The Lunette/Tambour

[Jake]

Wow, here we are in the small hours firing these things back and fourth -- nothing better to do with our time, I guess.

OK, so I've gotten too adamant about Labastida's plan. You're right, and so is Glenn -- SN has all sorts of good stuff, and I don't want to put his info in question, when, like Labastida, he should be considered and evaluated as a real source on any given question that comes up. I have to say this so I can have the fun of pointing out problems later when we get to them.

Although I like the idea of Labastida creeping into SN's tent to correct things.

And with that, I'm signing off for the night. Go to bed, Mark.

[marklemon]

jivey said:

Wow, here we are in the small hours firing these things back and fourth -- nothing better to do with our time, I guess.

OK, so I've gotten too adamant about Labastida's plan. You're right, and so is Glenn -- SN has all sorts of good stuff, and I don't want to put his info in question, when, like Labastida, he should be considered and evaluated as a real source on any given question that comes up. I have to say this so I can have the fun of pointing out problems later when we get to them.

Although I like the idea of Labastida creeping into SN's tent to correct things.

Well no one said that SN was problem- free...on the contrary. If one wanted to point out problems with SN, it wouldn't be hard. However, I'll repeat until my fingers fall off---He got quite a bit right as well. What's so hard about simply admitting that?

[marklemon]

In trying to delve deeper into the lunette/tambour "mystery," if in fact, there is one, I recently shifted my focus onto my real area of knowledge ( I don't claim to be any sort of Alamo expert): the American Civil War (or, as we call it in Georgia "The War of Northern Agression,"). I looked at hundreds of photographs and drawings of field fortifications, and suddenly something struck me which I can't believe I hadn't seen before.
Many such earthworks constructed in the field during the war in which cannon were emplaced, were made, initially at least, as en barbetted positions, in that the solid earthen parapet sections rose from the ground level, up perhaps 4 or 5 feet in height above ground level (AGL) to a level-topped earthen parapet. Inside, gun platforms of a foot or two were often built, and floored with rough planks. THEN, (and here's the key to the question), the builders stacked, in a brick-type pattern courses, or rows, of sandbags on TOP of the parapet, to heighten the entire work, and in which EMBRASURES were placed.
How does this relate to the Alamo? Well, if, as Jake postulates, the Mexicans built the position as an en barbette position, and if Labastida drew up the plan of the Alamo according to information given to him by Cos'engineers, then he'd presumably depict the lunette as it was originally built.
However, as the EYEWITNESS Sanchez-Navarro depicted it, it was clearly not a barbetted position, but rather an embrasured one. This is clear and indisputable, in not one, but 3 different views. Not only this, but he also shows what is clearly a vertically aligned stockade of posts above the parapet of the lunette.
So, if we are to believe that the position was clearly and definitely a barbetted position, with no embrasures, we must assume that a trained officer in the Mexican Army, whom entered the lunette and had occasion to personally inspect the details of the Alamo and its defenses, was hopelessly incompetent, or blind. Here was a man, who entered and exited the Alamo, at least once in each direction, through the main gate, walking within mere feet of the features in question, and whom, while endeavoring to draw them later, had such poor recall, as to completely "mis-remember" what he saw, and drew embrasures where there was nothing at all. This just strains credulity. So, how can this inconsistency be possible?
I am of the opinion, IF Jake is correct that Labastida shows a barbetted earthwork at the Alamo gate, that what happened to the lunette was, in a word, Jameson.
I can easily see the Texians, knowing the disparity in numbers which would soon face them, were perhaps not so cavalier as we once thought, and actually made improvements to the lunette, in the form of a sandbagged "extension," which featured embrasures. On top of this, he placed an inner facing of palisade posts, which ran along the inner face of the parapet. On this topic, honest folks may disagree, but one then is asked to explain how, if one is faced with an eyewitness' drawing showing such a inner palisade, and later, postholes are found which roughly trace the same area, how to explain them in any other way, To do so one would have to employ some really tortured logic. The odds for such a scenario, of postholes being for something OTHER than what the artist drew, being as they are in the exact same location, must be astronomical.
By the way, this sandbag theory also somewhat neatly explains the grid-pattern shown by Sanchez-navarro, as the courses of sandbags would have such an appearance, especially when drawn by an untrained artist.
So, to recap: Jake may be correct, in that Labastida showed a tambour with gun positions en barbette, but the evidence shows that later, something happened, and that something must have been the Texans' "beefing up" the gate defenses. As an added measure of defense, they also placed the small two-gun inner battery, for good measure. Clearly, the Texans were hyper-concerned with the security of the main gate, if the Mexicans were not. Insofar as they made efforts in this regard, they seem somewhat more industrious than we have heretofor given them credit.

