Interview with the authors of David Crockett in Congress: The Rise and Fall of the Poor Man’s Friend, James R. Boylston and Allen Wiener.

AS: Tell us about yourselves and what drove you two to work together to write David Crockett in Congress: The Rise and Fall of the Poor Man’s Friend.

JB: Like a lot of guys from my generation, my interest in Crockett and the Alamo was sparked by Fess Parker’s Disney shows back in the 1950’s. The character made a lasting impression on me, and when I was a teenager I started reading all the Alamo history I could get my hands on. At the time, that was limited to Walter Lord’s A Time To Stand, Lon Tinkle’s Thirteen Days to Glory, and John Myers Myers’ The Alamo, so, like many in our community, I read those books time and again. Other than those titles, my exposure to Crockett biographical material had been limited to books aimed at younger readers by Irwin Shapiro and Constance Rourke.

I didn’t make it to San Antonio until the mid-80’s, but on my first visit I found James Shackford’s David Crockett, The Man and the Legend, in the Alamo gift shop. I devoured Shackford’s book and scoured his bibliography looking for other related titles. In those pre-internet days finding books was real detective work, but I contacted various authors and publishers through the years and eventually built a Crockett library.

Throughout all my research, there were always quotations and references to Crockett correspondence, but I couldn’t find a published collection of Crockett letters anywhere. In 2004, I attended my first Alamo Society Symposium and asked everyone I met whether such a volume existed. The consensus was no, that Crockett’s letters had never been collected. Bill Chemerka suggested that maybe I was the person to tackle such a project, and when I returned home I immediately started researching the whereabouts of Crockett’s extant letters, and began contacting museums, collectors, and repositories.

After a couple of years, I found that I wasn’t making the progress I had hoped on the project, primarily because of the demands of a full time job and the incredible amount of time that needed to be devoted to research for the book. I met Allen at the 2006 Alamo Society Symposium, though we’d been corresponding via email and through an internet forum for some time before that. Allen’s passion for Crockett matched my own, and we shared other interests as well. I asked him if he’d consider jumping in on the project as a co-writer. He was excited about the idea and agreed, so I sent him copies of all my current research and we were off and running.

AW: I, too, first discovered Crockett through the Disney TV series and began perusing the same books Jim mentioned. I remember having to wait weeks to get the sole Crockett book that our small school library had - Sanford Tousey’s 1948 children’s bio Davy Crockett: Hero of the Alamo. I also corresponded with the Alamo staff and collected materials they sent me and even bought books from them. For years I had wanted to do some sort of Crockett project, but could never find something that interested publishers. I was actually in the middle of doing another book, Music of the Alamo, with Bill Chemerka when Jim asked me to come in on the Crockett project. I was thrilled by the idea and flattered that he’d asked me. I had retired from a long career in government and finally had a chance to work on the kinds of projects I’d always wanted to. The Crockett book was exactly the sort of thing I’d been looking for. Initially, we set about finding all of Crockett’s letters, but reading those letters and other Crockett documents began to reveal a man that was very different from what we’d found in the books we’d read. So, we decided to write a book about Crockett’s years in politics based on his correspondence and other primary documents. We became more aware of the fact that Crockett spent most of his adult life in public offices, or seeking them, and that politics was very important to him.

AS: How long did this venture take and how did you both work together to produce the book?

JB: It took five years from when I made the first phone call to a repository to when we turned in the final, completed manuscript. Things really got cranking though when Allen and I started collaborating, so for three years we were doing intensive research. We split the work 50/50, made a list of contacts and possible leads, and just hunkered down and went to work. We spent many long days in research libraries and museums, digging through documents and 19th century newspapers. We went through auction catalogs, card catalogs, any database that might point us toward another letter or collector.

We had planned early on that we would annotate all the letters, but we eventually decided to include a narrative history of Crockett’s political career as well, focusing on the major issues that were important to him. Once we’d amassed enough primary source information, we started writing the narrative history, and sent the chapters back and forth, editing and revising, and making suggestions and corrections. Allen and I worked together well, and I found the partnership to be very rewarding. As a songwriter earlier in my career, I’d done a lot of collaboration, but Allen and I really clicked as a team.

AW: I think the book is far stronger because there were two of us dividing the labor and also bouncing ideas off of one another. I live near Washington, D.C., and was able to spend a lot of time in the Library of Congress and National Archives, while Jim visited repositories in Tennessee. We both spent time at the DRT Library at the Alamo as well. It helped that we shared a common vision of Crockett and writing styles that blended very well. I was very happy when our editor told me that he could not tell which sections of the book each of us had drafted because they flowed so well. This made editing each other’s work much easier and more productive. I can’t recall any time that either of us did not readily agree to changes the other wanted to make. I have to agree with Jim completely; we just clicked right away. I have to say that modern technology has certainly changed and improved research considerably. For example, the Library of Congress has access to many online sources that we could not have accessed ourselves from home. It was so much easier to narrow our search for things we were looking for. Only a few years ago, this would have required months of manual searching in many libraries, and considerably more eye strain, which could never have covered as much material as we found through these online sources. As it was, there were long days at microfilm machines that left me wondering if I’d ever see properly again.

AS: David Crockett in Congress is the first, in-depth political biography about the famous frontier-congressman. What can readers expect from the upcoming book? Any surprises?

