Like James Bowie, Sarah McClure was born in Kentucky (where she grew up) and died in Texas. Unlike Dilue Rose, however, Sarah was no longer a child but already a young married woman of 25 when she and her family experienced the Texas Revolution. The eventual breadth of her name — Sarah Ann Ashby McClure Braches — seems a very real kind of measure of her well-documented courage and deeds during that era. It was at her home — which still stands, near Gonzales, Texas — that Sam Houston first learned of the fall of the Alamo. The current structure on that site dates only from 1843.

She was the eldest of several children. Pointing up the difficulties faced by the researcher is that some sources say there were seven children in her family, others say nine, and yet others say twelve. The “six of one, half a dozen of the other” discrepancy can cause confusion, and seeking an answer to the same question from ten different scholars or other resources can net twelve different findings, it would appear.

Sarah came from Kentucky to Texas early in 1830 with her parents, John Miller Ashby and Mary Ashby, and her own husband, Judge Bartlett (Bartholomew) Dupree McClure, six years her senior, whom she had married two years earlier. The families settled at a site called Peach Creek, east of Gonzales, a town which played an important role in the Texas Revolution.

When her father died in 1839, the responsibility of both caring for her younger siblings and of administering her father’s estate fell to her. Even in later years, her youngest sister, Euphemia Ashby King, remembered Sarah’s counsel that they live their lives guided by morals, principle, and courage, with reminders of the motto of the Ashby family: “Be just and fear not.”

Three boys and a girl were born to Sarah and Bartlett, all of whom she outlived: her daughter died in infancy, and two of her boys are believed to have perished in the Runaway Scrape. She was widowed in 1841 and her son, Joel, a bachelor, died in 1870. Despite the occasional clear horizons and later-life bright days that brought some delight to her, clearly her existence was bestrewn with some difficulties, obstacles and personal tragedies that would have overwhelmed lesser women. Learning can be easier in our youth when our habits are still being formed, and that Sarah McClure was already an adult with her personal ways already established when she assumed a “Texas pioneer” life is a testament to her worth as a woman of great personal strength.

It was at the home of Sarah and Bartlett McClure that Gen. Houston stopped when he and his troops left the town of Gonzales on their retreat in March, 1836. More than two dozen women, many of whose husbands were away fighting in a town called San Antonio de Bexar, were fleeing the advent of the Mexican army and were also camped at Sarah’s home.

Gen. Houston had sent Henry W. Karnes, Erastus “Deaf” Smith, and Robert E. Handy to San Antonio for news about the status of matters at the Alamo — but enroute, the three of them encountered Susanna Dickinson, with her baby daughter, Angelina, making her way to Gen. Houston. She was the only Anglo woman who survived the final battle, and she told the trio what had happened. It would have been entirely understandable if her account was a tearful one, since her own husband, Almeron Dickinson, had perished in the siege, along with Bowie, Crockett, Travis, and every other Alamo defender.

On March 11, one of the men (some sources say Karnes, some say Smith) arrived back at Gen. Houston’s camp on the McClure property with the news of the Alamo carnage five days before. The Dickinsons had lived in a house at what is today 226 St. James Lane in Gonzales, Texas. Though the original building in which they lived was long ago demolished and the current house is a Victorian structure, a historical marker identifies the place as having been the site of the initial Dickinson home.

One can only imagine the wails of anguish from those unfortunate women on learning of the mission’s fall at the hands of Santa Anna, and that they were now widows. Parenthetically, the opening sequence of the 2004 Disney/Touchstone film The Alamo cinematically represents this very incident, thereby setting the mood for the ensuing feature.

Houston sent Bartlett McClure east to enlist the help of the “Redlanders” from San Augustine, eighty of whom would join Houston’s forces, thereby increasing the Texian army’s strength in anticipation of an encounter with Santa Anna’s troops. While Houston made preparations, Sarah and her people were camped near San Jacinto — within earshot of the Texian forces from whom she heard shouts of “Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!” during the short but now-historic encounter.

According to legend, Gen. Houston had situated himself under a large oak tree on the McClure property when he ordered the retreat in the interest of everyone’s safety. That oak tree is still in place today and, like the McClure house itself, is an official historic landmark in Texas. It’s also reported that Santa Anna himself camped at Peach Creek for a time and that during the interim he made the McClure house his own headquarters.

A year or two after Bartlett McClure’s death, Sarah married a man two years her junior: Prussian-born Charles Braches (”a man noted for abilities of a high order, and sterling character”), who the previous year was a member of the Texas Legislature and who had taken an active part in the Revolution. She and Braches lived at Peach Creek and had five children, only one of whom, Mary Frances (called “Mollie”) survived childhood, and lived until 1919, age 73. In addition to courage, Sara McClure also showed good judgement: Charles Braches was described as ” . . . a polished and refined gentleman . . . incapable of a mean or dishonorable act . . . a man of rare personal magnetism, fine address and brilliant talents . . . one of the ablest and most influential citizens of the community and . . . behaved himself with conspicuous gallantry.” He died in 1889, five years before Sarah.

During her colorful life she was considered by many an intrepid woman who would offer shelter to the itinerant. The following episode is indicative of the bravery that characterized her nature. — In the summer of 1838, she and Bartlett, traveling on horseback across the plains, encountered a party of more than two dozen Comanches. As both of them fled from the Indians, she and Bartlett somehow became separated. The Comanches who saw this tried even harder to capture her. She clearly knew she’d have to reach a nearby creek to have a better chance of escaping from this rather serious situation.

When she herself later wrote about this incident, she said, “I didn’t expect [my horse] to be able to jump clear across but I thought he would strike his feet in the opposite bank and I would be able to jump out over his head, but when he landed he managed to scramble up the bank and we galloped away safe and sound.”

The Indians rode up to the place and whooped and whistled and shook their spears at me but they didn’t dare to try to make the leap that I did. Mr. McClure took an opposite direction when we became separated and I thought all along that he was killed, but he succeeded in reaching the crossing above and joined me several miles further on. The Indians had spears which they had fastened to their wrists. These they threw at us several times during the early part of the pursuit, their object being to cripple our horses.”

Even during Sarah McClure’s lifetime, the historian John Henry Brown wrote of her, around 1890, that ” . . . her life is a part of, and interwoven with the most stirring period of Texas history.” Tellingly, he added, “. . . When [the leader] started upon his . . . expedition, Mrs. Braches had beeves killed and dressed, food cooked and a general supply of provisions prepared for the use of his men on their march. He wrote out and tendered her vouchers against the Republic to cover the expense that she had incurred, but these she refused to receive, saying that she considered it a pleasure as well as a duty to aid in a movement designed for the protection of the homes of the settlers to the full extent of her power and that she could not think of receiving pay for such a service.” It’s worth noting that the leader of the expedition in question, and who had written out the vouchers for her, was a man named James Bowie.

Having been born the same year as Franz Liszt (1811) and having died the same year Oscar Wilde brought out his play, The Importance of Being Earnest (1894), Sarah McClure lived during the Romantic era and her life extended clear across the 19th century. Though she had been bedridden for some time when she died at 83 at her Peach Creek home, where she had lived for most of her life, her mind had remained clear and sharp until the end.

“The hardships and dangers of the times in themselves seemed to have had a charm for the bold and hardy spirits who held unflinchingly their ground as an advance skirmish line of civilization.” This quote from a contemporary account of life in that era seems to exemplify in the proverbial nutshell the nature of the times, and the character of the people, as personified in Sarah McClure.

