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Alamo Sourcebook, 1836: A Comprehensive Guide to the Alamo and the Texas Revolution
Few historical events are as widely known as the Siege and Battle of the Alamo. This is true not only in the United States, but also throughout much of the rest of the world. The idea of a small band of men choosing to fight and die, in the face of overwhelming odds, for the cause of liberty, has wide appeal. "Alamo Sourcebook 1836" covers all facets of one of the greatest battles known to mankind. This book covers the Siege and the Final Battle. It offers insight into the opposing armies, the weapons, uniforms and equipment. It provides biographical information on the leaders of both sides. It names the men that died and the aftermaths of the battle. But the story and legend of the Alamo did not end on March 6, 1836. It lives on in books, movies, television shows, music and lore. This book covers it all and then some.
The Blood of Noble Men: The Alamo Siege and Battle
Texas military historian Huffines assembles extracts from letters and other primary, or at least contemporary, sources to detail the activities and thoughts of the defending Texans and attacking Mexicans during the fatal 13 days in February and March 1836 that have become part of US mythology. Gary
Contested Empire: Rethinking the Texas Revolution
To a large degree, the story of Texas' secession from Mexico has been undertaken by scholars of the state. Early twentieth century historians of the revolutionary period, most notably Eugene Barker and William Binkley, characterized the conflict as a clash of two opposing cultures, yet their exclusive focus on the region served to reinforce popular notions of a unique Texas past. Disconnected from a broader historiography, scholars have been left to ponder the most arcane details of the revolutionary narrative--such as the circumstances of David Crockett's death and whether William Barret Travis really did draw a line in the sand. In Contested Empire: Rethinking the Texas Revolution, five distinguished scholars take a broader, transnational approach to the 1835-36 conflict. The result of the 48th Annual Walter Prescott Webb Memorial Lectures, held at the University of Texas at Arlington in March, 2013, these essays explore the origins and consequences of the events that gave birth to the Texas Republic in ways that extend beyond the borders of the Lone Star State.
Inside the Texas Revolution
Herman Ehrenberg wrote the longest, most complete, and most vivid memoir of any soldier in the Texan revolutionary army. His narrative was published in Germany in 1843, but it was little used by Texas historians until the twentieth century, when the first—and very problematic—attempts at translation into English were made. Inside the Texas Revolution: The Enigmatic Memoir of Herman Ehrenberg is a product of the translation skills of the late Louis E. Brister with the assistance of James C. Kearney, both noted specialists on Germans in Texas. The volume’s editor, James E. Crisp, has spent much of the last 27 years solving many of the mysteries that still surrounded Ehrenberg’s life. It was Crisp who discovered that Ehrenberg lived in the Texas Republic until at least 1840, and spent the spring of that year as ranger on the frontier. Ehrenberg was not a historian, but an ordinary citizen whose narrative of the Texas Revolution contains both spectacular eyewitness accounts of action and almost mythologized versions of major events that he did not witness himself. This volume points out where Ehrenberg is lying or embellishing, explains why he is doing so, and narrates the actual relevant facts as far as they can be determined. Ehrenberg’s book is both a testament by a young Texan “everyman” who presents a laudatory paean to the Texan cause, and a German’s explanation of Texas and its “fight for freedom” against Mexico to his fellow Germans—with a powerful subtext that patriotic Germans should aspire to a similar struggle, and a similar outcome: a free, democratic republic.