AW: The biggest surprise to me involved the reversal of one of Shackford’s key contentions — that Crockett participated in a Whig conspiracy against the Jacksonians. In fact, it was the other way around. Crockett became a threat to the Jacksonians almost immediately and they conspired to unseat him any way they could. The idea of a congressman from Old Hickory’s own state, who was opposing the man they were trying to push into the White House, was tantamount to fundamental disloyalty to the Jacksonians. From that point on, Crockett had the Jackson organization, finances and press placing him in their sights. I think we’ve addressed Crockett’s political career in a thorough and comprehensive way, which I don’t think has ever really been done before. We convey a clear sense of purpose to what Crockett did, rather than accepting older interpretations of him as someone who had no understanding of what he was doing or how politics worked. He understood that very well and had a clear political agenda, which he pursued zealously. There are some specific things that will surprise people who are familiar with earlier Crockett works, like proof positive that he not only voted against Jackson’s Indian Removal bill, but really did give a speech opposing it on the floor of the House of Representatives. Past biographies have expressed doubt that he gave the speech because it did not appear in the Register of Debates in Congress, but we found proof that he gave the speech and information showing that it was not uncommon for speeches to be omitted from the Debates, which was not an official record in any case. We also found earlier discussion of Crockett’s Tennessee land bills to be inadequate, shortsighted, and containing erroneous conclusions. By going through the records and matching it with other documents, including Crockett’s correspondence, his efforts make perfect sense. I also think we’ve done a good job of showing how the mythical “Davy” Crockett image came about and grew beyond Crockett’s control, and how he handled that.

JB: While Crockett saw the value of political factions and alliances, and could be very adept at operating within those constructs, he was adamantly opposed to the idea of strong, organized political parties. He felt that party politics would ruin the country and that constituents would lose their voice in government if elected officials capitulated to party discipline rather than vote their consciences. Part of the reason the Jacksonians were so committed to removing Crockett from office was that he was uncontrollable; he couldn’t be relied upon to vote the way the party wanted him to vote. Many of Crockett’s biographers have claimed that he was naive and was manipulated by the Whigs in an attempt to defeat the Jacksonians, but his relationship with the Whigs was symbiotic. Their support raised his profile even higher, and he hoped to use the political capital to push his land bill through.

I hope, too, that we’ve finally settled the controversy about who wrote the first Crockett biography, Life and Adventures, later titled Sketches and Eccentricities. David Crockett in Congress presents compelling evidence that James Strange French wrote that book, not Matthew St. Claire Clarke as many other sources have claimed. Clarke’s authorship of Sketches was the lynchpin in Shackford’s theory of a Whig literary conspiracy to advance Crockett’s career for their own benefit. With Clarke out of the mix, the theory really falls apart.

Crockett in Congress also includes a complete, annotated collection of Crockett’s correspondence plus selected speeches and circulars, so readers can finally study his political history in his own words. Crockett’s own Narrative is indispensable in understanding him, but despite his many references in his autobiography to the political scene, he doesn’t really delve into his congressional career. We hope that, taken together, the two books will present a clearer picture of the real David Crockett.

AS: The release date is set for this October. Is pre-ordering available? If so, where?

The book can be pre-ordered through Bright Sky Press’s website (http://tinyurl.com/l2t4yp), at Amazon.com (http://tinyurl.com/lvxblu), or at Borders (www.borders.com).

Bill Chemerka delivers a mature book for young readers.

For their Texas Heroes series, Bright Sky Press has released a wonderful book titled Gregorio Esparza: Alamo Defender. Written by Alamo Historian Bill Chemerka; Gregorio Esparza is a mature book for young readers, filled with vivid vocabulary and wonderful illustrations by Don Collins.

The seventy-six page story follows Tejano citizen Gregorio Esparza in the midst of the Texas Revolution from October 1835 to March 1836, as he deals with political conflicts, disagreements, and  dreams of freedom from tyranny while still obtaining the duty of being a fine father and husband. Gregorio Esparza is a man who, throughout the story, stays completely true to himself, his friends and family, and the cause in which he is fighting for.

Gregorio Esparza: Alamo Defender is an excellent book that is filled with mature predicaments, but written in a way for young readers to quickly comprehend and understand. Bill Chemerka has provided the next, young generation of Alamo enthusiasts with an incredible story with wonderful values. Truly one of the best Alamo books that is available for the younger audience.

For ordering information, please visit www.brightskypress.com and be on the look out for other titles, including David Crockett in their Texas Heroes series.

Click Continue for more information on issue #153.

 The June issue of The Alamo Journal has been mailed to all Alamo Society members and institutional subscribers worldwide.

Issue #153 contains a number of important articles:

Mark Lemon provides Part I of “An Unexpected Find: The Strength Returns of the Zapadore, Toluca, and Aldama Battalions Before the March 6th Battle.” Included in the article are numerical breakdowns of each unit with enumerated accounts of every one in the ranks from respective commanders to musicians!

Mark also edited and updated his Alamo Society 2009 Symposium presentation: “Re-Interpreting Labastida and Romero’s Attack.” The article confirms the presence and location of Mexican troops based upon recent archeological finds near the Alamo. A two-page centerfold diagram accompanies the article.

Rick Range provides a Samuel Maverick letter in the “Documents of the Texian Revolution” section that indentifies the general area where a number of misssing Alamo artillery pieces were thrown into the San Antonio River by Gen. Cos. Range adds commentary to the important document.

There’s a report on the Alamo Society 2009 Symposium; a new Phil Collins interview (+ Phil’s March 7 address to the Alamo Direct Descendants Association); a nostalgic essay, “Alamo Ghosts,” written by Bruce Dettman; a report on the March 6 Alamo Plaza Protest; book previews; three pages of “Alamo News;” and a forthcoming update of The Alamo Reader from Todd Hansen. And there’s more in issue #153.