 Author’s Bio

Jeffrey Dane is a contributor to Alamo Sentry. Much of his writing appears in print publications (which alas aren’t web-accessible) in the USA and abroad in several languages. Jeffrey does what he loves and loves what he does. Many magazine editors (but few book publishers, it seems) hold his writing in high regard. He and colleague Rod Timanus have co-authored a fairly lengthy book about Texas, for which they are currently seeking a publisher. Jeffrey learned of The Alamo Society from historian Richard Curilla in June, 1995 and crossed the line soon afterward.

Click Continue for more information on issue # 156.

The March 2010 issue of The Alamo Journal has been mailed to all Alamo Society members worldwide who have “crossed the line” for the new year.

Issue #156 was mailed on Jan. 27, and contains preliminary information on the forthcoming Alamo Society 2010 Symposium in San Antonio.

The issue features:

“The Early Siege of the Alamo: Feb. 23 - March 6, 1836″ by Herb True.

The extensive article is a detailed, day-by-day account of the siege from Santa Anna’s perspective. True contributes appropriate military commentary to each of Santa Anna’s decisions and provides readers with a first-time appreciation of the siege from the Mexican commander’s point of view.

“Character Notes on Santa Anna” by Jeffrey Dane.

The probing essay investigates the “man of complexities and paradoxes” in a vivid style complete with anecdotes and observations by Santa Anna’s contemporaries.

“Religion in John Wayne’s The Alamo” by William Chemerka.

The first is a series of 2010 essays which celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Alamo. The article provides commentary to all the religious references in James Edward Grant’s screenplay.

Issue #156 also includes reports on:

“New Architectural Discovery at the Alamo” with commentary and illustrations by Mark Lemon.

“Grand Opening of Dickinson Museum.”

“DRT Counters Criticism with a Video Reply”

“Documents of the Texian Revolution”

“Alamo News” and more!

For membership and subscription information, visit http://www.alamosociety.org/

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Years!

And from the creative talents of Michelle Herbelin, an Alamo Carol to the tune of The First Noel! Enjoy!

The Alamo, historians did say

Manned by volunteers from the U.S.A

In the Alamo, an all of Texas at ease

It seemed for the moment to be at peace

{Very well, very well, very well, very well

How it shall end - as yet none can tell}

They look-ed up to the Lone Star

Settlements in the East, beyond not far

And to these defenders, their guiding light

Thus they decided to stay for a fight

{Very well, very well, very well, very well

How it shall end - as yet none can tell}

In the end the Alamo trinity

And the rest of the band fell heroically

And offered up so long ago

Their blood, their life, at the Alamo

{Very well, very well, very well, very well

To remember the day the Alamo fell}

It might take some imagination to envision an 11-year-old girl making lead bullets, but this is what Dilue Rose did early in March, 1836 for the men preparing to join the Texian forces in the Alamo.

 ”The people had been in a state of excitement during the winter. They knew that Colonel Travis had but few men to defend San Antonio. He was headstrong and precipitated the war with Mexico, but died at his post [in the Alamo]. I remember when his letter came calling for assistance. He was surrounded by a large army with General Santa Anna in command, and had been ordered to surrender, but fought till the last man died. . . This letter came in February. I have never seen it in print, but I heard mother read it. When she finished, the courier who brought it went on to Brazoria. I was near eleven years old, and I remember well the hurry and confusion. . . I spent the day melting lead in a pot, dipping it up with a spoon, and moulding bullets,” she later wrote.

 Various sources give Dilue Rose’s name as Dilean, Dilene, and Deline. Confusion was only compounded when she was listed as Deliens on her marriage certificate in 1839 (standardized spelling wasn’t yet the norm). Indeed, James Bowie’s name is written in Mexican documents variously as Buie, Buey, and Buy — wrongly spelled but phonetically correct.

 Dilue Rose’s family came to Texas from St.Louis, Missouri in 1833, when she was eight years old. Even with identical and common last names, there’s no known connection between her family and that of Louis (Moses) Rose, the only member of the Alamo garrison who by tradition willingly left the stronghold before the final siege and who thusly earned a negative fame. Rose is today referred to as Moses because he was the oldest man in the garrison (except for Crockett, who was approaching 50).

Necessity dictates prudence and practicality. Dilue Rose’s family was among many who opted for discretion — through implication, the better part of valor — by leaving for safer areas at the time of the Runaway Scrape. Though many perished through privation during the episode, she not only survived but ultimately lived nearly nine decades. Having had a small but personal part in the Texas Revolution, Dilue Rose knew some of those who played instrumental roles in it, and who were leaders of the new Republic.

What we contribute and leave behind when we are gone outlives us and those who follow. Perhaps her most enduring contribution to the posterity of American history takes the form of her recollections and memoirs: written in 1899, when she was 74, they were published as “The Reminiscences of Dilue Rose Harris” in 1900, 1901 and 1904 in the Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association (Southwestern Historical Quarterly), and in the Eagle Lake Headlight. According to historian Dr. Ann Fears Crawford, author/editor of an important volume titled The Eagle — The Autobiography of Santa Anna, Dilue Rose might likely have refreshed her elderly memory a bit in the writing of those memoirs by referring to and building upon some of her own father’s recollections. Nevertheless, Dilue Rose’s remembrances are considered by many as a source of first-hand information about the early history of Texas. She did, after all, live through it in the literal sense.

Even as a 10-year-old, she could sense the bewilderment and disorder that existed even as early as November, 1835, about which she later wrote, “We had so many different reports that we did not know what to believe” — a remark that perfectly crystallizes a sentiment even the contemporary historian and researcher can easily understand and share. In a sense she was the early 19th-century counterpart of today’s “kid who doesn’t miss a thing,” as sharp as a needle and pinpointing in her recollections such observations as the personality and character (as she then perceived such traits) of the adults she encountered, daily conversations about circumstances both general and specific, personal preferences, and other matters now irretrievably beyond our reach and otherwise forever lost.

She even makes mention of Wiley Martin, credited with having drawn the only known life-made sketch of William Barret Travis as he appeared three months before the Alamo fell. She also relates how, on the last day of April, 1836, a 13-year-old American boy named James Brown was saved from being detained by Mexican soldiers for no greater “crime” than having refused to dismount from a black horse. It was only through the personal intervention of a Mexican officer that the boy was released and saved from being terrorized. That man was Col. Juan Almonte, Santa Anna’s own aide de camp and one of his more sophisticated and polished — and gallant — staff officers.

History is not composed solely of official documents and formal decisions. Often even the smallest details, about any subject, can be keys to accessing openings behind which are answers to some important questions. The era and environment in which Dilue Rose lived were dramatic enough without the need for embellishment a-la Hollywood, and though not a professional writer per se she illuminates her subjects from the real-world viewpoint.

Her remembrances range from the humorous to the heartrending. ” . . . Mr. Choate had seven daughters, three of them married. Father said his only trouble was to get a wagon to haul his daughters around” — circumstances, with modern updatings, with which many fathers today can identify.

“. . . There were men enough in Texas to have organized a large army if they could all have been concentrated at one point . . . Sister and I had been weeping all day about [the news of] Colonel Travis. When we started from home we got the little books he had given us and would have taken them with us, but mother said it was best to leave them. . . [Sunday morning, May 1, 1836 — Home]: We could not find those [little books] that Colonel Travis gave us, but did find broken toys that belonged to our dear little sister that died.” These are touching testimonies that William Barret Travis knew the Rose family at least well enough to have offered a little gift to their little girls.

