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Post by davidpenrod on Aug 13, 2014 13:01:26 GMT -5
Rich, do you have a copy of the Lysander Wells sketch? Or do you know of an online link to one? The one you posted in October 2013 elsewhere on this forum is not clear. Thanks.
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Post by davidpenrod on Nov 1, 2013 10:34:53 GMT -5
Herb, I think you're right about multiple sketches. He probably made a series of them as part of a reconnaissance from the northwest. If my conjecture is true (and its pure speculation, of course, but that's half the fun of Alamo "studies", isn't it?), I think he prepared them for Gen. Cos and the officers of his column. Its focus is the Alamo's northwest corner and its structures, which were Cos' objectives. It also depicts the ground near and around the walls there, thus providing a limited description of the terrain the column's men would have negotiate while gaining entry to the fort. Of course, as I said, this is pure speculation on my part and there is no supporting documentation for it. The only thing we really know is that Sanchez-Navarro drew a map and a view of the walls and that's it.
Something else that has always fascinated me is that the drawing depicts the exterior walls on the west, but nothing of the Alamo's interior - and its rendition of the church, both in sketch and map, is wholly inaccurate. It doesn't appear that Sanchez-Navarro was ever actually inside the Alamo.
Anyway, I don't think his published drawing was meant to reflect a composite of several drawings from multiple points of view along the length of the west wall. It's perspective is consistent with sketches from the northwest of the compound. I think the only way he could have seen the southern tip of the Main Gate's external fortifications was by moving south along the river.
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Post by davidpenrod on Oct 31, 2013 17:02:05 GMT -5
Herb, I have to disagree with you about Sanchez-Navarro's point of view. Clearly, he was not standing on or near the Veramendi palace when he executed his drawing. In it, you can see the north walls of the church and the north walls of the Convento's second story rooms. In Rich's computer model, you cannot see these features. You can only see the southern walls of the church, the Convento, and the entire "connecting wall" of the Convento courtyard. Furthermore, in the Sanchez Navarro drawing, the viewer's perspective is lower than the Alamo - as if the artist was standing in the river bed and not on top of a roof. I think Sanchez-Navarro drew the sketch somewhere north of the Veramendi palace near the bend of the SA River.
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Post by davidpenrod on Jun 15, 2013 9:34:51 GMT -5
I was under the impression that Crockett didn't wear a fur cap with tail until the 1835 election - that he had tried to assume the legendary "Davy" persona to better connect with eastern immigrants to his district (long time residents would not have been impressed as they knew him well).
Could the fox cap and tail he wore to Texas have been part of that? That folks who had never before laid eyes on him expected to meet "Davy Crockett" and not "David Crockett" and he feared they would be disappointed in him (especially since he was not well over 6' tall and no signs of alligator scars could be seen on him).
From the various accounts of his life - and his own terrific autobiography - I thought Crockett was embarrassed by the whole "Davy Crockett/Nimrod Wildfire" craze - and that's why he "wrote" his autobiography in the first place, to haul out his true self from the cave into which the craze had shoved it.
In many ways, wasn't Jim Bowie the real "Davy Crockett/Nimrod Wildfire"? He was a lifelong backwoodsman, a drunk, an unsophisticated loaf, and a loudmouth who could actually backup his braggadocio - utterly fearlessness in mortal combat.
Wasn't Crockett running away from that fur cap and tail and Bowie toward it? And Travis was caught between them - a man without a national reputation? How do you stand against such legends? Maybe that's why Travis wrote his famous letter to "All Americans in the World" and not just the Texans.
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Post by davidpenrod on Jun 15, 2013 9:07:14 GMT -5
Where did the whole Crockett defending the palisade wall come from? Would Travis have really assigned him a specific position? In his dispatches, Travis describes Crockett as almost everywhere during action.
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Post by davidpenrod on Jun 6, 2013 17:32:38 GMT -5
Phil (and the rest of the crew): given that raccoons and foxes hibernate during the winter, are their furs warm in the winter? Or is that a stupid question? Given that most animals that provide "winter" fur also hibernate? Probably a dumb question, but maybe I can put it this way: would raccoon fur provide effective heat retention? Was it as thick and warm as other fur as readily available to frontiersman in Crockett's time?
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Post by davidpenrod on May 30, 2013 18:02:07 GMT -5
Alan, Warren's book was also my first Alamo book, too. I was only 8 when I first read it but its still my favorite, actually.
Many years after first reading "Remember the Alamo," I learned that its author was the same man who had written one of our nation's greatest novels, "All the King's Men." Robert Penn Warren won a Pulitzer Prize for that effort. He received a second Pulitzer, this time for poetry, in '58. He received a third in '79.
