Legacy of the Battle of the Alamo

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~ The Alamo ~
Texas Centennial Issue of 1936
Reverse side of the seal of Texas, featuring the "Remember the Alamo" battle cry as well the Alamo mission itself

The Battle of the Alamo left a substantial legacy and influence within American culture and is an event that is told from the perspective of the vanquished.

Perception

Within weeks of the battle, it began to be compared to the Greek stand at the Battle of Thermopylae.[1]

Efforts to preserve the Alamo have largely been an Anglo-American cause. The first major calls to restore parts of the Alamo occurred after 1860, as English-speaking settlers began to outnumber those of Mexican heritage.[2] Likewise, according to Schoelwer, within "the development of Alamo imagery has been an almost exclusively American endeavor" that focuses on the Texian defenders, with less emphasis given to the Mexican Army or the Tejano soldiers who served in the Texian Army.[3] Many Tejanos viewed the Alamo as more than just a battle site, but they or their ancestors had experienced the benefits of the Alamo compound when it served as a mission, a hospital, or a military post. Americans had arrived in Texas much later, when the Alamo no longer served in those roles, and they tended to see the compound solely in relation to the battle.[4]

According to the author Richard R. Flores, in the early 20th century, the Alamo was perceived by many in the majority white population of Texas as a symbol of white supremacy over the minority Mexican population. That symbolism followed the late-19th-century and the early-20th-century development of a new capitalist system in Texas that placed whites at the top of the social ladder as profit-earners and Mexicans at the bottom of the social ladder as wage-earners.[5]

In Mexico, perceptions of the battle have often mirrored those of Santa Anna.

Siege of Bexar if he no longer took up arms against Texians.[10]

On April 27, 1836, Mexican Secretary of War José María Tornel announced that Mexican soldiers who participated in the campaign to retake Texas would be eligible to receive a special medal. To commemorate the Battle of the Alamo, the establishment date for the program was retroactively set to March 6, 1836. Within weeks, however, the Mexican government learned of Santa Anna's defeat and capture at the Battle of San Jacinto and so the medal program was immediately cancelled.[11] The Texas campaign, including the Battle of the Alamo, was soon overshadowed by the Mexican–American War of the 1840s.[6]

In the 1960s, the battle was often used as a historical parallel to the

State of Texas to buy the long barracks, often compared the war to the Alamo. He remarked once that his decision to send more troops to Southeast Asia was "Just like the Alamo, somebody damn well needed to go to their aid."[12] Those and other similar remarks prompted a strong anti-Alamo backlash in the United States. The New York Times editorialized, "If Americans must remember the Alamo, let's remember that gallant men died needlessly in that old mission and that their sacrifice led eventually to a war that reflects little credit on the United States.... To persevere in folly is no virtue. To dare to retreat from error can be the highest form of courage."[13] In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, numerous anti-war protests were held on the grounds of the Alamo.[13]

A program on the Craft of Writing: Rewriting History on

Jim Crow era. It was canceled four hours before the program time by Republican Lieutenant-Governor Dan Patrick: “As a member of the Preservation Board, I told staff to cancel this event as soon as I found out about it,” he wrote on Twitter. ”This fact-free rewriting of TX history has no place @BullockMuseum.” The book received mostly-positive reviews, including from The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, with a consensus that it builds on widely-accepted academic research.[17] The third author, Jason Stanford, wrote one of the myths about the Alamo "leaves... out that Texians opposed Mexican laws that would free the enslaved workers they needed to farm cotton."[18] That censorship is occurring when Texas conservatives, like those across the country, are against the teaching of critical race theory which the book represents.[19]

Alamo Mission

Main article:
Alamo Mission in San Antonio
An artist's conception of how the Alamo was used during its years as a Spanish mission
Memorial to the fallen soldiers at the Alamo

After the Mexican victory at the Battle of the Alamo, Mexican troops quartered in the Alamo Mission. As the Mexican army retreated from Texas following the Battle of San Jacinto, it tore down many of the walls and burned the palisade that Crockett had defended. Within the next several decades, various buildings in the complex were torn down, and in 1850, the United States Army added a gable to the top of the chapel.[20] Speculation is that the gable was originally at Mission San José because of its presence at that mission in 1846–1848 sketches and its absence in later images.[21]