“Our hardships began at the Trinity [River]. Measles, sore eyes, whooping cough, and every other disease that man, woman or child is heir to broke out among us” — an observation, borne out by other historical accounts, of just a few of the innumerable adversities experienced by the Runaway Scrape participants. “There was considerable talk of a new town’s being started on Buffalo Bayou about ten miles above Harrisburg . . . The new town . . . was named Houston, in honor of General Houston . . . There were circulars and drawings sent out, which represented a large city, showing churches, a courthouse, a market house and a square of ground set aside to use for a building for Congress, if the seat of government should be located there.” Clearly her report targets the time of conception of that now-sprawling metropolis, which today has a nearly 40-mile beltway circumventing the main part of the city.

“. . . One Thursday evening . . . we heard a sound like distant thunder. When it was repeated father said it was cannon, and that the Texans and Mexicans were fighting. He had been through the war of 1812, and knew it was a battle. . . We could see a man on horseback waving his hat; . . . we thought the Mexican army had crossed the Trinity. . . when the rider got near enough for us to understand what he said, it was ‘Turn back! The Texas army has whipped the Mexican army and the Mexican army are prisoners. No danger! No danger! Turn back!’ . . .” The 11-year-old Dilue Rose hereby pinpoints, at the outset, the very day of the week on which the Battle of San Jacinto was taking place within earshot of her encampment.

One of her comments seems to encapsulate the kind of caution, born of practical life experience, for which fathers have been notorious for millennia (and which the know-it-all son or daughter will often trivialize or altogether ignore): “When [our] young men began to understand the glorious news [of the victory] they wanted to fire a salute, but father made them stop. He told them to save their ammunition, for they might need it…”

She continued, “Father asked the man for an explanation, and he showed a despatch from General Houston giving an account of the battle and saying it would be safe for the people to return to their homes. The courier [whose name was McDermot] . . . had left the battlefield the day after the fighting. He said that General Houston was wounded [in the ankle]. . .”

Rose said further, “[McDermot] was an Irishman and had been an actor. He stayed with us that night and told various incidents of the battle. There was not much sleeping during the night. Mr. McDermot said that he had not slept in a week. He not only told various incidents . . . but acted them. The first time that mother laughed after the death of my little sister was at his description of General Houston’s helping to get a cannon out of a bog.”

The notion of a general getting down and dirty with his own troops to help them free up an artillery piece may not be in keeping with our traditional concept of military protocol, but presuming this was the case we can still envision a physical giant of a man like Sam Houston engaged in the kind of activity that is in keeping with democratic principles, the kind that prompted and buttressed the struggles in which he and his troops had just engaged.

Enroute home after the Battle of San Jacinto, Dilue Rose even saw a man who, then unbeknownst to her, was another hero of the Texas Revolution: Erastus “Deaf” Smith. “Deaf Smith was very anxious to get back to the army. . . Mr. Smith could speak Spanish. He said that when he captured General Cos, whom he did not know, he asked him if he had been in the battle. On being answered in the affirmative, he asked him if he had been a prisoner. General Cos replied that he had not, but that he escaped after dark the evening of the battle, and that he abandoned his horse at the burnt bridge.”

The burnt bridge she refers to was Vince’s Bridge, which she and her family had actually crossed, and which Erastus Smith had soon afterward been ordered by Gen. Houston to destroy.

She continues, “Deaf Smith . . . said if the bridge had not been destroyed, General Filisola would have heard of Santa Anna’s defeat and would have marched to his assistance, as he was not more than thirty miles from the battleground. . . Smith then asked him if he had seen General Cos, and he said he had not. Smith continued: ‘I am Deaf Smith, and I want to find General Cos. He offered one thousand dollars for my head, and if I can find him I will cut off his head and send it to Mexico.’ When they arrived at the battleground [Smith] was very much surprised to find that his prisoner was General Cos.” — The masks of Pathos & Comedy were now worn simultaneously.

At the end of the Texas Revolution Dilue Rose moved with her family to the area called Bray’s Bayou, about five miles from what was soon to become Houston, Texas. There, she had some schooling. In 1839, at age 14, she married a New Yorker nine years her senior, Ira A. Harris, a Texas Ranger, who had arrived in Texas in 1836. One of the guests at her wedding was Thomas Rusk, the Secretary of War of the Republic of Texas and one of the signers of its Declaration of Independence. She lived in the Houston area and in 1845 moved to Columbus, Texas. Their union produced nine children and lasted until Ira Harris’ death thirty years later. The house they occupied during their time in Houston was identified with a historic plaque in the 1990s, and the house in which she lived in Columbus, Texas, located at 602 Washington, is now a museum.

Dilue Rose Harris died in Eagle Lake, Texas, between Houston and San Antonio and not far from Columbus, on April 2, 1914, at the age of 89. Her obituary in the Eagle Lake Headlight on April 10 of that year read, in part: “Her fund of historical reminiscences was varied by incidents of personal and often humorous nature, and her manner of narration was attractive and entertaining. . . No other account of the ‘Runaway Scrape’ is so full of comprehensive details, which was drawn largely from a diary kept by her father, supplemented by her own vivid recollection.”

(Author’s Bio:)

Jeffrey Dane is a researcher, historian and author whose writing is published in the USA and abroad in several languages. He’s a contributor to numerous volumes, including several books by Western writer and artist Rod Timanus; he wrote the Foreword for The Alamo Story: From Early History to Current Conflicts by J.R. Edmondson; he delivered a presentation on James Bowie at the Alamo Society Symposium in San Antonio in March, 2007; his article, Alamo Connections, appeared in the April and May, 2008 issues of Blade Magazine; and he co-authored a book (about Texas), for which he is currently seeking a publisher.

The music library and those who administer it at any major symphony orchestra are behind-the-scenes but very crucial organs and people, without whom the ensemble can’t function. Similarly, the storyboard artists and conceptual illustrators in Hollywood serve a corresponding purpose that’s just as important: their work enables the film-makers to plan and make their movies. How will the producers, directors, art directors, set decorators and others in the film crew determine, plan and map out the scenes viewers will see on the screen, without having literally detailed illustrations and storyboards as visual points of reference?This is how Joseph Musso earns his livelihood: a conceptual illustrator and storyboard artist in the film capital. His personal calling is as an historian, whose contributions are many, varied, and singularly significant — especially regarding some of the controversies surrounding the Alamo in general, the death of David Crockett specifically, and the origins of James Bowie in particular.

Musso’s work as an independent historian and author gives him a different but totally genuine and valid perspective of the history of the American West. Some of his findings may initially seem at odds with what we’ve heard from legend, but they also solve and lay to rest some long-standing problems, and they shed light on some long-outstanding questions by putting things into fresh historical context.

Though his historical focus is primarily on the Alamo era — he’s more well-versed in Texas history than many native Texans — he’s a virtual San Saba silver mine of both broad and explicit information about the history of the United States during the last century. An ideal blend of engaging conversationalist and considerate listener, it’s from Joseph Musso that we can learn about some of the more obscure (that is, the darker and more shameful) chapters in our own history, including the disgraceful incidents involving the native American, Mangus Colorado, and the embarrassing reasons why his story isn’t more popularly publicized in the American culture.

Musso’s personal research into past eras has also enabled him to apply his illustrative skills to the very specific details of his historic pictorial interpretations, and easily qualifies him as a foremost illustrator in this genre as well. His visual renderings of various historic concepts, events, and people — and even their period attire — thusly lend an accuracy, distinction and special character to his historical work that would be the envy of most of his peers.