For subscription and membership information for the Alamo Society and Journal, visit www.thealamosociety.com

     One of the least discussed yet most interesting features of the Alamo’s defense works on March 6, 1836 was the abatis of fallen trees placed before the loopholed palisade wall that sealed the gap between church and low barracks. In 1993, when I was trying to make sense of the earliest known plans of the Alamo as a fort, prior to drawing my version of the compound for Stephen L. Hardin’s Texian Iliad, interpreting this section of the fortifications remained a conundrum for the longest time: something was missing. I stayed with this challenge for a number of nights and days, studying the Mexican plans with a magnifying glass and trying to make sense of it all. The intense, closer visual study paid off: like a light bulb suddenly switching on in my brain, I realized that the solution had been in plain sight all along.
     The two plans of the 1836 Alamo fortifications as drawn by Zapadore Lieutenant Colonel Jose Juan Sanchez-Navarro provided the answer and ended the mystery. In his plan drawn mainly to show the assault made by General Cos’ column on the morning of March 6 (hereafter referred to as the “battle” plan), Navarro notes, for the area of the stockade (marked “D” on the plan), and according to one translation: 
      “This was the weakest part of the fort. It was protected [”defendida”] only by a low palisade and a poor barrier of trees. At this place a few colonists tried in vain to escape when they saw all was lost.” [Navarro: 73]
     What he is describing is clear: a row of low, stockaded posts and, in front of it, “a poor barrier of trees.” In Navarro’s other compound plan, seen in his Vista y plano del Fuerte del Alamo (included as a small side insert in an 1840 map of southern Coahuila), the position is described in less detailed terms: “From this point some colonists attempted to escape.” Yet in both of his drawn plans what Navarro shows is unmistakable: a line of round posts for the “palisade” and a scraggly cross-hatching for the “poor barrier of trees,” or abatis.

An earthen redoubt protected by abatis, detail of a much larger canvas by Louis Van Blarenberghe depicting the 1781 surrender at Yorktown.

     A cursory or untrained glance at either plan, or studying poor reproductions of same, does not immediately reveal this. The viewer, in fact, must understand something about military fortifications of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to see it. But without a doubt the abatis as drawn by Navarro in both plans is not a ditch. When Navarro draws ditches, they are deliberately rendered quite differently. In his “battle” plan, ditches are shown as straight or curving black lines edged on one side by dots. In his other compound layout, in the “View and plan” (Vista y plano), the ditches are drawn as two straight lines shaded in-between with gray. There is really no confusion of interpretation between the scraggily-sketched abatis and the carefully linear ditches as Navarro drew them.   

     Constructing a barrier of fallen trees to discourage an enemy attack is a very old practice. Early French, Spanish and English explorers in the New World—even the Pilgrims during their 1620 landfalls—often protected their inland campsites with surrounding barricades of brush or cut-down trees. It was a cheap, relatively fast way of creating an outer defense work, and Travis’ Alamo garrison would have been deemed incredibly inept had it not covered the low, vulnerable stockade with such a “barrier”—although the likelihood is that Mexican engineers had placed it there during Austin’s siege of General Cos’ force in 1835.
     The Mexican army was not unfamiliar with such sensible if makeshift defense works built of available natural materials. In describing his march with the Colonel James Grant contingent of the Matamoros expedition in January 1836, R. R. Brown wrote that, some 60 miles south of San Patricio, they came upon a Mexican encampment: “The tents were enclosed around by brush thrown up, and guarded by a sentinel” [Johnson: 422].
     At San Jacinto, a careless Santa Anna ordered the erection, in the words of Colonel Pedro Delgado, of a breastwork…”for the cannon…constructed with pack saddles, sacks of hard bread, baggage, &c. A “rifling”barricade of branches ran along its front and right.” [Delgado:44]
     In other words, an easily knocked-down “breastwork” covered by an incomplete and “trifling”
abatis. A more ambitious abatis at San Jacinto might have dealt Houston’s army a higher rate of casualties, if not stopped its attack. Santa Anna and his officers could not have been ignorant of some earlier disastrous attempts by armies to claw their way through formidable abatis. At the Battle of Assietta in 1748, nearly 5,000 French troops were killed or wounded in a vain onslaught through an unyielding Austrian abatis. In 1758, some 2,000 British regulars and American provincial troops fell in their brave but hopeless charge through General Montcalm’s abatis outside the walls of Fort Carillon, at Ticonderoga. (For a comparison of Navarro’s sketched abatis with the abatis drawn on a plan of the 1758 battle, and how they almost precisely match one another, see the accompanying diagrams).