Matamoros and the Texas Revolution
The traditional story of the Texas Revolution remembers the Alamo and Goliad but has forgotten Matamoros, the strategic Mexican port city on the turbulent lower Rio Grande. In this provocative book, Craig Roell restores the centrality of Matamoros by showing the genuine economic, geographic, social, and military value of the city to Mexican and Texas history. Given that Matamoros served the Mexican states of Tamaulipas, Coahuila and Texas, Nuevo León, San Luis Potosi, Zacatecas, Chihuahua, and Durango, the city's strategic location and considerable trade revenues were crucial. Roell provides a refreshing reinterpretation of the revolutionary conflict in Texas from a Mexican point of view, essentially turning the traditional story on its head. Readers will learn how Matamoros figured in the Mexican government's grand designs not only for national prosperity, but also to preserve Texas from threatened American encroachment. Ironically, Matamoros became closely linked to the United States through trade, and foreign intriguers who sought to detach Texas from Mexico found a home in the city. Roell's account culminates in the controversial Texan Matamoros expedition, which was composed mostly of American volunteers and paralyzed the Texas provisional government, divided military leaders, and helped lead to the tragic defeats at the Alamo, San Patricio, Agua Dulce Creek, Refugio, and Coleto (Goliad). Indeed, Sam Houston denounced the expedition as "the author of all our misfortunes." In stark contrast, the brilliant and triumphant Matamoros campaign of Mexican General José de Urrea united his countrymen, defeated these revolutionaries, and occupied the coastal plain from Matamoros to Brazoria. Urrea's victory ensured that Matamoros would remain a part of Mexico, but Matamorenses also fought to preserve their own freedom from the centralizing policies of Mexican President Santa Anna, showing the streak of independence that characterizes Mexico's northern borderlands to this day.
Women and the Texas Revolution
Winner of the Liz Carpenter Award for Research in the History of Women, Texas State Historical Association Historically, wars and revolutions have offered politically and socially disadvantaged people the opportunity to contribute to the nation (or cause) in exchange for future expanded rights. Although shorter than most conflicts, the Texas Revolution nonetheless profoundly affected not only the leaders and armies, but the survivors, especially women, who endured those tumultuous events and whose lives were altered by the accompanying political, social, and economic changes. While there is wide scholarship on the Texas Revolution, there is no comparable volume on the role of women during that conflict. Most of the many works on the Texas Revolution include women briefly in the narrative, such as Emily Austin, Susanna Dickinson, and Emily Morgan West (the Yellow Rose), but not as principal participants. Women and the Texas Revolution explores these women in much more depth, in addition to covering the women and children who fled Santa Anna's troops in the Runaway Scrape, and examining the roles and issues facing Native American, black, and Hispanic women of the time. Like the American Revolution, women's experiences in the Texas Revolution varied tremendously by class, religion, race, and region. While the majority of immigrants who crossed the Sabine and Red rivers into Texas in the 1820s and 1830s were men, many were women who accompanied their husbands and families or, in some instances, braved the dangers and the hardships of the frontier alone. Black and Hispanic women were also present in Mexican Texas. Most black women came as chattel property (or free blacks) and most Tejanas were already living in predominantly Spanish or Mexican communities. The Native American female population, a sizeable but declining segment of the population, was also in the region, inhabiting the prairies and plains, but rarely counted in the various censuses at the time. Whether Mexican loyalist or Texas patriot, elite planter or subsistence farm wife, slaveholder or slave, Anglo or black, women helped settle the Texas frontier and experienced the uncertainty, hardships, successes, and sorrows of the Texas Revolution. By placing women at the center of the Texas Revolution, this volume reframes the historical narrative and asks different questions: What were the social relations between the sexes at the time of the Texas Revolution? Did women participate in the war effort? Did the events of 1836 affect Anglo, black, Hispanic, and Native American women differently? What changes occurred in women's lives as a result of the revolution? Did the revolution liberate women to any degree from their traditional domestic sphere and threaten the established patriarchy? In brief, was the Texas Revolution "revolutionary" for women?
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The Alamo
Although The Alamo fell in the early morning of March 6, 1836, the death of the Alamo defenders has come to symbolize courage and sacrifice for the cause of liberty. The memories of James Bowie, Davy Crockett, and William B. Travis are as powerful today as when the Texan Army routed Santa Anna to the cry Remember the Alamo This book is more than a tribute to those who fell defending the mission. It is a thoroughly researched, vividly illustrated, objective description of the circumstances building up to and leading from that stand. By using contemporary writings, this history describes the political and military organizations of both sides, the weapons and equipment available to them, and the enduringly famous personalities involved, creating a vivid picture of this dramatic battle and the period in which it was fought.
The Alamo: A Cultural History
After two short weeks under siege, the climactic battle of the Alamo lasted under an hour, but its aftermath spawned a legend. The Alamo explores the transformation of the fort from its 1718 inception as a Franciscan mission to its current status as a tourist attraction, historical monument, and international symbol of freedom.
