Title
The Alamo didn’t become a symbol of Texan Independence because it was a good idea on the Texan’s part. It became a symbol of Texan independence because a lot of brave men made a very, very rash decision. They decided to defend a point they knew they couldn’t defend to the last men. The brave Texan’s willingly laid down their lives to “fight the good fight.” There were three main heroes of the Battle of the Alamo.
William Barret Travis was born in Edgefield Co. S.C. He trained to become a lawyer and practice in Claiborne, Alabama. He came to Texas both to make his fortune and he supported the revolt against Texas (William Barret Travis). Santa Anna, the Mexican general, and dictator, who led the Mexican army against the Alamo, had already sent another general to do the job. This first general, Santa Anna’s brother-in-law, General Cos, had “ordered the arrest of several troublemakers, including William Barret Travis (Sorrels 31).” William Barret became the main reason the Alamo has so gripped people’s imaginations, both during the Texan independence and in the years that followed. As the battle continued he sent a string of captivating letters.
Jim Bowie was originally the commander of the garrison of the Alamo but he was bedridden following a fall he sustained while fortifying the Alamo. He was then laid in bed (Sorrels 59). Bowie was sent to the Alamo by Sam Houston to inspect the Alamo and decide weather or not to blow it up (Sorrels 34). Jim Bowie was a skilled outdoorsman who made his fortune trading slaves and smuggling goods. He and Travis shared the command of the Alamo until he became bed ridden (Landauro). Jim Bowie inspired both the men fighting their desperate last stand, and the Texans who would remember him...
... middle of paper ...
...t monuments constructed to the fallen there are these words, “Thermopylae had her messenger of defeat; the Alamo had none.”
After the Alamo, the Texan army grew in numbers and conviction. On April 19th, 1836, the Texans triumphed over the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacinto and forced General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the “Napoleon of the West,” to surrender his troops and return to Mexico (Hutton). Sam Houston, the commander in chief of the newly formed Republic of Texas rallied his troops with a stirring speech before the battle. He said, “Victory is certain! Trust in God and fear not! The victims of the Alamo and the names of those who were murdered at Goliad cry out for vengeance. Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad! (Sam Houston “Remember the Alamo”). With their victory, urged on by the memory of the Alamo, Texas gained its independence.
Paul Robert, Walker. Remember the Alamo. 1. 1. Washington, DC: National Geographic, Mc Graw Hill, 2007. 47. Print.
Ramos, Raul A. Beyond the Alamo: Forging Mexican Ethnicity in San Antonio, 1821-1861. The University of North Carolina Press. 2008.
Santa Anna was a marvelous war hero and even addressed himself as “the Napoleon of the West.” With this confidence and his experience as a leader and war hero, it was a surprise to everyone when he lost the Battle of San Jacinto against the Texicans. There were many factors at play leading to this loss. Had Santa Anna been smarter and more careful with his leadership and his war strategies, his loss could have been avoided; the battle all together could have even been avoided.
First, there are many strengths of the Alamo. One strength is the the Alamo had twenty-one cannons. The cannons helped strengthen the Texans' defenses. Another strength is that the surrounding wall was thick and tall. The wall was twelve feet tall and two to three feet thick. This helped the Texans because now it was harder for the Mexicans to climb over the wall. Lastly, the Texans had a determined attitude. William Barrett Travis once said, "Victory or death." This shows how determined the Texans were to win. To sum up, the Alamo had several strengths.