     Indeed, Santa Anna’s soldiers seemed to have entirely avoided frontally attacking the Alamo’s abatis during their morning assault of March 6, 1836, even if the ditch between palisade and abatis had not been finished [Huffines, Zaboly: 143]. There is no direct evidence of just when the palisade and its “barrier of trees” were erected, but some indirect documentation is available. Texian Samuel Maverick, held in San Antonio de Bexar as a prisoner of Cos in the fall of 1835, remarked in his diary entry of October 17 of the progress of the Mexican engineers:
 ”Timbers &c. taken to El Alamo to fortify the quartel, & begin, on 13th, to blockade the streets, which is finished by the 17th.” [Maverick: 111].
     On November 3 he wrote:
 ”The quartel in the Alamo is very strongly fortified, and the streets to the plaza here well guarded; and all trees, grass, fences and other lurking places and barricades removed and being removed in order to see the Americans when they come up.” [Maverick: 112].
     So it is easy to assume that many of the  “trees” that had been removed from the garrison’s line of cannon and musket fire could have been carried back and arranged in front of the palisade to serve as an abatis.
     In the Mexican War, Santa Anna’s engineers continued to erect abatis as outerworks. At Resaca de la Palma in 1846, Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant observed that the Mexican army had formed lines on the opposite bank of the river. As he would recall in his Personal Memoirs,
 This position they had strengthened a little by throwing up dead trees and brush in their front, and by placing artillery to cover the approaches and open places [Grant: 62].
     In 1846 General Stephen Watts Kearney encountered a Mexican abatis at Apache Canyon; fortunately for Kearney, its defenders abandoned the position upon his approach. At Cerro Gordo in 1847 the American troops faced a well positioned abatis but, after a tough fight, managed to triumph.
     For much of the remainder of the nineteenth century, abatis continued to serve as defense works in North America and elsewhere. Outside Confederate Fort Donelson in 1862, for instance, U. S. Grant again encountered an abatis: the trees outside of the rifle-pits had been cut down for a considerable way out, and had been felled so that their tops lay outwards from the entrenchments. The limbs had been trimmed and pointed, and formed an abatis in front of the greater part of the line [Grant: 175].
     There are numerous other accounts of abatis built during the Civil War, and a number of photographs of them were taken. (See for example, the abatis outside of earthen-walled Union Fort Slemmer, in Clark: 144-145). One book consulted by officers of this war was Henry Lee Scott’s Military Dictionary (1861), which describes an abatis as: rows of felled trees deprived of their smaller branches, the remainder sharpened to a point, and employed for defence…if branches are properly placed, and intertwined one within another, their disengagement is extremely difficult. An abatis will always be found a very useful and effective auxiliary to the defence of houses or isolated posts, if judiciously placed within range of musketry [Scott: 9-10].                                                         

     In the Sudan wars of 1881-1898, zaribas—improvised barricades of thorny brush and other available vegetation—were used to protect both British and native troops. Twentieth century barbed wire and minefields would largely replace the abatis as effective outer defense works, but wherever vegetation is thick, barriers of fallen trees remain the cheapest and most convenient ways to hinder the approach of enemy infantry.
     In summary, the abatis set up before the Alamo’s palisade wall, most likely by Cos’ troops and perhaps improved by Travis’ men, proved, as Henry Lee Scott noted, “a very useful and effective auxiliary” of the fort’s defenses. It converted one of the weakest points of the Alamo’s fortifications into one of its most inaccessible positions.

Stephen Bruton (Almeron Dickenson in the 2004 Alamo Film)

November 7, 1948 - May 9, 2009

Personal self-assurance is often mistaken for egotism. They’re not synonymous, but those who have the audacity to possess a palpable degree of self-confidence often have charges of hubris leveled at them by the resentful and small-minded. This is usually more a reflection on the claimant than on the target. For whatever his faults may have been, no-one can level against William Barret Travis a charge of being cowardly or dishonorable in the circumstances for which he is best known, and which gave him posthumous immortality. In spite of his youth — he was only 26 years old when he died in the fall of the Alamo — his words, and most importantly his actions, bespoke a degree of bravery and nobility that is striking in the chronicles of our past.

In July, 2007, Alamo historian Richard Curilla summarized the Travis matter as follows: “People — particularly people on the frontier — did a lot more by the time they were 25 or 30 than most folks do today by that age. They also grew up [more quickly] — and had to assume responsibility. . . Travis, by the time he was 23, had already been a school teacher, an editor-publisher of a newspaper, a lawyer, was married, had a child, left his wife, maxed his credit cards, made a major life move, had fifty-six women and nearly started a revolution singlehandedly!”

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William, the first of eleven children of Mark Travis and Jemima Stallworth, was born in August, 1809 in South Carolina. The entry in the Travis family Bible specifies the date of his birth as August 9. The arrival in America of his ancestors can be traced back as far as 1627 to the Jamestown, Virginia settlement, and one of those predecessors, Edward Travis (Travers), became a well-to-do landowner, and joined a decisive governmental group which called themselves the Virginia House of Burgesses. Other forebears went southward and settled in the Carolinas; some took up farming, and one of them became a leading member of the clergy.

Buck, as he was called by his friends, received his early schooling at home, attended the Red Bank Baptist Church in Edgefield, Saluda County, and helped attend to his family’s farm. According to some sources, including the Handbook of Texas Online, there are indications that one of his childhood playmates was a second cousin, who would ultimately share his fate at the Alamo. His name was James Butler Bonham.

Those in the Travis clan who relocated to Conecuh County in Alabama in 1818 were among the first to establish two communities, Evergreen and Sparta, where the young William went to the local academy. Soon his uncle, Alexander — now the family patriarch — sent the boy for further education in Claiborne, not far from Sparta.

In due course, Travis began to contribute to the training and coaching of the younger pupils. That such associates are often chosen on the basis of merit and value would suggest that Travis had the character of an intelligent and earnest young man.

He began his life in the law when James Dellett, a judge considered to have been the principal lawyer in Claiborne, became his mentor.

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Today many hold to the belief that previous times were simpler. It may be so, but only when they’re seen in perspective, and examined in relation to our own era. The world of the ancient Romans was complex for them, and the world of even our relatively recent forebears in the Texas Revolution was just as convoluted for them as ours is for us today. While Travis never had to trouble himself with a nuisance incidental like the selection of a cellphone plan, he could never so summon a doctor; and the ambulances we now take for granted and which can arrive within minutes in cases of accident or sudden serious illness were decades in his future, and thusly as inconceivable to him as a medevac helicopter. He lived in a world which, like ours, had its own technologies specific to his times — most of us today wouldn’t know how to properly cut a quill-nib into shape — and many of those particular technologies are no longer current. As just one example, to attempt today to load and fire an 1830s musket or pistol without the proper contemporary know-how and skills would be, in a phrase, downright foolhardy.