[stuart]

I'm still not convinced about the palisade per se and still suspect that if those post-holes are associated with the lunette rather than some "planting" later they were primarily revetments; not for the original earthwork but for your proposed sandbag extension.

I do agree however that sandbags would explain the mystery and refer you to that Mexican ref. on another thread (which of course at this precise moment in time I can't locate) to the Texians reinforcing the SW gun position because it was too low. As I do clearly recall however I pointed out at the time that although the account as translated referred to entrenching, that implied digging a ditch which we know wasn't there and that what was most likely being described was a parapet built on top of the wall using sandbags.

Rather than the very exposed looking platform depicted in Gary Zaboly's sketches it may have had a quite substantial sandbag parapet - and perhaps even an embrasure

[elcolorado]

A very plausible and logical theory, Mark. It supports the supposition that LaBastida utilized detailed information from Cos' engineers to construct his map before he viewed it personally. It allows for the defensive upgrades we believe the Texans would have erected. And it explains the additional fortifications that Sanchez-Navarro witnessed and recorded in his sketches.

When viewing LaBastida and Sanchez-Navarro together, one can understand why we have what appears to be before and after pictures.

The idea of sandbags used to reinforce the lunette is intriguing as well as original. I can't say I've heard this theory before. But it does give us an explanation as to what Sanchez-Navarro was looking at when he drew his interpretation of the fortifications protecting the main gate.

Also, Mark's conclusion indirectly supports the theory that Cos fortified, garrisoned, and maintained the Alamo as a large battery in support of the Bexar defensives. Cos did not foresee the fortress being assaulted by the norteamreicanos and applied a limited numbered of precautions against attacking infantry. Hence, the scaled-down version of the defense's guarding the main gate we see in LaBastida's schematic.

So, if Mark's explanation is true, then both he and Jake are correct in their constructional assessment of the Lunette/Tambour. Amen!

Glenn

[Jake]

I like this idea because if we assume it's true, it allows us a little more of a glimpse of the dynamics of change of the place from first work in late 1835 through last work in late Feb. - early March 1836.

[Jake]

I was just over posting on the S-N Map thread, about the west-side acequia and how S-N appears to have mistaken or mis-recalled it as the series of defensive trenches he drew along the west side of the fortifications.

That reminded me that when I worked throug the calculations for the construction of the defenses, how long it would take and how much dirt was involved, it turned out that I had to include the excavation of this ditch in the calculations, because otherwise there just wasn't enough dirt to build all the gun platforms and ramps that got built. So although Sanchez showed the west side defenses with the wrong plan, none the less he was right in that the ditch on the west was defensive and was a critical part of the construction of the whole complex.

[Herb]

jivey said:

I like this idea because if we assume it's true, it allows us a little more of a glimpse of the dynamics of change of the place from first work in late 1835 through last work in late Feb. - early March 1836.

It's a theory that makes sense, and does seem to tie in the evidence.

While I'm not the expert, and haven't put the time in that Mark, Jake, and Craig have into the architecture, when I look at the Sanchez-Navarro elevation I very clearly see some type of stockade above the tambour.

I remember a discussion with Tom Lindley, where he had correspondence that place Labastida still in Mexico (Matamoros?) at a fairly late date, it didn't preclude him from reaching Bexar before March 6th, but it raised some questions about that probability. It did seem to indicate, that the Labastida plat was of Cos's Alamo and not Jameson's. Sadly, I don't remember much more of the discussion; I think it was another of those finds that Tom had planned on publishing in his new book.

[elcolorado]

I remember a discussion with Tom Lindley, where he had correspondence that place Labastida still in Mexico (Matamoros?) at a fairly late date, it didn't preclude him from reaching Bexar before March 6th, but it raised some questions about that probability.

It would help if we knew when Labastida entered Bexar. I would guess it was before March. His plat quite clearly shows the earthworks the Mexicans erected to batter the north wall. I believe the evidence indicates this fortification was constructed on or about the evening of 4 March.

Glenn