texans had decided to engage in a well planned and coordinated delaying action toward the East, they would have had success. But that is a whole different thread.
Glenn
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Post by elcolorado on Jan 12, 2008 23:03:10 GMT -5
It's certainly within the realm of possibility...but we'll never know for sure. I do think one of the reasons why the defenders remained in the Alamo was because the Texan government ordered Bexar to be held...much to the chagrin of Sam Houston. After Bowie, Neill, Jameson, and finally Travis, convinced Gov. Smith that the Alamo was the "key" to Texas, Smith's attitude was: "Ok...then hold until relieved."
Glenn
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Post by stuart on Jan 13, 2008 2:55:04 GMT -5
But all of it comes back to the killer factor that the Texians in Bexar (and everywhere else on the frontier) didn't have enough horses
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Post by Jake on Jan 15, 2008 11:35:27 GMT -5
So a shortage of horses forced them to go to a static defense, with the hope that Travis would be able to coerce military support? Travis and his predecessors pushed the Texas government into ordering a defense of Bexar without ordering sufficient manpower to do the job?
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Post by Herb on Jan 15, 2008 12:55:36 GMT -5
While the lack of horses was a problem (it's also far from unique to Texas in 1836), I don't think you can interpret what happened at the Alamo based solely on horses.
The facts are that the Mexican Cavalry, for the time and place were excellent, any type of mounted delaying operations or "cut slash and run" were doomed to failure. Even the US Army Regular Cavalry did not favorably match up against the Mexican Cavalry ten years later.
Amateur soldiers are generally unduly impressed with the supposed strength of fortifications and "prepared defenses". People who are not truly familiar with the destructive firepower of military weapons (cannons in this case) tend to grossly overestimate the effectiveness of even the puniest of fortifications.
For Travis and the the others who had never truly faced artillery, the stone and adobe walls of the Alamo appeared much stronger than they actually were. The number of cannon mounted on those walls heightened their belief that adequately manned and supplied they could hold out forever.
More than anything else, the Texian defeat at the Alamo was due to a lack of imagination. They could not imagine the rapid Mexican advance, they could not imagine that Texas would not rally to their rescue in time, they could not imagine that their "fortress" could not withstand the Mexican bombardment.
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Post by Jake on Jan 15, 2008 13:56:34 GMT -5
Wolf: Yes, I had suspected that with the arrival of much of the main army, the cavalry situtation might put the Texans in a bad spot, guerilla-wise. OK, I'll have to change that discussion.
So it appears that we should say: If the Texans were going to try to hold Bexar, they had no real choice but to go into the Alamo -- but with the numbers they had, they had no hope of holding the place? Rick Range et al. seems fairly convinced that a better defense could have held the place, with no additional numbers -- what do we think of their argument?
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