Eighteen Minutes: The Battle of San Jacinto and the Texas Independence Campaign
The book follows General Sam Houston as he takes command of the Texas Volunteers to lead them to victory six weeks after the fall of the Alamo.
Encyclopedia of the Alamo and the Texas Revolution
Much of the true story of the Alamo has been shrouded in myth for 150 years. This comprehensive encyclopedia provides thorough entries for the people, places and events of the Texan Revolution, using both American and Mexican resources.'
Eyewitness to the Alamo
Eyewitness to the Alamo is an actual account of the siege and Battle of the Alamo by those who were present during the attack. Fifty people are believed to have witnessed all or part of one of the most legendary events in Texas and U.S. history. Did Travis draw his famous line? Was Crockett executed or did he die fighting? Did Bowie tight from his sickbed? Some eyewitnesses claimed to know the true story behind the myths, but were all of these witnesses credible? The origins of and answers to these questions can be found in Eyewitness to the Alamo, the first complete accounting of the Battle of the Alamo by one of the country's foremost authorities on the event.
Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth
Every nation needs a creation myth, and Texas's myths bite deep. In the past forty-some years, waves of revisionists have come at this topic, and at times have made real progress toward a more nuanced and inclusive story that doesn't alienate anyone. The fight over the Alamo's meaning has become more pitched than ever in the past few years, even violent, as Texas's future begins to look more and more different from its past. It's the perfect time for a wise and generous-spirited book that shines the bright light of the truth into a place that's gotten awfully dark.
Lone Star Nation: How a Ragged Army of Volunteers Won the Battle for Texas Independence, and Changed America
From bestselling historian and long-time Texan H. W. Brands, a richly textured history of one of the most fascinating and colorful eras in U.S. history--the Texas Revolution and the forging of a new America. "For better or for worse, Texas was very much like America. The people ruled, and little could stop them. If they ignored national boundaries, if they trampled the rights of indigenous peoples and of imported bondsmen, if they waged war for motives that started from base self-interest, all this came with the territory of democracy, a realm inhabited by ordinarily imperfect men and women. The one saving grace of democracy--the one that made all the difference in the end--was that sooner or later, sometimes after a terrible strife, democracy corrected its worst mistakes." --from Lone Star Nation Lone Star Nation is the gripping story of Texas's precarious journey to statehood, from its early colonization in the 1820s to the shocking massacres of Texas loyalists at the Alamo and Goliad by the Mexican army, from its rough-and-tumble years as a land overrun by the Comanches to its day of liberation as an upstart republic. H. W. Brands tells the turbulent story of Texas through the eyes of a colorful cast of characters who have become a permanent fixture in the American landscape: Stephen Austin, the state's reluctant founder; Sam Houston, the alcoholic former governor who came to lead the Texas army in its hour of crisis and glory; William Travis, James Bowie, and David Crockett, the unforgettable heroic defenders of the doomed Alamo; Santa Anna, the Mexican generalissimo and dictator whose ruthless tactics galvanized the colonists against him; and the white-haired President Andrew Jackson whose expansionist aspirations loomed large in the background. Beyond these luminaries, Brands unearths the untold stories of the forgotten Texans--the slaves, women, unknown settlers, and children left out of traditional histories--who played crucial roles in Texas's birth. By turns bloody and heroic, tragic and triumphant, this riveting history of one of our greatest states reads like the most compelling fiction, and further secures H. W. Brands's position as one of the premier American historians.