Intelligence is inherent, while the peripherals to which it gives us access — education, culture, and wisdom — are acquired. A perceptive observation by historian and author Rod Timanus encapsulates a certain important difference between gaining a credential and actually being a wise, sensible person: “Having a degree doesn’t mean you’re intelligent. It means you’re capable of learning.” To see the reality of the concept, we need only look at the questionable manner in which some highly degreed individuals today are conducting themselves and directing others.

Travis had an intellectual bent and something of a scholarly leaning. Under Dellett’s tutelage, he eventually became a lawyer — and then Dellett’s partner, in which capacity he headed their law office for a time in Gosport, across the Alabama River from Claiborne. The young, ambitious Travis had not yet reached his twentieth birthday.

During his time as a teaching assistant, one of his pupils was Rosanna Cato. She was sixteen years old when they were married on October 26, 1828, and on August 8 of the following year the young couple became parents of a son, Charles Edward Travis.

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This was an active time for Travis and he became involved in three enterprises. Countless men involved in the Texas Revolution were Masons, and he became a member of that fraternal organization (Alabama Lodge No.3); he also joined the Alabama Militia as an adjutant; and he soon set up shop as a publisher and founded the newspaper, The Claiborne Herald.

He arrived, the very next year, at a difficult junction, and the direction he took determined the very course of the remainder of his short life. That direction was personal as well as geographical. Without the proof of historical documentation, an account of this muddle is that he thought his wife had been unfaithful; that he killed the man he believed was responsible for the child she was now expecting (and who was given the name Susan Isabella, though Travis never saw her); and that he abandoned his family and made his way to the territory of Texas. Another report is that he set off to escape being jailed for nonpayment of debts: debtors’ prison was still a contemporary “punishment” for insolvency.

It could be said he did the wrong thing in having fled — but another, valid view would be that he did it for what would amount to the right reasons. Aside from the entirely understandable wish to avoid incarceration, and for what is certainly a nonviolent “crime,” in being able to operate functionally in practical surroundings on a day-by-day basis, he’d have the opportunity to make some kind of contribution to the practical world in which he was living. In a debtors’ prison, he’d make no contribution.

In either case, William Barret Travis arrived in Texas in early 1831. At the town of San Felipe he acquired some land from “The Father of Texas,” Stephen F. Austin. Travis didn’t reveal that he still had a wife back home. He soon opened a law practice in the port town of Anahuac, situated on Galveston Bay at its eastern point. The official language was Spanish, and he studied it while trying to set himself up as an attorney in this area, where there was a paucity of lawyers.

Even before Travis’ arrival at Anahuac, a law had been enacted (on April 6, 1830) banning Anglo immigration to the territory. He eventually connected with a group of activists who had opposed this decree. Considerable stress and strain was caused, and continued to grow, by the friction that existed between the government of Mexico, and the Americans who had settled in the Texas territory. It should be remembered that what is now Texas was then still part of Mexico (independence was still six years away, and statehood was a full fifteen years distant), and its inhabitants were if not completely controlled by its government they were in fact subject to its laws. The Americans living in Texas were faced with this fact.

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Travis made no secret of his disagreement with and opposition to John Davis Bradburn, whose loyalties were with Mexico and who, with the title of Colonel Bradburn, was in control of the Mexican forces garrisoned at Anahuac. An interesting historical footnote is that Bradburn, an American by origin — Virginia-born and Kentucky-raised — is remembered by posterity with the name Juan Bradburn, rather than by “John.” Travis was a determined young man, and regardless of whether or not his intention was to incite a revolt, a revolt at Anahuac is what ultimately took place.

The primary clash happened in 1832. Bradburn had been retaining fugitive slaves, and Travis had been selected to get them returned. Through a series of intrigues, real or imagined, Bradburn suspected Travis of subterfuge and arranged to have him (and his associate, Patrick C. Jack) arrested and detained. Bad news, then as now, could travel quickly; there ensued a scandale, and a massed contingent was formed, which rallied to Anahuac to demand the freedom of the two jailed men. Those forces arrived there on June 10, 1832.

Word of the disturbance ultimately reached Nacogdoches. The town’s Mexican commander, Col. Jose de las Piedras, rode for Anahuac. While he sided with Juan Bradburn, he also soon recognized a serious logistical imbalance: there were more Anglos than Mexicans, certainly too many for his forces to deal with successfully. An exchange of prisoners was finally arranged, the rebels insisted Bradburn be relieved of his command, and de las Piedras directed that Travis and his partner be set free. They were at first remanded to the local authorities and then altogether released.

The disturbances at Anahuac eventually brought about conflicts later in the summer at Nacogdoches and at Velasco, which in turn prompted formal appeals to rescind that April 6, 1830 anti-immigration law.

In April, 2005, an article titled The Shot Heard Around The World appeared in Connecticut’s Middletown Press. Authored by Rod Timanus, it states, in part, “. . . Although the other twelve British colonies in North America suffered under the same laws and restrictions, the Massachusetts colony had become a hotbed of unrest, with many people advocating self-government free of English control.” In the 1830s, more than a half-century after Lexington and Concord, the same principles applied to the Texas territory: it, too, had become a hotbed of unrest, with many people advocating self-government free of Mexican control.