During his long and still-active career in Hollywood as an artist, Musso has worked with film-makers like Irwin Allen, Frank Sinatra, John Carpenter, Norman Jewison, Mike Nichols, John Huston, Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg and Alfred Hitchcock, perhaps the greatest director of the suspense film, and whom Musso holds in particularly high regard. He speaks very warmly, too, of Sidney Poitier and especially of William Holden. In the Hollywood arena, he most enjoyed meeting John Wayne and Johnny Weissmuller; in the historical arena, he has a very special personal feeling about having met and come to know some of the descendants of the Louisiana branch of the Bowie family. When asked if he had any major “regret” regarding the time he has spent in Hollywood, he replied, without hesitation, that he’d like to have met Errol Flynn, but whose death pre-dated Musso’s own arrival in California.

The roster of films to which Musso has contributed include Flags of Our Fathers, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Space Cowboys, The Italian Job, Phantom of the Opera, Dragonheart, Volcano, Star Trek: First Contact, Escape From L.A., Naked Gun 33-?, Basic Instinct, Dick Tracy, The Three Amigos, The Towering Inferno, Torn Curtain, Tora! Tora! Tora!, The Blue Max, In the Heat of the Night, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Body Heat (a film that composer Miklós Rózsa had originally been asked to score).

Musso also provided a piece titled Forty Acres: A History of the RKO Backlot Films, for the Burroughs Bulletin (Nr. 14 New Series), Sierra Madre, CA, April, 1993.

Schooled at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where he earned his degree in Fine Arts, and serving honorably in the U.S. Marines, Musso traces his earliest conscious interest in edged weapons to his childhood fascination with the knife Johnny Weissmuller used in the Tarzan films. Being told of this, a friend gave him the kind of “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” advice that sent the young Musso scurrying to see the then-recent Alan Ladd film, The Iron Mistress, in 1952, based on the book by Paul Wellman. From then on, Musso was hooked. He had no way even of conceiving of the possibility that he’d someday own the very studio prop knives used in that film, as well as the original “Tarzan” knife that had first piqued his interest. It should surprise no-one that these are his two modern favorites among the many antique and replica weapons he owns.

Among his publication accomplishments are illustrated articles for various knife and other weapon-related magazines. One of the most outstanding is Jim Bowie’s ‘Iron Mistress’ — Reel Knife vs. Real Knife, published in the 1991 Guns & Ammo Annual. The article is lengthy and profusely illustrated. Along with two later articles in The Texas Gun Collector, Spring 2000 and Fall 2001, they contain mouth-watering specimens from Musso’s own collection, now conservatively valued at well over one million dollars. It includes not only countless studio prop knives and other weapons that his historic interests have induced him to acquire over the years, but also innumerable antique and authentic historical pieces from those eras. Peripherally related Alamo-era artifacts, many of them extremely rare — and many of those, in turn, truly unique — are also part of the Musso collection, including rifles, swords, military uniforms and other accouterments.

Discussed and/or pictured in Musso’s Guns & Ammo article are the knives used by Bowie-portrayers Sterling Hayden in The Last Command, by Alan Ladd in The Iron Mistress, by Kenneth Tobey in the last part of the Walt Disney trilogy, Davy Crockett — King of the Wild Frontier, by Scott Forbes in the 1950s TV series The Adventures of Jim Bowie, and by Richard Widmark in John Wayne’s The Alamo.

Over ten years later, Musso followed this article with a four-part series in the May-August 2002 issues of Blade, The Iron Mistress: Movie that Changed Knives Forever and then a two-parter in the July-August 2007 Blade issues on John Wayne, Duke’s Movie Knives. He was assisted in the latter article by Wayne’s now-late son, Michael, and Michael’s widow, Gretchen.

For anyone who was in some way influenced in his or her youth by the films and TV shows of that era (just as Joseph Musso was), these articles would be required reading as the veritable answer to a prayer — an answer “years in the making” and long overdue, but certainly none the worse for it. There are many such people — and by virtue of that very formative influence, some of them are now themselves directly involved in the Western historical field. Certainly for this, we owe a lot to Joseph Musso. That stimulus corresponds to the young admirer who once told Miklós Rózsa that his music for the film King of Kings prompted him to investigate the same events as recounted by Bach in the Passions. This is influence exemplified — and for the creative artist, is a compliment of the highest order. Musso is regarded as being among the foremost authorities in the USA on the subject of the Alamo era, generally, and on James Bowie specifically.

Musso’s personal contributions to the field of Western history at large might be even more significant than those he’s made to the films, individually or collectively, on which he’s worked. At the outset of the 13-day siege, the Alamo had two commanding officers: William Barret Travis, and James Bowie. For years, Bowie’s birthplace was disputed, with Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana and even Maryland claiming the distinction of having been where Bowie first saw the light of day. Even the Alamo in San Antonio, where Bowie and all the other combatants perished on the morning of Sunday, March 6, 1836, has a large bronze plaque memorializing Tennessee as his native state. Throughout the ensuing decades, the Bowie legends only deepened and compounded the confusion. The uncertainties about him are embodied in the claim that he was born in five different states and that he died in nearly as many spots at the Alamo.

Joseph Musso cast a sharp, bright light on some of the more unfocused and shadowy areas of James Bowie’s life and background, and he ultimately determined Bowie’s actual birthplace. Through extensive personal research and consultation of primary sources — original property deeds, musty hand-written records, and other such documents — Musso found that the Bowie family was living 9 miles northwest of Franklin, Kentucky, in what was then Logan County (now Simpson County), when James was born in 1796. Peripherally, he’s also found that many other accepted and published details about and accounts of Bowie’s life were, to say the least, questionable in the extreme.

After receiving the necessary documentation, the Texas State Historical Association, at Joe Musso’s suggestion, revised its relevant entries in the second printing of The New Handbook of Texas, which now reflects the corrections regarding Bowie’s birthplace and other information about him.

“I was made an Honorary Colonel by the governor of Kentucky for going through two hundred years of property deed records to pinpoint . . . James Bowie’s exact birth site and was asked to write the wording on the official birth site state marker. I also received a personal thank you letter from the then-governor of Texas, George W. Bush, for my Bowie research,” Musso said.

Further acknowledgement and kudos came from the Alamo itself. While the expense of replacing the bronze plaque is prohibitive, Dorothy Black, one of the Alamo officials, said about Musso, “Without a doubt, what he has put together is more than enough,” and that the Alamo’s printed literature is modified to mirror the changes.

As Bartolomeo Cristofori and James Watt are traditionally acknowledged by history as having “invented” the piano and the steam engine, respectively, so, too, is Joseph Musso recognized as having determined James Bowie’s true birthplace.

Succeeding in discovering where Bowie was born, and having been honored with the responsibility of cleaning the only known life-painted portrait of James Bowie (done in Boston by George P.A. Healy in the early 1830s), are two episodes in Musso’s professional life he considers particularly fulfilling. He subsequently shared his investigative research on Bowie’s portrait in the January 2007 issue of the Texas State Historical Association’s prestigious Southwestern Historical Quarterly Magazine, with his article, A Reevaluation of ‘The Face Behind the Knife’.

He has also been a guest speaker and Historical Consultant on the Arts & Entertainment Network, the History Channel and the Outdoor Channel in various documentaries dealing with Bowie and the Alamo. He’s currently involved with the new website, The African American Channel, in a production based on his September 2006 Alamo Journal article, Col. James Bowie’s Freed Slaves.

His historical goal “. . .is to get the facts out and set the record straight.” Mindful of this, he’s writing two books about Bowie, at least one of which will contain his own illustrations. That it’s taken Musso several years to do the research and prepare these books is a testimony to his diligence and revererence for the subject matter.

Part of his extraordinary collection was exhibited in 2001 at San Antonio’s venerable Buckhorn Saloon, fittingly located a short walk from the Alamo and later at the Texas State History Museum in Austin.