Today, the remnants of the Alamo are in Downtown San Antonio, Texas. The church building remains standing and serves as an official state shrine to the Texian defenders.[22] As the 20th century began, many Texans advocated razing the remaining building, the Long Barrack. A wealthy rancher's daughter, Clara Driscoll, purchased the building to serve as a museum. The Texas Legislature later bought the property and appointed the Daughters of the Republic of Texas as permanent caretakers.[23] In front of the church, in the center of Downtown San Antonio's Alamo Plaza, is a cenotaph, designed by Pompeo Coppini and erected in 1939, which commemorates the Texians who died during the battle.[24] According to Bill Groneman's Battlefields of Texas, the Alamo has become "the most popular tourist site in Texas."[22]

Literature

John Henry Brown wrote the first history of the battle, which was published in 1843.

Many of the Mexican officers who participated in the battle left memoirs, although some were not written until decades after the battle. Among those who provided written accounts of the battle were

Susannah Dickinson, the only American adult to live. The other survivors, including former slaves and several Tejanos, were not lauded as much as Dickinson.[28]

The first report of the names of the Texian victims of the battle came in the March 24, 1836 issue of the

dissertation, "Critical Study of the Siege of the Alamo and of the Personnel of Its Defenders". Completed in 1931, it attempted to positively identify all of the Texians who died during the battle. Her list was used to choose the names carved into the cenotaph memorial in 1936.[31] Several historians, including Thomas Ricks Lindley, Thomas Lloyd Miller, and Richard G. Santos, believe her list included men who had not died at the Alamo.[32] Despite the errors in some of her work, Williams collected a large amount of information and her work serves as a starting point for many historians.[33] The first full-length, non-fiction book covering the battle was not published until 1948, when John Myers Myers' The Alamo was released.[34] Since then, a litany of books have followed, most notably Walter Lord
's seminal work in 1961, A Time to Stand.

As the 19th century progressed, the battle began to appear as a plot device in many novels and plays.

Amelia Barr produced her own fictional version, Remember the Alamo, in 1888. In her book, Alamo Images, Susan Pendergrast Schoelwer noted that in these early novels "the Alamo passages seem almost incidental to the main plot, included perhaps as a means of attracting interest and encouraging sales".[36]

Art

The first artistic depiction of the battle came in 1838 in John Milton Niles's History of South America and Mexico. In Schoelwer's opinion, the scenes "bore absolutely no resemblance to the original".[36] These and other early paintings often depicted buildings that looked nothing like the Alamo and battles that occurred very differently than the 1836 battle at the Alamo. However, their presence and popularity increased the Alamo's fame, and likely contributed to the early waves of tourism at the battle site.[37]

Film

This replica of the Alamo, at Alamo Village, was built for the 1960 John Wayne film The Alamo.

According to Todish et al., "there can be little doubt that most Americans have probably formed many of their opinions on what occurred at the Alamo not from books, but from the various movies made about the battle."

J. Frank Dobie and Lon Tinkle demanded for their names to be removed from the credits as historical advisors.[40] The movie was banned in Mexico.[41] The set built for the movie, Alamo Village, includes a replica of the Alamo Mission and the Mexican city of San Antonio is still used as an active movie set.[40]

As the 150th anniversary of the battle approached in the 1980s, several additional movies were made about the Alamo, including the made-for-television The Alamo: 13 Days to Glory, which Albert Nof regards as the most historically-accurate of all Alamo films.[39] The movie Todish calls "the best theatrical film ever made about the Alamo" was also filmed in the 1980s.[42] Filmed in IMAX format using historical re-enactors instead of professional actors, Alamo: The Price of Freedom is shown only in San Antonio, with several viewings per day at a theater near the Alamo.[42] It runs only 45 minutes[42] but has "an attention to detail and intensity that are remarkable".[43] In 2004 another film, also called The Alamo, was released. Described by CNN as possibly "the most character-driven of all the movies made on the subject," the movie starred Billy Bob Thornton as Crockett, Dennis Quaid as Sam Houston, and Jason Patric as Bowie. However, the film was one of the year's biggest box office failures.[44] In Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Pee-wee Herman's stolen bike is said by a fortune teller to be in the basement of the Alamo, but during a tour of the structure, he is told by the tour guide that the Alamo has no basement.

