Anyoner have a set of "study Plans for Redmond's WHISP??

[jfreemanTMN]

oldbuffpilot,

Fyi, I'm a docent at our Alamo Shrine and YEP we've celebrated Independence Day all day long here.
The Dawn Ceremony & the following events which end at dark on 06MAR18 is the biggest event of the Alamo docent's year.

REMEMBER THE ALAMO. REMEMBER GOLIAD.

Note: Like most Texicans, I cannot read LTC Travis's letter out loud, without tearing up.
(During the TX Sesquicentennial, we finally hired a professional actor, out of OK, to read the letter at various commerations.)

yours, jim

 

[Kayak Jack]

I think that I have heard his letter in a book on disk, but would like to read it again. Could someone post his words for us?
Thanks

 

[oldsparkey]

Thanks to GOOGLE here is what I found.

Commandancy of the The Alamo

Bejar, Feby. 24th. 1836

To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World-

Fellow Citizens & compatriots-

I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna - I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man - 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. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch - The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country - Victory or Death.

William Barret Travis.

Lt. Col.comdt.

P. S. The Lord is on our side - When the enemy appeared in sight we had not three bushels of corn - We have since found in deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels and got into the walls 20 or 30 head of Beeves.

Travis

 

[Kayak Jack]

Every military member - of both genders, of every country, in all ages - thinks of maybe being in a similar corner. Each one thinks of, and wonders how, they would conduct themselves. Most of us didn't have to find out. But, a few did.

 

[jfreemanTMN]

Kayak Jack,

Indeed so. = During the final battle & fall of The Alamo, which lasted from about 0500-0630 on 06MAR1836, about 190-210 Texans & about 750-900 Mexican soldiers died during the final assault & most combatants perished in hand to hand fighting.
(At best, the casualty figures are inexact, as the number of casualties was a counting of the corpses that were counted by several Mexican officers.)

On the Texan side, the names/identities of 183 men are known, though there were numerous unknown soldiers among the Alamo's defenders.
(All but one of the Texans were burned on a funeral pyre, upon orders of GEN Santa Ana.)

About 750 Mexican casualties were actually counted among the dead, though the official Mexican reports state that, "A great many Mexican soldiers" were already thrown into privy holes, down local wells & into the San Antonio River, well before any counting was begun.
The Dictator GEN Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana ordered, shortly after the end of the battle, that NO religious ceremony (or even prayers) were to be , "said over the Mexican dead" & that the corpses were to be dumped into any convenient hole & the remainder "- - - - - are to be gathered & thrown into the local river".
(About 2-3 weeks later, a Catholic priest and a group of about 100 Catholic laymen recovered about 750 corpses from the San Antonio River, as the smell was terrible well over a mile away. The recovered Mexican remains thereafter had a Catholic funeral mass said over them & the soldiers bodies were then interred in what is now Travis Park in the center of San Antonio. - About 15 years later the Mexican soldiers were disinterred, on the orders of the Archbishop of Bexar & reinterred, after another mass, in San Fernando Catholic Cemetery Number 2.)

yours, jim

 

[Kayak Jack]

As a military strategist, Santa Ana would have made a good blacksmith. A military leader should have simply ignoted the Alamo, and walked around it, on the way to his real target. Fortunately for both Texas and the U.S., Santa Ana's arrogance and pomposity misled him. Though, it wasn't so fortunate for those in the Alamo.

As a sidenote, in that same year, 1836, surveyors were out surveying the state of Michigan. They laid out a grid of square miles called "sections". All section corners were described and monumented. They all still remain today. The single starting point for the entire grid system is about 20 miles south of of my home.

 

[jfreemanTMN]

Kayak Jack,

WELL SAID.

Also to quote a French COL, who was a mercenary with the Mexican forces, "One or two more such victories by El Presidente will destroy our army."

GEN Houston was another of the few natural military leaders, who despite their lack of military training & experience, KNOW how to WIN.
(GEN Houston had a total of about 4 hours of actual combat experience against an organized military force, so he used what he knew about Native American warfare & what he had read about "scorched earth" as a military technique, so he ordered that everything be bespoiled or burned behind him as the TX army retreated to the east.)
Houston was aided in his use of that strategy by the worst Winter in the history of Texas, by the lack of warm coats/uniforms/boots/blankets/tents that were available to the Mexicans, by the very long lines of supplies to Santa Ana's army, by the lack of medical personnel among the Mexicans and by the constant depredations of the local Amer-Indians upon his forces.

The late Sylvia Elena Gomez de Vega, PhD & professor of history of the Autonomous University of Mexico commented, "By April 15th of 1836, our Mexican Army was so mentally/physically exhausted, deprived of food, clean water & vital supplies and so ravaged by filth diseases that the Army was unable to continue the war. Had the Battle of San Jacinto occurred two or three weeks later, there would have been no Mexican army left to fight. Our soldiers of Mexico were brave & dedicated to our country but they simply had no more to offer to our country and 'their best' was simply insufficient to the requirements to continue the war."
(During the 18 minutes of San Jacinto, a large percentage of the Mexican forces were so ill that they were unable to rise from their sick beds to mount a defense against the Texas forces or even to protect themselves from the vengeful Texans.)

Note: The forces that commit war crimes will almost always end up strengthening & embittering their enemy. = The massacre at Goliad angered the Texans & that massacre of about 300 helpless POWS there insured that the Texans would have no mercy upon the Mexicans.
Thus REMEMBER THE ALAMO, REMEMBER GOLIAD as the Texans battle-cry drove what has come to be known as "The Great Killing". - NO Texas soldier was moved by the plaintive cry of , "Me NO Alamo, me NO Goliad" & the killing went on & on for days.

yours, jim

 

[jfreemanTMN]

To All,

06MAR18 is the 182nd anniversary of The Fall of The Alamo Fortress. = We wild/rebellious TEXICANS will pause at least once tomorrow to remember our MARTYRS.

yours, Darla & jim