Texas Tidbits: Letters from the Alamo

The Flag of Heroes

There are several reasons why I do this blog, but no two are more important than the fact that I am a Texan and I love my home State and I can't get enough of the history of Texas. The State and its history are the object of endless fascination to many people, from the ordinary guy like me to the most learned of scholars. I would hazard a guess that the single most written about event in the history of Texas is the Battle of the Alamo. It is certainly one of the best known battles in the annals of military encounters.

One of the things that gripes me the most is a bunch of touchy, feely anti-Texan morons that try to "revise" the facts of the Battle of the Alamo. You know who I am talking about. The idiots that want to make General Santa Ana seem like a misunderstood benevolent leader, when in fact, he was a murderous tyrant who could care less about the people he ruled. In the process of doing that, these Liberal asswipes simultaneously do their dead level best to make the Revolutionaries, (read: white guys) appear to be racist war-mongers or worse. These same dickweeds tend to forget how many Mexicans fought on the side of the evil gringos. How about we bypass any and all prejudice for either side of this story, by using the actual handwritten words of the participants in the Battle itself?

Colonel William B. Travis was the commander of the troops defending the Alamo. Here are his own words as the superior forces of the Mexican Army closed in on the Mission. "Do hasten on aid to me as rapidly as possible, as from the superior number of the enemy, it will be impossible for us to keep them out much longer," wrote Travis in his famous letter of February 25, 1836. "If they overpower us, we fall a sacrifice at the shrine of our country, and we hope prosperity and our country will do our memory justice. Give me help, oh my country! Victory or Death!" Those are the words of a man who knew his days were numbered. Colonel Travis and the almost 200 other defenders of the Alamo must have come to realize early on that without re-enforcements they were surely to die. Yet, they fought until the end, refusing to surrender to Santa Ana, preferring Death to tyranny. Heroes. Every. Damn. One. Of. Them.

An ordinary Mexican soldier had this to say after the battle: "Poor things - no longer do they [Texans] live - all of them died, and even now I am watching them burn…their leader named Travis, died like a brave man with his rifle in his hand at the back of a cannon." Confirmation. Travis died a hero, not a sniveling coward as some would want you to believe. Screw the bastards that write otherwise.


Here's the closing paragraph of the article by Murray Montgomery from which I drew my source material.

"No, we don't need anyone to re-write our Alamo history for us - it has already been written by our ancestors. We have a rich heritage in Texas and it came about by the sacrifices of a tough breed of people who made their homes in the wilderness. Personally, I would like to see even more tribute paid to the lesser-known men who served in both those armies - Mexican and Texan, alike - after all they too, were patriots. The Mexican was protecting his country and the Texan was fighting for his independence. I don't know if defending your country or fighting for liberty is politically correct nowadays, but it seems pretty noble to me."

One more note from Colonel Travis written near the end of the battle, "Take care of my little boy," he wrote a friend in the last days of the siege. "If the country should be saved, I may make for him a splendid fortune. But if the country should be lost and I should perish, he will have nothing but the proud recollection that he is the son of a man who died for his country." With those words, I leave you with this: all you revisionist dumbasses, stick with the facts. If not, get the hell out of Texas. We don't cotton to liars. And we damn sure don't cotton to those who would turn our history into a fairy tale.