After the Anahuac conflict, Travis relocated his law practice to San Felipe. He was elected to the city council in 1834, even though he was only 24. He also met and cultivated a relationship with a young lady living at Mill Creek, Rebecca Cummings. Travis seems to have wanted to marry her once his divorce from his wife was final.

That same year, Rosanna Travis started divorce proceedings against her husband. The charge of desertion she had leveled against him was seen as grounds for the divorce she ultimately obtained. It became final the following year (though she remarried within about six months). She did, however, allow their son to go to Texas, and while young Charles Edward Travis lived there with another family, he was now in closer proximity to his father than he would have been if he had remained with his mother. The family with whom the young boy lived was that of David Ayers, the man to whom William Barret Travis addressed the last known words he ever wrote, voicing his own hopes for his not-yet-seven-year-old son.

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Travis never did marry Rebecca Cummings, and he might not even have been aware of when his divorce from his wife Rosanna had taken effect. In the summer of 1835, with an ever-growing intensity that would keep him extremely active until the day he died, he became involved in the events and proceedings that culminated in the Texas Revolution.

Young men with powerful libidos, and the pride in the masculine triumphs usually coupled with them, have been a feature of any era and there has never been a shortage of them. In this regard Travis was no different. In his diary he actually kept a written record of his conquests in this sphere. It’s interesting to note, too, though the reason is speculative, that he chose the Spanish language to record such successful accounts, using the vernacular word chingaba to verbalize the entry. (Leonardo Da Vinci, too, so “coded” his own notes by writing them backwards, though in his case the circumstances and reasons were quite different). That he had nearly a dozen siblings has even led some to suggest that “Buck” Travis’ own libidinous leanings might have been genetic, but this would of course be entirely conjectural if not altogether preposterous.

One of Travis’ tasks was to purge Anahuac of a new Mexican military force, headed by Capt. Antonio Tenorio, that had been established there by the self-proclaimed Napoleon of the West: His Excellency, Generalissimo Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna y Perez de Lebron. For this purpose, Travis was ordered by James B. Miller to return to Anahuac with about two dozen men, where he easily accomplished his mission.

It’s been said you can’t argue with success, but the narrow-minded who focus only on what suits them will still do so. They’re the people who will wish you luck — and then actually resent you when you find it. To offer a concrete and very relevant instance in such a case: it’s a matter of record that many who proclaim most loudly their love of the human race are in fact difficult neighbors, and are intolerant or suspicious in their personal and family relationships. Their general, rhetorical benevolence seems to break down the moment it’s tested by the practical demands of an individual case. Success, in any form, frequently comes with a price: a personal accomplishment for some can be as dangerous as a professional failure for others. Those who had advocated peace were troubled by what Travis had done in stirring the pot in which this tension had been simmering, and for some time afterward he was seen as an agitator by innumerable Texians.

A line spoken by Richard Widmark (portraying Jim Bowie) in John Wayne’s film The Alamo was, “I hate to say anything good about that long-winded jackenaypes, but he does know the short way to start a war.” It may have prompted nods of agreement if Travis’ own colleagues had heard it in the mid 1830s. Firebrands can produce explosive results.

One of Santa Anna’s general officers, Martin Perfecto de Cos, relocated with his contingent of troops to San Antonio de Bexar, and he ordered that Travis and his adherents be handed over to him by the Texians for military judgement. While sources disagree, the story still persists that Gen. Cos was Santa Anna’s brother-in-law.

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The single event that actually started the Texas Revolution, the “Come and Take It” cannon incident, occurred on October 2, 1835 at the Guadelupe River, near the town of Gonzales but closer to the present-day hamlet of Cost, Texas. Though Travis quickly went there with several hundred people, the engagement was over by the time they arrived. As Lexington, Massachusetts is the site of The Shot Heard ‘Round The World that started the Revolutionary War, Gonzales is the site of the firing of the first shot of the Texas Revolution.

Today, historical markers in the area memorialize the seminal event that took place there. The massive stone marker near the shoulder of the highway at Cost, Texas is inscribed, “Near here on Oct. 2, 1835 was fired the first shot of the Texas Revolution of 1835-36 — the shot heard round the world. At Gonzales the Texians defied the Mexican government and refused their demand for the Gonzales cannon with the ‘Come and Take It’ challenge until reinforcements arrived from other parts of DeWitt’s colony and from the colonies on the Colorado and Brazos [rivers]. They then pursued the Mexicans from Gonzales to near this point and fired upon them with this cannon, driving them back to Bexar. This shot started the [Texas] Revolution and was directly responsible for adding more territory to the United States than was acquired by the freeing of the original thirteen colonies from England.”

The smaller marker located a short distance away — on a bank of the Guadelupe River itself and within sight of the remains of the original ferry landing on the opposite shore — is believed to be on the very spot from which that first shot of the Texas Revolution was sounded. The granite slab reads, “Here was fired the first gun for Texas independence Oct. 2, 1835. Erected by the children of Gonzales city schools April 21, 1903.”

Travis soon returned to San Felipe. Declining a position as an artillery major, he was assigned to the cavalry with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. One of his duties was as the principal officer in charge of recruiting. As such, he was instructed by Governor Henry Smith to enlist a hundred men to buttress the Anglo forces in San Antonio, who were then under the command of Col. James C. Neill. It was January, 1836.

When he was able to engage fewer than thirty of the one hundred reinforcements Gov. Smith had specified, Travis was faced with an awkward and embarrassing situation, and he asked to be relieved of his command. Gov. Smith wouldn’t grant this, and told Travis to report to Col. Neill, who took personal leave soon after Travis’ arrival in San Antonio — leaving the young officer in charge of about fifty men.