Warren published "Remember the Alamo" in '58, the year he won his second Pulitzer. His Alamo was the first of three novels for children. The second was "The Gods of Mount Olympus" in '59. The third was "How Texas Won Her Freedom," also in '59, which is about Sam Houston and the Battle of San Jacinto.
So here we have Robert Penn Warren, possibly America's greatest man of letters, writing children's books about the mythic Gods of the Greeks and the Defenders of the Alamo. I wish I had access to his notes to learn what he was thinking - had he linked the two?
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Post by davidpenrod on May 30, 2013 12:12:12 GMT -5
One of my favorite illustrations of the final assault on the Alamo is on the original dust jacket of Robert Penn Warren's "Remember the Alamo!" Created by the book's great illustrator, William Moyers, it depicts two buckskin-clad Americans in front of the "Army" façade of the church (one swinging a Kentucky rifle, the other with Bowie knife in hand) and a Mexican soldado (his shako-topped noggin about to suffer a crushing blow). Its a classic depiction of how most folks envision the Alamo's defenders: Anglo-Americans in buckskin breaches and jackets.
So I have a few questions:
Did any of the defenders actually wear buckskin?
Did any wear headgear vaguely resembling a coonskin cap?
If not, where did this idea come from? "Davy" Crockett by way of Nimrod Wildfire?
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Post by davidpenrod on Mar 28, 2013 0:10:50 GMT -5
Tman56, thank you for your splendid report. I hope your recovery is going well. These kinds of shocks to one's psyche can leave life-long scars. Just look at Jerry Lewis, for example.
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Post by davidpenrod on Mar 23, 2013 18:42:22 GMT -5
So, I'm having some friends over tonight and thought I'd sit down and relax before they arrived (in the middle of a Rocky Mountain snow storm) by watching some good ol' cable TV. I thought I might catch a good flick, like The Professionals with Lee Marvin and Burt Lancaster or The Scalphunters, again with Burt Lancaster. Instead, I see on the SyFy Channel that they are broadcasting a 2013 made for cable movie called Chupacabra vs the Alamo. I wont be able to watch this classic tonight but hope somebody on the forum will and then fill me later. I'd be interest in knowing some of its deeper nuances. For example, does Eric Estrada survive the chupacabra's final assault on the Alamo? Or does he go down fighting like Davy? And if he does, where does he make his final stand, in the church or in the Long Barracks? How many chupacabra does he kill, 70 or 1500? Since they are Mexican in origin, do the chupacabra wear shakos or sombreros? And finally, what do you think Adina de Zavala would think of this? Please let me know.
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Post by davidpenrod on Oct 28, 2012 10:02:01 GMT -5
Tom, I think the main problem is that SNHU is a private corporation. Will the Alamo be featured next in Chevy Truck commercials? I mean, if they're going to do it, why an online degree outfit? These types of certificates have an "aura" about them of illegitimacy - and many of them are scams.
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Post by davidpenrod on Oct 28, 2012 8:04:27 GMT -5
By the way, Southern New Hampshire University is NOT a public university, it is a private one. Its name implies that it is part of the New Hampshire land-grant university system. Also, the commercial is about SNHU's "online" degree program. The whole thing reeks of a scam.
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Post by davidpenrod on Oct 28, 2012 7:59:52 GMT -5
Yesterday, and again this morning, I saw a television commercial advertising the Southern New Hampshire University. The Church of the Alamo was featured prominently in this advert. One cut showed the DRT arcade on the northside of the Church from the inside. There are other shots of San Antonio, including the River Walk.
We've learned happily that the world famous Travis Letter is returning to the Alamo. But has that happy event been undercut by the Alamo's commercialization by the new administration? Or is this silly commercial a hangover from the last?
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Post by davidpenrod on Aug 22, 2012 1:06:57 GMT -5
I dont think there's any doubt about the role that Medina played in Texas history or of the rebellion's role in the subsequent Texas Revolution. José Antonio Navarro and Jose Francisco Ruiz, Tejano signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence, were active participants (i.e., rebels) in the Texas rebellion of 1813 and survivors of Arredondo's campaign of extermination.
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Post by davidpenrod on Aug 21, 2012 12:20:00 GMT -5
In fact Rich, although they had no talking roles and served only as background characters in John Wayne's version, Wayne included numerous Tejano defenders - too many in fact as there were more than actually served at the Alamo. I wish he had included atleast one of them in a talking role - Lasoya for example. What a story.
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