Remember the Alamo:
And the Overthrow of Tejas
An Illustrated Brief/Draft
By Eddie Martinez
August 27. 2022
The call, Remember the Alamo, as well as, Remember the Maine, Remember Pearl Harbor, etc., has been a call to war by the United States that was sometimes warranted and sometimes not.
I remember after my two years in the Air Force, where I was stationed in San Antonio and Houston; I chose to return to San Antonio after seeing John Wayne’s version in his 1960’s movie “The Alamo.” Being a history buff and having a pretty good understanding of that history, I wanted to further my research to discover what was really true and what was fiction in the motion pictures and historical books publication under the heading, The Battle of the Alamo.
On my return, I visited the Alamo Long Barrack Museum where I bought a book by the same name complied by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. My takeaway from that visit and that book was that David Crockett was among the most famous hero’s, in defending the Alamos from General Santa Anna’s siege by his depiction in the museums and the large painting of Davy Crockett dying as he swung his “Old Betsy” at the attacking Mexican troops defending the Alamo.
The next place I elected to visit is the University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio. There I had an opportunity to be exposed to the Tejano point-of-view on Alamo history. There I purchased a couple of softback books titled: “Los Tejanos Mexicanos” and “The Mexican Texans,” and a hardback, “Stories for Young Readers: Our Mexican Ancestors, Volume One.”
Since then, I have returned to San Antonio several times to enjoy its beautiful “River Walk” culture as well as doing additional research on the Alamo subject. Among the books I purchased that were found to be beneficial to my studies on San Antonio/Alamo history are: “Eyewitness to the Alamo” by Bill Groneman; “A Time To Stand: A Chronicle of the Valiant Battle at the Alamo” by Water Lord; “José Antonio Navarro: In Search of the American Dream in Nineteenth-Century Texas” by David McDonald; “The Alamo Remembered: Tejano accounts and Perspectives” by Timothy M. Matovina, among my other collection.
The one book that I found to be the most compelling on the subject was published by Texas A&M University Press, College Station, titled, “With Santa Anna in Texas: A Personal Narrative of the Revolution, Expanded Edition” by José Enrique de la Peña, and Translated to English and also Edited by Carmen Berry.
In the Introduction of this book, James E. Crisp writes on page xii, “, also by the Texas A&M University Press, of How Did Davy Die? By Dan Kilgore Perry and Kilgore endured a storm of protest and ridicule from those who found unthinkable de la Peña’s assertion that David Crockett and other defenders of the Alamo had survived that mythic battle, only to be captured and immediately executed on the direct orders of Santa Anna.” It’s quite an informative read.
My take on the Battle of the Alamo, that I presented to the National Archives in Washington D.C., on October 12, 2005 on behalf of Somos Primos, an online publication by owner and editor, Mimi Lozano, Orange County, CA.
The Alamo Story by artist Eddie Martinez, to be continued . . .