Among the many items displayed in these exhibits were various Alamo-era artifacts, historic prop knives and antique rifles used by the studios, and a number of exceptional antique Bowie knives. One of these, in particular, the centerpiece of the display, seems to have an undefinable but almost palpable “presence.” Extraordinarily shaped and unusually large, the knife’s blade itself is almost 14 inches long, making the weapon effectively a small sword. It is pictured in an article about his collection, published in the Spring 2000 issue of The Texas Gun Collector.

From residue traces found in the steel and in the brass, a metallurgical laboratory that performed tests on the knife in 1981 determined the likelihood that it was made in the Washington, Arkansas area around 1830 — intriguingly, just when James Bowie was in the prime of his life. The letters JB appear on part of the quillon. Some feel they might be the initials of James Black, a blacksmith who was active in that area at that time and whom some believe may have made knives specifically for Bowie. Others, however, feel the letters could be the initials of the owner — James Bowie — rather than of the maker. Conjecture is fruitless but still fascinating, but if the latter is the case, Joseph Musso has in his possession a knife made for — and, by extension, owned by — James Bowie himself.

Applied and affixed to the spine of the blade on what’s since become known in the relevant historical circles as “the Musso Bowie” is a strip of brass. Since it’s softer than steel, in theory the purpose of this brass strip would have been to enable the weapon’s user to more efficiently parry the blow of an opponent’s blade, which would have stuck fast to the brass strip, rather than sliding down to the crossguard if the blade’s spine had been of naked steel. A two-part article by J.R. Edmondson about this knife, suitably titled, The Brass-Backed Bowie, was published in the January and February 1993 issues of Knife World Magazine.

Also on the cross-guard is a six-pointed star, the pre-1850 insignia of the American officer, and a rendering of the knife is clearly visible in an illustration that appears in the memoirs of Sam Houston — published in 1855, a mere nineteen years after Bowie’s death. It is also depicted in the 1864 lithograph by Currier & Ives, titled Your Plan and Mine, with the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, holding it, complete with its brass strip along the blade’s back, as the symbol of the South.

Rather singular and historically almost unique of shape, positively frightening of configuration and monstrous in its size, there is a near-disturbing mood about it which is, in a word, unsettling, as though it has some hidden story to tell, if only it could speak. Inanimate, the weapon has no life of its own — but its presence, which can be sensed even in its photos, is unmistakable.

It is this massive knife that was used as the model for the one that Jason Patric (portraying James Bowie) carried in the 2004 Disney/Touchstone film, The Alamo.

An “autobiography” of Crockett (who signed his name as both “David” and “Davy”) offers what’s purported to be his own impression of Bowie’s knife, and which he’s supposed to have seen the first time the two men met, at the Alamo: “I wish I may be shot if the bare sight of it wasn’t enough to give a man of squeamish stomach the cholic, especially before breakfast.” Our first notion might be that for a seasoned man like Crockett to so refer to some garden-variety hunting knife seems rather unlikely, and that it’s reasonable to presume there was something rather special about the weapon in question which James Bowie would have had with him in the Alamo.

Unfortunately, the “autobiography” in which that Crockett “quote” appears was actually written by Richard Penn Smith very soon after Crockett’s death. However, even though we’re faced with the likelihood that the remark’s attribution to Crockett is spurious, Smith nevertheless gives posterity a contemporary 1836 opinion, hearsay or not, that suggests the fearsome visual aspects of Bowie’s legendary blade.

The fact is that if it was Bowie’s own blade, it represents its own cumulative past. Do those who conclude it was James Bowie’s knife believe it because they wish to? It may be so, but that it might have belonged to and been used by James Bowie is a possibility — unprovable, but very real — with which we’re still faced, and it must be if not “accepted” then certainly considered.

Musso considers the three prize historical pieces of his collection to be this enormous knife, another, with a 12″ long blade, made by Henry Schively, an expert cutler and surgical tool maker then located at 75 Chestnut Street (the site is now called 231 Chestnut) in Philadelphia–a city visited by James Bowie and his three years-older brother, Rezin (pronounced REE-zin). Rezin gave a similar, but slightly smaller Schively knife to Jesse Perkins in 1831. The third piece is a guardless coffin-handled knife attributed to James Black, and it’s a this piece that seems to have a particular specialty. One day in March, 2007, leaving the Warner Bros. Commissary, Musso was asked by a frend, “Do you believe you may have the original knife that Bowie used at that Sandbar Fight?” Musso’s frank reply was, “I don’t know. But I have a knife that matches the dimensions of Rezin Bowie’s own description of it.” The now-near-mythical 1827 Sandbar Fight became the pivot-point on which the Jim Bowie legend would revolve. Of equal possible significance, it is also in the same style, construction and materials as the knife Rezin presented to Captain Thomas Tunstall in 1833, which is now on display at the Saunders Memorial Museum in Berryville, Arkansas.

Among Musso’s other personal favorite antique Bowies in his collection is one with a German silver horse head on the pommel, another made by the firm of English & Hubers in Philadelphia and a large ivory handled knife with a German silver “half-horse, half-alligator” motif on the pommel, that reflects Davy Crockett’s memorable description of himself. These handsome knives are pictured in The Texas Gun Collector article.

Joseph Musso has also made notable findings in the heated disputes surrounding the existence of a controversial memoir. Translated into English by Carmen Perry and originally published under the title With Santa Anna in Texas, it’s purported to have originated in the 1840s by a high-ranking Mexican officer who was present at the time of the Alamo battle. In this chronicle, Lt.Col. Jose Enrique de la Peña is said to give an eyewitness account of the siege. The supposed memoir has caused a good deal of disagreement, conflict and friction among Western historians regarding whether it’s authentic or a forgery. One of its implications is that David Crockett didn’t die fighting, but that he was captured and then executed by command of Santa Anna.

Musso isn’t alone in believing, like others, that the memoir is suspect because it seemed to have suddenly materialized, virtually out of no-where, in the possession of a Mexican coin dealer over a hundred years after the fact, and that it’s missing more than an entire century of provenance and documentation. “It doesn’t have 110 years of human records behind it,” Musso astutely noted.

It might be more than just coincidental that the memoir emerged unexpectedly in 1955 — just as the Davy Crockett craze, sourced by Walt Disney, was sweeping the nation.

Musso’s observations about the memoir matter brought some details into perspective. “Several years ago, while researching material for my biography of Alamo commander James Bowie, I noticed certain handwriting anomalies between the de la Peña memoir and that of a letter purportedly written by an Alamo defender, Isaac Milsaps. As it turns out, both documents had no known pedigree prior to 1955, and by March 1989 Texas Monthly magazine used research of the leading handwriting expert, Charles Hamilton, to report that the Milsaps letter was a suspected fake, written by a known forger . . . who died in 1970. . . Since I originally planned to quote from both documents in my Bowie biography, I decided to contact Charles Hamilton regarding the de la Peña memoirs. He, in turn, confirmed my fears and sent me a written certification, dated October 18, 1993, stating his belief that the de la Peña memoir was also faked . . .”

Even before the “original manuscript” of the memoir was auctioned by Butterfield & Butterfield (and purchased by two Texans, so that it can remain in the state where they feel it belongs), Musso urged the auction house to arrange some scientific tests (like ion diffusion analysis on the ink) to try to determine if the document is genuine.