Music

A number of songwriters have also been inspired by the Battle of the Alamo. For example:

Replicas

Replicas of the Alamo have also appeared. One is that a 6,533 sq.ft residential home located in Spicewood just northwest of Austin. Built in 2007 and with an estimated value of $1.35 million. Rustic on the outside, it is far more luxurious on the interior than the real Alamo.[48]

Replica of the Alamo located on the grounds of the Cy-Hope Counseling in Cypress.

Another replica of the historic mission is located on the grounds of the Cy-Hope foundation in Cypress. Built by Kwik Kopy owner and founder 'bud" Hadfield on the Kwik Kopy Northwest Forest Conference Training Center on Telge Road. The complex itself serves as a wedding reception and banquet hall with a seating apacity of 180. In mid 2020, the Cypress Alamo had suffered a decline in visits because of the COVID-19 pandemic.[49]

Footnotes

  1. ^ Glaser (1985), p. 61.
  2. ^ Schoelwer (1985), p. 52.
  3. ^ Schoelwer (1985), p. 56.
  4. ^ Schoelwer (1985), p. 18.
  5. ^ Flores, Richard R. Remembering the Alamo (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002)
  6. ^ a b Glaser (1985), p. 98.
  7. ^ Costeloe (1988), p. 537.
  8. ^ Costeloe (1988), p. 536.
  9. ^ Costeloe (1988), p. 538.
  10. ^ Costeloe (1988), pp. 539–40.
  11. ^ Glaser (1985), p. 102.
  12. ^ Schoelwer (1985), p. 166.
  13. ^ a b Schoelwer (1985), p. 168.
  14. ISBN 9781984880093
    .
  15. ^ "WLT On the Craft of Writing: ReWriting History". Writers' League of Texas. July 1, 2021. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
  16. ^ "Explore the craft of writing with Forget the Alamo authors". Bullock Texas State History Museum. June 24, 2021. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
  17. ^ Livingston, Abby; Zou, Isabella (July 2, 2021). "State museum canceled book event examining slavery's role in Battle of the Alamo after Texas GOP leaders complained, authors say". The Texas Tribune. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
  18. ^ Stanford, Jason (July 5, 2021). "Opinion: Texas Republicans rush to guard the Alamo from the facts". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
  19. ^ Murphy, Tim (July 2, 2021). "Texas Lt. Gov. Says State History Museum No Place for History". Mother Jones. Retrieved July 5, 2021.
  20. ^ Todish et al. (1998), p. 198.
  21. ^ George Nelson, The Alamo: An Illustrated History. Uvalde, Texas: Aldine Books, 1998, pages 74–78.
  22. ^ a b Groneman (1998), p. 52.
  23. ^ Todish et al. (1998), p. 199.
  24. ^ Groneman (1998), p. 56.
  25. ^ a b Nofi (1992), p. 211.
  26. ^ Nofi (1992), p. 212.
  27. ^ Lindley (2003), p. 115.
  28. ^ Schoelwer (1985), p. 117.
  29. ^ Chariton (1990), p. 180.
  30. ^ a b Lindley (2003), p. 106.
  31. ^ Lindley (2003), p. 37.
  32. ^ Lindley (2003), p. 41.
  33. ^ Lindley (2008), p. 68.
  34. ^ Cox, Mike (March 6, 1998), "Last of the Alamo big books rests with 'A Time to Stand'", The Austin-American Statesman
  35. ^ Nona, Francis (1879). The fall of the Alamo; an historical drama in four acts; concluded by an epilogue entitled, the battle of San Jacinto. New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons. Retrieved September 28, 2014.
  36. ^ a b Schoelwer (1985), p. 41.
  37. ^ Schoelwer (1985), p. 43.
  38. ^ Todish et al. (1998), p. 187.
  39. ^ a b Nofi (1992), p. 213.
  40. ^ a b c Todish et al. (1998), p. 188.
  41. ^ Graham (1985), p. 59.
  42. ^ a b c Todish et al. (1998), p. 190.
  43. ^ Todish et al. (1998), p. 191.
  44. ^ Culpepper, Andy (April 8, 2004), A different take on 'The Alamo', CNN, retrieved May 22, 2008
  45. ^ Jane Bowers' obituary
  46. ^ Todish et al. (1998), p. 194.
  47. ^ Todish et al. (1998), p. 196.
  48. ^ "History buffs will love this Alamo inspired home". www.chron.com. January 17, 2014.
  49. ^ "Cy-Hope Alamo". thecypressalamo.net. September 26, 2020.

References

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