Soon there appeared in San Antonio the one hundred volunteers Travis had hoped to find — but they arrived with James Bowie and were under his command. For whatever reason(s), disagreements arose between Travis and Bowie about just who would be in charge, and they finally agreed to a joint command of the Texian forces. The peace between them lasted a full day, because Bowie soon had to take to his bed; whether from a fall (according to some legends) or by illness, it is still impossible to say with certainty, but we know he was suffering from an illness “of a peculiar nature.” Travis now became the commanding officer at the Alamo.

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William Barret Travis spent what remained of his life — every week of it — caught up in the arrangements for the defense of the Alamo, and preparing for the appearance in San Antonio of the Mexican forces. With his chief engineer, Green B. Jameson, Travis made arrangements for the repair and reinforcement of walls, the building of ramps for cannon emplacements, and the stockpiling of supplies within the compound. In particular, he directed the construction of a wooden palisade to fill the largest and thusly the most conspicuous gap in the fortifications. This breach existed between the southwest corner of the church, and the Low Barracks, and after its positioning the palisade extended diagonally from and connected the two points. This area behind the palisade, in front of the church inside the compound, was defended by David Crockett and his men during the siege.

At the Alamo in San Antonio today, paving-stones are conspicuously set into the ground to outline not only the palisade’s positioning, but also, wherever possible, elsewhere around the periphery of the place to give a sense of the original perimeter of the entire 1836 compound. By the layout of today’s Alamo and its surroundings, it’s understandably difficult for the unaware to know that the walls of the original complex encompassed an area the size of two football fields — and that when people are facing the front of the Alamo church, they’re actually standing inside what was then the Alamo grounds and would have been virtually surrounded by the perimeter walls in 1836.

Travis found the time to give his ring to Angelina Dickinson, the baby daughter of Susanna Dickinson, the only Anglo woman who survived the battle. Today that ring, donated years later to the shrine by Susanna Dickinson’s descendants, is often given a place of honor on display at the Alamo.

The perception of the Alamo’s historical status was realized by Travis, whose name might have remained only an archive account or a textbook entry, just to be lost to posterity. Fortunately, he had that intuitive sense of fate that prompted him to choose, in one of his communiques, a particular word that made all the difference. — “. . . If they overpower us, we fall a sacrifice at the shrine of our country, and we hope Posterity . . . will do our memory justice. . .” Thus wrote Travis from the Alamo itself on February 25, 1836.

He wasn’t clairvoyant — but he didn’t have to be. That he used the word shrine in his letter, long before the Alamo became so known as a national symbol, seems very noteworthy — the more so, as his dispatch is dated only two days after the siege began and thusly predates the realization that the defenders were to fight literally a losing battle. Indeed, even a mere six weeks after the final siege, “Remember The Alamo!” became a rallying cry at San Jacinto, and has since become an indelible expression in the collective American mind.

Then again, speculation, though fruitless, can be fascinating: perhaps Travis did believe when he wrote that letter that the garrison was doomed — and perhaps he used the word shrine for that very reason.

Even as late as March 3, Travis had been hoping for reinforcements. We will never know for certain at what stage he realized that the circumstances for him and the men of the Alamo were hopeless. We do know, however, that he refused to grovel and buckle. Some would call this stubbornness and decline, others would call it integrity and dignity.

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We live in an era where some amazing, thought-provoking concepts and their details are often taken for granted. An unusual and very revealing relic is on display at the Whitehead Memorial Museum at Del Rio, Texas, right on the Rio Grande border between Texas and Mexico, and about 30 miles from Brackettville, where John Wayne’s film The Alamo was made. The artifact is a large, sealed jar of earth from the Alamo grounds in San Antonio. That this soil was rescued and preserved even in 1836, soon after the final battle, bespeaks a revealing degree of reverence for what happened on that fateful day, and is a clear indication of the momentous significance with which the event was seen even then, certainly by the unnamed person who salvaged and saved that soil.

Despite Travis’ several dispatches in which he all but pleaded for reinforcements, less than three dozen men arrived from the town of Gonzales. He and his men were hopelessly outnumbered. Still, he would not back down. In his letter of February 24, 1836 — the day after the 13-day siege began — he wrote, “The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken — I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls — I shall never surrender or retreat.” According to Western historian Dr. Stephen Hardin, the likely location of where Travis “answered the demand with a cannon shot” is delineated today, like so much else in and around the Alamo, with a reconstructed section of wall in the south-westernmost corner of the original complex, now located across the street from the Alamo church.

The only known life-painted portrait of the well-to-do James Bowie was done in Boston in 1832-33 by professional portraitist G.P.A. Healy, whose studio was then at 13 School Street, near the waterfront. (The current building dates from 1888). Similarly, there is only one known life-rendered likeness of the not-so-wealthy Travis, attributed to amateur artist Wiley Martin.

According to his slave, Joe, Travis is said to have been one of the first Alamo defenders to perish, with a bullet through the forehead, in the roughly 90-minute final battle. The spot where he’s believed to have died, at a cannon emplacement on the north wall, is now completely outside of what is today’s Alamo compound. For one to stand on that approximate spot today, one must be well inside the main United States Post Office (just off Alamo Plaza, to the north), from the steps of which one has a clear view of the Long Barracks on the present Alamo grounds.