An intriguing and perhaps even revealing postscript to this matter is a subsequent development in this ongoing controversy. Artist and author Rod Timanus learned that a well-respected Western historian in Austin, Texas, the late Thomas Ricks Lindley, had acquired an original document, complete with signature, written by Jose Enrique de la Peña: the handwriting in this document matches other known samples of de la Peña’s letterhand — but it does not seem to match the final-draft “memoir” that’s been causing the ruckus, lending yet further credence to the de la Peña memoir as being fraudulent rather than authentic. The subsequent research done in this area by Lindley, Musso and Crockett/Alamo author Bill Groneman in the Mexico City military archives has led them to collaborate on the subject in another forthcoming book, Lt. Col. de la Pena’s Rewritten Diary: the Mexican Military During the Texas Revolution.

Though not a shy man in the traditional sense, Joseph Musso prefers modesty and subtlety in his approaches, which render him pleasantly casual and informal in manner. Notwithstanding his investigative character and adventurous nature, one thing that sets him apart from many of Hollywood’s denizens is that he prefers the truth, and that he eschews publicity and opts to be behind the scenes, where his work will be if not as conspicuous and observable as that of the great actor or superstar, then surely as consequential as an integral component of the film-making teams of which he’s a member — and he pursues his interests in the field of Western history with the same tenacity and singularity of purpose as did the Alamo defenders.

If there is only one characteristic shared by both Joseph Musso and James Bowie himself, it would be this: to some a most formidable adversary, to others the staunchest friend.

( Author’s Bio ) :

Jeffrey Dane is a researcher, historian and author whose writing is published in the USA and abroad in several languages. He’s a contributor to numerous volumes, including several books by Western writer and artist Rod Timanus; he wrote the Foreword for The Alamo Story: From Early History to Current Conflicts by J.R. Edmondson; he delivered a presentation on James Bowie at the Alamo Society Symposium in San Antonio in March, 2007; his article, Alamo Connections, appeared in the April and May, 2008 issues of Blade Magazine; and he co-authored a book (about Texas), for which he is currently seeking a publisher.

http://www.blounttoday.com/news/2009/sep/15/connected-crockett/

Single words often have multiple meanings. Raven, for example, will bring to most minds a noun, from Old English hrœfn, signifying a large, glossy black bird (Corvus corax) of Europe, Asia, northern Africa, and America, similar in appearance to a crow, but larger. As the amorous man might so refer to his very-dark-haired inamorata, some in the Alamo Society might describe one of our number, a young lady, as “a raven-haired beauty.” The literary-minded would think of the title of an 1845 poem by Edgar Allen Poe, or even of the name of an English novelist, playwright and journalist — Simon Arthur Noël Raven — who satirically portrayed the hedonism of the mid-20th-century upper classes of English society. A young student, as-yet-untutored in spelling and innocent of the general experience of living, might describe someone as “stark-raven mad.”

In the mind of the historian of the American West, however, mention of The Raven would bring to mind the nickname of Gen. Sam Houston.

Our own actions clearly reflect our personal preferences. George Washington remained conscious and observant of rank and protocol: he preferred the formal bow in introductions rather than the more personal and egalitarian handshake. He was also against class distinction, rejecting out of hand the notion that he be made king of our then-new country. By decreeing his slaves be freed on the passing of his wife, Martha Custis (she outlived him by less than two years), he did at least something to limit the human hypocrisy of having owned them in the first place.

Congressman Crockett is referred to even today with the more popular name “Davy,” though in keeping with convention he generally signed his name as David. Conversely, Gen. Houston seems to have preferred the shortened and more informal version of his first name and usually rendered his signature as Sam Houston.

Like Lorenzo de Zavala, Houston was the fifth of nine children. This central placement extended itself to the position he occupies in the creation and early history of Texas. He was Virginia-born (in 1793) and raised in Tennessee but he made his mark in the American west, giving yet further credence to the idea that prophets aren’t appreciated in their own countries. He shared this with James Bowie, who was born in Kentucky, lived in Missouri, and raised in Louisiana, but who adopted Texas as his own.

It’s no accident that Sam Houston occupies such iconic status in western history generally, and in the history of Texas in particular. He was elected President of the Republic of Texas not once but twice; he served the state of Tennessee as a U.S. congressman, and later the state of Texas as U.S. senator and also as its governor. His own father, Major Sam Houston, had taken part in the American Revolution.

The younger Houston served under Gen. Andrew Jackson against the Creek Indians. He was wounded in March, 1814 in Alabama at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, and in May he was promoted to Second Lieutenant. Houston’s courage had made an impression on Jackson who, after the war, helped in securing him a position as an agent for the Cherokee Indians, a commission Houston kept until 1818.

Worth mentioning because it’s revealing of his character, one of Houston’s reasons for resigning from the army at that time was that he was criticized by then-Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun, whose sensibilities may have been offended because Houston had had the audacity to appear before him wearing Indian garb, which he often did in those days. Admonitions like this have their modern-day counterparts in the traditional business office, where the petty, apparently with little else to do, focus on the inconsequential.

Some of his time with the Cherokees in Tennessee was spent near what evolved into the town of Dayton, the site of the Scopes Trial of 1925.

Like most young people, Houston hadn’t liked school itself — but unlike most young people he read a great deal on his own and absorbed what he felt might benefit him. In that sense he was more self-learned than self-taught. In his late teens, he left home to live with the Cherokees.

There’s no place on Earth where legends don’t arise. Those that have developed in Texas seem to have done so in ways consistent with the enormity of the state, and in line with the magnitude of the Western treasures found there in its culture, traditions, historic sites, and especially in its people of enlightenment, refinement, cultivation, and particularly in its pride of heritage (the Texas flag is flown right alongside Old Glory in most venues). The Sam Houston legend has him as being 6′6″ tall in his maturity. A large, commanding man he certainly was, though he was not six-feet-six. By age 19, according to his own military records, he was still, in that era, a physically imposing figure at 6′2” — more prosaic but also more accurate.

The Cherokee chief, Oolooteka, adopted Houston as a son, and called him Colonneh — The Raven. Nevermore would the Cherokee so closely embrace a man of another nation. That young Houston lived with them for three years seems indicative of a human sensitivity and earnestness unusual in most people in their understanding of and tolerance for those whose culture is distant from their own.

He followed the Cherokees when they were relocated to Arkansas and he acted as an advisor, even going to Washington, DC on their behalf on several occasions. It was during this period that he also visited Texas, where he developed a keen interest in the inhabitants’ yearnings for a separation from Mexico.

After 1818 Houston returned to Tennessee to study law — and was elected district attorney in his first year of practice. To set up a law practice today without the relevant schooling and official authorizations would land an individual in a court of law not as an attorney but as the defendant charged with the crime of practicing law illegally. In Sam Houston’s day, the requirements were not as stringent as they are now, and qualified but self-learned lawyers could open a practice — provided, of course, they had had the training — without ever having attended college or university. Names that come to mind immediately are Andrew Jackson, Martin van Buren, Millard Filmore, and Abraham Lincoln, all of whom were admitted to the bar (in 1787, 1803, 1823, and 1837, respectively). In their company, too, is William Barret Travis, bar-admitted around 1830. Our history offers us a rich record of self-made people in all fields, and of varying degrees of success.

Clearly Sam Houston was a man who marched to the rhythm of his own drummer: whether he appeared in traditional clothing or in Indian dress, he was an effective and impressive public speaker. In 1821, once again through the influence of Andrew Jackson, Houston was made a major general of the Tennessee militia. Within two years he was a congressman, and was re-elected in 1825. By 1827, the year slavery was abolished in New York, Sam Houston was Tennessee’s governor. He was then 34 years old.