General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, a Mexican military general and statesman, brought a large Mexican force with him and began to enter the city of San Antonio. The few men left behind to defend the city retreated back to the Alamo, a fort near San Antonio. Their forces grew slightly when James Bowie, an American frontiersman, and William B. Travis, a soldier from South Carolina, brought in some reinforcements including David Crockett, a famous frontiersman and former congressman, into the Texan forces. These two men, William B. Travis and James Bowie, would eventually become co-commanders at the battle of the Alamo. The newly appointed commander-in-chief of the Texan army, Sam Houston, said that they should abandon San Antonio because of the insufficient troop numbers and firepower (www.History.com). James Bowie and William B. Travis decided to stay and fight against the enemies. They thought if they abandoned the city then the Mexican army would take over all of Texas. As Santa Anna and his men pressed on, the battle started to unfold. For thirteen, long days the few Texans held off Santa Anna’s army from taking over the city. Santa Anna had his men surround the Alamo and begin to attack. With each attempt to take over the Alamo the Texan fought off the invaders from taking over the fort. Santa Anna would order his men to move in for another attack, but with each attack he lost more men. During one of the attacks, William B.Travis declared, “I shall never surrender or retreat! I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor and that of his country- Victory or Death!” As Santa Anna ordered his remaining troops to attack one last time they breached the Alamo’s walls and began to fight with the Texans. The Texan soldiers began hand-to-hand combat with the Mexican army. Any type of weapon one could find was used, this included
In The Alamo, David Crockett’s fate is most questionable within this film. Accounts such as the account of Francisco Antonio Ruiz, the mayor of San Antonio at the time, and Susana Dickinson, wife of one of the slain Texans, both state that David Crockett was not captured and executed but died in battle. Accounts argue back and forth about Crockett’s fate, and since other movies depicted Crockett dying in battle and not being a prisoner of war and publically executed, this sparked major controversy between multiple
Santa Anna’s army moved forward into Texas during the winter, unexpected by the Texans who were ill prepared to face the Mexican Army at that time. Around 182 men decided to stay at the Alamo fortress to delay the Mexican Armies advance into the Texan’s soil. James “Jim” Bowie, William Barret “Buck” Travis, and Davy Crockett were among the most famous and influential individuals at the Alamo. Jim Bowie and Buck Travis assumed co-command of the men while Davy Crockett wanted to be considered as a “high” private. “The Mexican Army regarded these men as foreigners, but the colonis...
Mendoza, Alexander, and Charles David Grear. Texans and War New Interpretations of the State's Military History.. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2012.
...is own. In an overall assessment of this book, Martin comes to the conclusion that “Campbell has succeeded in providing a thoughtful, very readable, and eminently useful survey of a fluid, exciting, and fascinating period of United States and Texas history through the lens of the life of the greatest Texas hero of them all” showing that Martin as well as Campbell seemed to be very fascinated by the heroism of Sam Houston (The Journal of Southern History, 60, November 1994, 796).
Leading up to the treaties however was the Battle of Jacinto where two phrases were coined by Sam Houston, the leader of Texan army. The phrases “Remember Goliad!” and “Remember the Alamo!” referred
The actual time of the battle was short, its events often vague or at least varied depending on the narrator’s perspective, and the arena for the battle was that of a Roman-Catholic mission. For the Mexican people, the Alamo would eventually lead, though perhaps not directly, to the severe reduction of their country’s lands and open the door to the Mexican-American War. For the Americans, the epic tale of the Alamo’s events would forge myths, convert men into legends, and serve as t...
After leaving his second wife and his life among the Indians Samuel Houston went to Texas in 1832 to begin the most crucial part of his career as a public servant. In Texas he soon became involve in the Texans politics of rebellion, he was a delegate from Nacogdoches at the Convention of 1833 in San Felipe, in there he took sides with the radicals lead by William H. Wharton. In November 1835, he was appointed for major general of the Texas army. He was commissioned alone with John Forbes by the provisional government to negotiate a treaty with the Cherokee Indians in East Texas, establishing peace on that front. On March 2, while serving as a delegate from Refugio to the convention at Washington on the Brazos, was when the Texas Declaration of Independence was promulgated. In addition, Sam Houston received the appointment of major general of the army, becoming the leader organizer of the republic of Texas’s military forces. In his first battle against Mexico General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna made him taste his first Texan defeat defeated. The battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836 would get him revenge and he would become forever enshrined as a member of the pantheon of Texas heroes and a symbol for the age. With the defeat to Santa Ana, the treaty of Velasco was signed and Texas was finally recognized as an Independent Republic, the war with Mexico was over.
A Texan, William B. Travis and a small group of Texans attacked a squad of Mexican troops in Anahuac with the motive that “taxes should not thus be collected from them to support a standing army in their own country” (SOS 1) and soon drove them back. Travis retreated to San Felipe and were assisted to Bexar. Skirmishes and the threat of war with Mexico soon followed.
The Texas Revolution is one of the biggest events that contributed to the founding of this country. Texas’s fight for independence from the Mexican government was very beneficial to the young and growing United States. The effects of this war play a crucial role in how this country came to be
On his twentieth birthday Sam Houston enlisted in the regular army as a private. Within the year, he was promoted to Third Lieutenant to the 39th Infantry Regiment where Houston was badly wounded twice at The Battle of Horseshoe Bend during the War of 1812. The battle took place on the Tallapoosa River near present-day Alexander City, Alabama. His courage in combat caught the attention of General Andrew Jackson who promoted him to Second Lieutenant. In 1816 Houston was named an Indian sub-agent in Tennessee and soon after was promoted to First Lieutenant. Houston led a delegation of Cherokees to Washington, D.C. to meet with Secretary of War John C. Calhoun and President James Monroe. While there...