Lone Star Navy: Texas, The Fight for the Gulf of Mexico, and The Shaping of the American West
**WINNER OF THE 2007 UNITED STATES MARITIME LITERATURE AWARD** In the 1830s, Mexico endured a tragic era of internal political instability. Meanwhile, bold American frontiersmen sought their fortunes beyond the borders of the United States, with many settling in the Mexican territory of Texas. In 1835, these transplanted Americans led a revolt against Texas's embattled rulers in Mexico City. Lone Star Navy chronicles the little fleet of wooden warships, bought on credit by an impoverished band of revolutionaries and sent to sea on a singular mission: to win Texas's independence from Mexico. Beginning with four small sailing vessels, the upstart flotilla became a vital counterpart to Texan armies fighting for an independent republic. Indeed, Capt. Jeremiah Brown's naval battle off Matamoros in April 1836 helped save the fledgling republic from a premature end. But even as it battled for independence on the Gulf of Mexico, the Texas navy came under attack from unexpected enemies. The same fierce individuality that led Texans to shake off their Mexican rulers also stymied their efforts to govern themselves with any consensus. Lauded by its advocates as strategically vital and ridiculed by its detractors as a farcical waste of money, the navy became a flashpoint in a clash of visions. Denied adequate funding, sailors and officers suffered long periods without pay, and their vessels fell into chronic disrepair, but they still defended their small nation's fortunes. The decrepit remains of the battle-scarred fleet finally fell into American hands when Texas, in need of a strong ally, was annexed by the United States in 1845. The Mexican government prophesied that relinquishing Texas would lead to the loss of its other northern territories. And, indeed, the Mexican War and the U.S. acquisition of New Mexico, Arizona, California, and parts of Utah, Colorado, and Nevada soon followed.
Lone Star Rising: The Revolutionary Birth of the Texas Republic
Focuses on the individuals who played pivotal roles in the establishment of the Republic of Texas, describing the contributions of such figures as Sam Houston, Stephen Austin, and Juan Seguin.
Rise of the Lone Star: The Making of Texas
Patriotic Texans have long sung the praises of their "revolutionary heroes," such as Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston. Some historians have even contributed their own encomiums, while others have cast a less romantic gaze upon Texas' past. But a complete, scholarly analysis of the persons, politics, and events that created the Republic of Texas was not among the material on Texas' so-called revolution that has been published in the last century. Andreas V. Reichstein offers this volume to fill that gap in the literature. From the perspective of a non-native, he has analyzed modern and contemporary writings on Texas' war of independence and explored the role that Freemasonry, land speculation, and the idea of "Manifest Destiny" played in the transformation of Texas from Mexican province to independent republic and to state of the Union in quick succession. From the 1821 declaration of Mexico's independence and that of Texas in 1836, Reichstein describes the historical contexts of the deals made between governments and private citizens, to parcel out the land of Texas. Rather than following the lead of previous historians, he refutes some of their theories about the reasons for the war and the motives of its supporters. Although Reichstein's research might be considered iconoclastic by some, the old image of, for example, Stephen F. Austin as a modest, isolated, and altruistic founding father is less in keeping with the image of the modern Texas hero. Reichstein removes the heavy mantle of myth to reveal Austin as a shrewd, networking entrepreneur. Extensive research into collections of manuscripts and papers brought to light the privately expressed motives of those Protestant Americans who settled in the Catholic, Mexican province of Texas and then made it their own. Assiduously documented, this volume brings the creation of the nation and the state of Texas onto the stage of world history.
Sacrificed at the Alamo: Tragedy and Triumph in the Texas Revolution
The Battle of the Alamo is one of the most compelling stories from American history. Students of the battle often wonder why William B. Travis and his small garrison were left alone to meet their fate at the hands of General Santa Anna. Author Richard B. Winders, the historian and curator at the Alamo, examines events that led to this epic struggle and concludes that in-fighting among the revolutionary leadership doomed the Alamo garrison. The Texan victories of 1835 created discord among rebel leaders as various factions strove to direct the revolution to meet their own specific goals. That bickering resulted in an almost total breakdown of Texan military forces as individual commands were swept into the political battle. The democratic fervor of the 1830s worked against building a cohesive Texan Army and was largely responsible for the twin tragedies of the Alamo and Goliad. Informative and provocative, Sacrificed at the Alamo will appeal to general readers as well as students of the classic battle and its important place in Texas history.
Sam Houston and the Alamo Avengers
In March 1836, the Mexican army led by General Santa Anna massacred about 200-250 Texans who had been trapped in a church in San Antonio for thirteen days. The devastating loss galvanised the surviving Texans. Under General Sam Houston, a maverick with a rocky past, the tiny army of settlers rallied. Just one month after the massacre, the underdog Texans soundly defeated the 'Napoleon of the West' (as Santa Anna styled himself) at the Battle of San Jacinto. Thanks to Kilmeade's storytelling, a new generation of readers will remember the Alamo.
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