As blood-letting was a primitive (and in retrospect, asinine) means of healing in those days, dueling was a primitive attempt at settling scores, with the latter serving little useful purpose and the former practice doing infinitely more harm than good (it was believed the human body contained 12 pints of blood). Not far from Franklin, Kentucky, Houston fought a duel with General William A. White, seriously wounding him. This happened on September 21, 1826 — a year less two days before James Bowie’s knife was thrust into public consciousness on a Mississippi River sandbar and cut loose the facts from the fiction that soon surrounded him.

As a senator, Houston’s reputation was characterized by his benevolence toward native Americans, and by his steadfast allegiance to the entire country as a cohesive entity. For these principles he would eventually have to pay the ultimate price.

Early in 1832 he was in Washington, DC. The April 2 edition of the National Intelligencer published remarks ascribed to Ohio congressman William Stanbery. The comments alleged that Houston and another congressman, John Henry Eaton, were involved in fraud. The very day after the newspaper item appeared, Houston wrote directly to Stanbery, asking if he might be kind enough to explain the comments. Ten days afterward, Senator Houston and Congressman Stanbery encountered each other on Pennsylvania Avenue. Ensued a scandále, in which Houston battered the man with a walking-stick. The phrase “The Gentleman From The Cane” has been associated with David Crockett, but Houston’s actions might have earned him a fitting nickname, The Gentleman With The Cane.

The altercation foreshadowed an incident that would occur three years later, when on January 30, 1835 a man tried what was the first actually attempted presidential assassination. (A plot to kill George Washington had been uncovered and thwarted). A man pointed two pistols, both of which miraculously misfired, at President Jackson, who was approaching the capitol building to attend funeral services for representative Warren Ransom Davis. Jackson had been a professional soldier; even at his advanced age he was far from frail and was still wiry and forceful; and he was effectively devoid of physical fear (a trait he seems to have shared with James Bowie and, later, Wyatt Earp). Before the culprit, Richard Lawrence, could be subdued by presidential aides, the 68-year-old Jackson, who could be extremely quick-tempered and combative, had already taken his cane to the man and proceeded to beat him severely about the head and shoulders.

The outcome of the Houston caning incident is that he found himself involved in a lawsuit, and on April 18 the case against him went before the House of Representatives. Though he had an attorney, he also addressed the assembly directly. Houston won his case — but was still chastised by the group. Such is the world of contradictions and half-way measures. It’s been said you can’t argue with success — but those of the sore-loser mentality will still try, regardless of how foolish they look in doing so.

The links, even if small, in the chain that binds us to our own history can be stronger than we might realize. The man Houston had engaged to represent him in the lawsuit was a 52-year-old lawyer named Francis Scott Key (1779-1843), now famous as the author of the poem “The Star-Spangled Banner,” written during the War of 1812 (in which the then-19-year-old Sam Houston had served). While it was Key himself who wrote the text, the actual tune we know today as the national anthem of the United States was written by an Englishman, John Stafford Smith.

In early June of 1832, Houston was in New York to arrange journeys to the American west. On October 9, he made the acquaintance of America’s first great popular writer, Washington Irving.

His political career stained, Houston went to Texas late that year. At the outbreak of the Texas Revolution in 1835, he was named commanding general of the Texas forces. Warranting mention here is a now-classic line spoken by actor Richard Boone, who portrayed Gen. Sam Houston in John Wayne’s film The Alamo: “. . . the fly in the buttermilk is that there ain’t no armies in Texas!” The comment illustrates the circumstances in which the historical Sam Houston found himself. But history shows us he rose to the occasions admirably.

In April, 1836, six weeks after the fall of the Alamo, occurred the event with which Sam Houston is most closely associated: the defeat of the Mexican army at San Jacinto, near what’s now the enormous Texas city that bears his name. Even as the Alamo defenders were being slaughtered early on the morning of Sunday, March 6, Houston, as Commander in Chief, was trying to assemble an army that could protect Texans against the Mexican forces heading northward under Gen. Santa Anna. On Thursday, April 21, Houston’s men, though outnumbered, overtook the Mexican troops in a decisive mid-late afternoon battle that lasted less than twenty minutes.

Historian and artist Joseph Musso has pointed out that Wayne’s Alamo movie is the only film that accurately depicts what Sam Houston himself wore at San Jacinto: buckskins.

Previously, in mid-January of 1836, Houston had ordered James Bowie to destroy the Alamo. Posterity shows us that Bowie didn’t carry out these orders. The course American history might have taken if the Alamo had then been blown up is a matter of fruitless but still fascinating speculation.

For years it was thought that Gen. Houston was shot in or above the right ankle at the Battle of San Jacinto. Subsequent findings by his great-great-granddaughter, Madge Roberts, seem to indicate that the wound had been to his left leg, notwithstanding the now-famous Henry Arthur McCardle painting, “The Surrender of Santa Anna,” in which Houston is depicted as having been wounded in the wrong leg. The physician who treated Houston and others at San Jacinto was Dr. Alexander W. Ewing. McCardle’s painting dates from 1886, twenty-three years after Houston’s death and a full fifty years after the battle.

As Santa Anna had had the gallantry to spare the lives of the Alamo’s captured non-combatants (women, children, and a few others), Houston, too, showed generosity in dealing with the Mexican leader in a manner that reflected positively on each of them.

There may have been more Masons involved in the Texas Revolution than in any other central event in American history. It’s sometimes presumed that this fraternal connection between Houston and Santa Anna — both men were members of the Masonic order — may have played a role in Houston’s magnanimity and benevolent treatment of the Mexican general. More significant is the observation by historian and author J.R. Edmondson that Sam Houston, for whatever his human imperfections may have been, realized that even from only a practical viewpoint, the cause of Texas would be better served by keeping Santa Anna alive and promoting a peace, rather than by executing him and inciting reprisals and further conflict with Mexico from Santa Anna’s followers.

Instead of acting on impulse and going off half-cocked, as some are wont to do, Gen. Houston opted for prudence and thought the matter through. We can now only try to imagine what might have been if the two principals had had opposite views — that is, if Santa Anna had shown some leniency at the Alamo, and if Gen. Houston had executed the Mexican general at San Jacinto. The possibilities could fill a book.

Noah Smithwick later wrote, “Had the bloody wretch been hanged, as the army demanded and as he richly deserved, the Mexican army under General Filisola would have made a combined attack on the Texans and probably have overwhelmed them; but, with the president in hand, the Texans held the key to the situation. Like Washington, Houston proved himself equally as competent to guide the helm of the ship of state as to command its army.”

In any case, it’s a credit to Sam Houston’s character that he dealt with Santa Anna as he did, with a professional courtesy we might expect among gentlemen and high-ranking officers, and that what transpired after the Mexican army’s defeat featured a degree of human dignity.

Sam Houston was married three times. His first wife was Eliza Allen; they were married in early January, 1829, but their union was very short-lived. Some of the family tradition says that Houston had suffered a wound that never healed properly and which had to be drained on a daily basis, and that his young wife found this so decisively unpleasant that she chose not to continue their union. Houston himself held her entirely blameless.

In the summer of 1830 he married a Cherokee woman, Tiana Rodgers (whose name is sometimes given as Diana). “. . . I liked the wild liberty of the Red men better than the tyranny of my brothers,” he wrote.

In Alabama in May of 1840 he married Margaret Moffette Lea, with whom he spent the rest of his life and had eight children. Reminiscent of the affirmative and settling effect Grace Williams is said to have had on her WWI hero husband, Sgt. Alvin York, Margaret Houston is reputed to have “reformed” the general by convincing him to at least be temperate and to join the church.