( Author’s Bio )

Jeffrey Dane is a researcher and historian whose work appears in the USA and abroad in several languages. He has contributed to a number of books, including several 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; and he delivered a presentation on James Bowie at the Alamo Society Symposium in San Antonio in March, 2007. Jeff is also a contributing writer for Alamo Sentry.com.

Drawing (above) of William Barret Travis by Wade Dillon (2009).

Click here to read an eye-opening article by Robert A. Harris on the reconstruction and restoration of John Wayne’s THE ALAMO.

Interview with Dayne T. Lamb, featured extra from John Lee Hancock’s The Alamo!

AS: Tell us a bit about yourself.

DT: Well, my name is Dayne T. Lamb and I was born in 1961. In 1965, my family moved to Austin, Texas where my father was military and we were stationed there from England. We went to San Antonio and saw the Alamo in 1966. I was 5. Davy Crockett’s musket was in a case in front of the Alamo back then and the whole vacation was awe inspiring. Little did I know that 37 years later, I would be in the remake of that great movie.

At an early age I started preforming on stage and continued acting throughout highschool and college. Most of my young adult acting jobs where community theatre, but later on I did alot of commercials and paid preformances for dinner theatres. It wasn’t until after a five year run with a traveling renaissance festival that I came to Austin, Texas in 2002 to homestead my father’s house.

AS: When did you first hear about the casting call? What was the casting process like for you?

DT: It was in Austin, Texas a few weeks after moving there. I read in the paper about auditions for the movie, The Alamo. I jumped at the chance.

The auditions were set for the middle of October I believe, that was so long ago, at the Ommi Hotel. Knowing I had to bring a head shot, I felt I had a chance at a part because of my very long hair and mustache and beard I sported because of the Ren Fair I had just left. I filed in a huge line where they took our head shots and information. Then a pannel of folks in a large open room asked alot of questions about ourselves. Being very personable, I was selected to go on. The second part of the audition was to be an all day event.

The second part of the audition took place a few weeks after the first interview. It was an all day trek at a ranch in Texas, where a little over 400 guys marched around in the cold with muskets through the mud. I looked at it as part of the training and took it very serious. Alot of guys didn’t last through the ordeal, but the ones that did went through some stunt training, horse riding, musket practic and a whole lot of marching.

At the end, they chose only 120 guys to be Alamo Defenders. I was one of the lucky ones. After signing my life away, I was told to show up to Riding Training on December 2. I did and spent two days riding horse with a few others. Although I learned alot, and even though I could hold my own with the rest of them, I was later selected to become a New Orleans Gray. For me, any part was a good part. It ment I was in the movie. Filming was set for Jan 2nd.

The May issue of True West Magazine will focus on the current efforts to restore dignity to Alamo Plaza, with an article written by Mark Boardman titled The Battle for Alamo Plaza. Here is a sneak peak at the wonderful cover by True West’s Bob Boze Bell!

Join the True West Community at: http://truewest.ning.com/

Actor Joe Perez stops by the plaza to Remember the Alamo!

Late last year, I was honored to have been asked by Joan Headley to help her with her annual Alamo Party, which was held on Friday, March 6th. The theme for this year’s party was to celebrate the 5th year anniversary of the release of the John Lee Hancock’s Alamo film. So, I found it fit to invite some of the cast and crew from the movie to attend.

As I gathered autographs from the cast and crew to serve as door prizes for the party, I stayed in touch by phone with actor Joe Perez, who portrayed Colonel Juan Morales. Despite being busy searching the market for a new home and heading to rehearsals, Joe had every intention to attend.

On March 7th, Joe walked to his vehicle to type in Joan Headley’s address into his GPS system when he realized…the party was the previous evening. Having felt terrible about the entire ordeal, Joe called me up and we arranged to meet on Alamo Plaza the very next day on March 8th.

I spent most of the morning and early afternoon of March 8th relaxing in SALHA’s period camp, in period clothing, recovering from a terrible fever that had struck me at the beginning of the trip. As the temperature downtown struck 80 degrees, I unbuttoned by wool waistcoat as I spoke with Mark Lemon’s friend, John, who had accompanied the author/artist from Georgia. As I sat on the limestone perch relaxing, a man in shades approached us.

“Do any of you know Wade Dillon,” he asked.

Immediately, I stuck out my hand and introduced myself. Instead, we hugged as if we were old friends and I went about telling Joe about the scheduled events of the day.

With great enthusiasm, Joe began snapping photos; taking in the scenery and the excitement that had filled the plaza. After talking about his trip down from Austin, I introduced Joe to others who had been in the 2004 Alamo film and many of the reenactors that I was participating with.

After taking several photos, I walked Joe over to the Alamo where I pointed out interesting architectural tidbits that had been shared with me by Mark Lemon and Craig Covner during previous visits to the shrine. As columns of tourists entered the Alamo, I showed Joe the bullet splashes, various carvings on the church, and the royal seal on the keystone of the Alamo’s archway. He listened enthusiastically with open ears!

Eventually, It came time for the reenactments to begin as Joe stood on the curb to view the action without any blindspots. There were a few moments when I’d turn towards him to see a huge smile on his face, enjoying it all!

After the reenactment ended, Joe and I continued to discuss various topics of the Alamo, including his role in the film, and I continued to introduce him to friends. Several people shared their thoughts with me, claiming that Joe’s passion for the subject was apparent and that his excitement and enthusiasm was contagious. I couldn’t agree more.

As it became late afternoon, we said our goodbyes with plans to get together again, soon. I assured him that we’d get a drink or two or ten when I’d come back to Texas after my twenty first birthday this September.

While still under construction, you may visit Joe Perez’s official website here and read my interview with him here.