The new Republic of Texas had Houston as its president. Within two years he was serving a term in the Texas congress and in 1841 he was elected president again. It was only in 1845 that Houston succeeded in his assiduous efforts to have Texas annexed to the United States, but the price paid for this was the advent of the Mexican War. Houston declined a commission as general — he was already in his fifties — but instead served as a senator from the new state. In 1859, he was elected governor of Texas.

There seems to be no documented evidence that Franz Schubert ever personally met his idol, Beethoven — notwithstanding the popular legend that he summoned the courage to visit him just before The Master’s death. In the case of Sam Houston, sad sequels can show us we have begun our pilgrimages not an hour too soon. In May 1845, Houston embarked with his family on a journey to Nashville, Tennessee to visit with former president Jackson. They reached Jackson’s home, The Hermitage, on June 8 — only to find that he had died just one hour before their arrival.

The Hollywood studios’ debasement of composer Alfred Newman’s score for the film The Greatest Story Ever Told was nothing less than musical vandalism and ultimately took years off the composer’s life. “It’s my name but it isn’t my work. I’d be pleased if my name were removed from the credits,” he said. Similarly, the American Civil War was a trying time for Houston, and the difficulties and frustrations he underwent may have contributed to shortening his life — something which many of us today can personally understand, and even identify with. His allegiance was to the United States as a unity; he was totally unwilling to side with the Confederacy; and he tried to prevent Texas from seceding from the union. His thanks for this integrity was to be deposed as governor in 1861. This unofficially marked the beginning of the end for Houston.

The Beethoven family died out long ago, but the Houston family name is carried on today by his direct descendants, including his great-grandson, Sam Houston IV, and at this point the author of this article must take a personal role in relating some details of a few relatively recent events. — I had seen Mr. Houston from a distance at Washington-on-the-Brazos early in March 2007, but didn’t have the opportunity on that occasion to actually make his acquaintance. Patience can indeed have its own rewards. So can perseverance, and the wait was well worth it, by compensation. I ultimately had the pleasure of meeting with Sam Houston IV in late February, 2008, and again earlier this year.

One of Mr. Houston’s oldest and closest friends, Ben Warren, is a direct descendant of one of the more noteworthy soldiers and statesmen of 1830s Texas: Edward Burleson. During the Siege of Bexar on November 26, 1835, Burleson participated in the skirmish now known as the Grass Fight (in which a man named James Bowie took part). At the Battle of San Jacinto, Burleson commanded the First Regiment, the first of Gen. Houston’s forces to charge the Mexican army. Later that day it was Burleson himself who accepted the surrender and sword of Col. Juan Almonte, one of Santa Anna’s more refined and sophisticated staff officers, who acted as interpreter for Santa Anna when he was interviewed by Gen. Houston.

Sam Houston IV had told me, “You will find Mr. Warren to be very informed on Texas history.” His comment was understatement epitomized. I found out more from Mr. Warren, a veritable expert in the history of Texas, during our several conversations than I would have learned at a seminar.

On Wednesday, February 25, 2009, I had the honor of being taken by Mr. Houston himself to the entity devoted to his great-grandfather: the Sam Houston Memorial Museum in Huntsville, TX. Accompanying us on that day was Mr. Warren.

While honesty may be the best policy it can still prompt a confusing scenario. At the gift shop after the Museum visit, Mr. Warren and I approached the cashier as Mr. Houston stood only a few feet away. I said to the clerk, “This is my friend, Ben Warren. He’s a descendant of Edward Burleson.” The cashier looked at me skeptically and said, with a good-natured smile, “Right — and I suppose that other gentleman with you, standing over there, is Stephen Austin?” I had no choice but to respond, “No, that’s Sam Houston.”

One of my gift-shop purchases was a replica of the original printed broadside of the Texas Declaration of Independence, rendered on the customary light-brown, textured parchment paper. Gen. Houston himself was one of those who signed the original, handwritten Declaration on March 2, 1836, so his name (as a delegate from Refugio) appears printed with the others’ on the document. (The DRT Library on the Alamo grounds in San Antonio has Samuel Maverick’s own copy of it, with his personal annotations). The upshot of this purchase was that just before Mr. Houston dropped me off at my lodgings that evening, I told him I had always wanted to have a copy of the Texas Declaration of Independence with Sam Houston’s actual signature on it — and, offering him my pen, I added that he himself was the only man who could make it happen. He obligingly signed it for me at the bottom, and since then I’ve wondered how many people in Texas, or in the entire country altogether, actually have a copy of that Declaration with the signature of Sam Houston on it.

The following vignette is very telling. Enroute from Hunstville, we had stopped for dinner at a Cracker Barrel Restaurant, where my traveling companions introduced me to chicken dumplings known regionally as Slicks. Insistent on treating Mr. Warren and me to dinner, Mr. Houston gave the waitress his credit card — and she soon returned with two other waitresses in tow, each one asking for Mr. Houston’s autograph, which he graciously gave. Fame is relative, but total name-recognition gives credence to the Small World concept.

One measure of the historical Sam Houston’s contributions to Western history is that his published writings, as originally brought out by the University of Texas Press, filled eight volumes — and that in 1860, at a meeting held at the San Jacinto battlefield, he was actually suggested as a possibility for the presidency of the United States.

As did the biblical King David, Sam Houston lived seventy years: he died in 1863, and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Hunstville.

( Author’s Bio ) :

Jeffrey Dane

 is a researcher, historian, and author whose writing on various subjects is published in the USA and abroad in several languages. His work has appeared several times on Alamo Sentry. He has been a contributor to a number of volumes, and with historian and artist Rod Timanus he co-authored a book (a publisher is currently being sought) about Texas in the 1830s.

Click Continue for information on issue #154!

Issue #154, a slightly-expanded issue with glossy-color front and back covers, contains a number of important articles:

Texas’ William Groneman III presents “The Taking of the Alamo Flag.” Groneman examines the various acounts which have depicted one of the most important parts of the March 6, 1836 battle.

Illinois’ Dr. Caroline Collins updates her featured presentation at The Alamo Society’s March 2009 Symposium in San Antonio with “After the Fall (or, Against Forgetting): Collective Memory and Alamo Artists in the 1800s.” Collins describes the artistic efforts of Edward Everett and Theodore Gentilz.

The Alamo Society’s Todd Hansen exclusively updates and corrects entries in his The Alamo Reader. Hansen provides several detailed pages of clarifications, comments and assorted notes. Additional information will follow in issue #155.

Georgia’s Mark Lemon contributes “An Unexpected Find, Part II: Mexican Casualty Returns For the Assault on the Alamo, March 6th 1836,” which state all casualty figures (killed and wounded) for every rank in the reserve Zapadore and Grenadier battalions. Lemon also created and the front cover image, a unique combination of early 20th-century photography and 21st-century artistic skills.

The “Documents of the Texian Revolution” section benefits from Indiana’s Roger Borroel, who contributes a March 10, 1836 Mexican account of the Battle of the Alamo. And Maryland’s Allen Wiener and Florida’s James Boylston provide an August 10, 1835 Crockett letter in which Andrew Jackson and Santa Anna are compared and contrasted. This is a followup of sorts to the authors’ exclusive book preview article from David Crockett in Congress: The Rise and Fall of the Poor Man’s Friend in the current issue (August 2009) of The Crockett Chronicle, the quarterly dedicated to the life and legend of David Crockett.

Issue #154 also contains updates on forthcoming Alamo/Crockett books, “Alamo News” reports and other articles.

For subscription and membership information, contact Bill Chemerka by going to: www.thealamosociety.com

An updated version of Gary L. Foreman’s video presentation to restore dignity to Alamo Plaza!

Remember, Reclaim, Restore!!!