Dan Snow's History Hit - Remembering the Alamo with W. F. Strong

Episode Date: February 23, 2021

In this episode taken from our archive, I headed out to Texas in 2016 to discuss the Battle of the Alamo and what its legacy means for modern Texas. I met with W. F. Strong, a famed historian of Texas, to wander around the city of San Antonio and get a deeper understanding of one of America's most famous battles.

Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was a master satirist who cloaked a sharp political edge beneath his absurdist wit. Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth explores the ideas of the man who foresaw the dangers of the digital age and our failing politics with astounding clarity. Hear the recordings that inspired a generation of futurists, entrepreneurs and politicians. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Stowe's History Hit. Those of us in the rest of the world have been pulled and fascinated by the events in Texas over the last few weeks. Devastatingly cold weather has led to a breakdown

of electricity and other key supplies, food and fresh water. We're all desperately hoping that anyone listening to this podcast in Texas is doing better now the weather is warming up and power is being restored. We're thinking of you guys and we know that you Texans will pull through in your traditional style. In honor of Texas, I want to put on a podcast from the archive in which I visited Texas and visited the site of one of the most important moments of Texan history, and that's the Alamo in San Antonio. And today's the right day to do it, because today in 1836, on the 23rd of February. A 13-day siege began at San Antonio as Mexican troops under General Santa Anna, who was also the president of Mexico, invested the Alamo mission and eventually stormed it and killed nearly all of the defenders. It was a pivotal moment in the Texan struggle for independence. The defiance of

those defenders and the way in which they were slaughtered inspired both Texans and people crossing the border from the USA to throw the Mexicans out of Texas, which they did at the Battle of San Jacinto in April 1836 down in Houston, another battlefield that I visited. Perhaps we'll do that on another podcast. And so the Alamo is considered to be an almost sacred place within Texas and is a hugely important moment in US history. I visited San Antonio in 2016 and I was shown around the Alamo battlefield by the absolutely brilliant W.F. Strong. He's a writer. He's a podcast. He's a broadcaster.

He's a professor of communication at the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley. You can listen to him wherever you get your pods. Please go and check them out. He's also written a wonderful book on stories about Texas, which is a treasured book in my library. W.F. took me round the Alamo,

and you'll hear that all right now on this podcast. If you wish to see more American history or world history or any kind of history, we've got historyhit.tv. It's a digital history channel. It's like Netflix, but just for history, only for history. You go on there, historyhit.tv, you sign up, and then you get to watch the world's best history documentaries. We're making more of them all the time. Got a couple of very exciting projects that we're slowly beginning to film in the next few weeks as Britain's lockdown begins to loosen up slightly. Very exciting. Watch this space. There will of course be audio versions coming to this podcast. And if you want to see a live version of this podcast being

recorded, go to history.com slash tour. We're recording them in great cities all around the UK this autumn. Cannot wait to see all out there, to breathe the same air as you to have a pint in the bar afterwards it's going to be awesome so see you all go to history.com slash tour in the meantime everybody here is wf strong taking me around the alamo enjoy well i'm standing now in the heart of San Antonio, Texas, and I'm in one of the most important historic sites in the whole of the USA, in the world possibly. I've got W.S. Strong here, who is the father of Texan history. Tell me, where are we now?

I wouldn't go that far, but I will tell you that I think of myself as a textologist. But this is ground zero for Texas Liberty. There is no more important site in Texas for sure than where we stand at this moment. This is a shrine. This is Thermopylae. This is the Wailing Wall. And if that's true, then this is our ultimate religious symbol. But ultimately,

you know, of course, we're not a religion. We just have a kind of patriotism that approximates a religion. And this is the most significant symbol in Texas history. Now, the Alamo, let's go way back. This was, what was the first site of settlement here? What was the first site of settlement here? Well, the first site of settlement here was just, you know, it was a mission. This Alamo existed. And Alamo, by the way, means cottonwood. It's a cottonwood tree. Because when they, after about 75 years, they secularized the mission,

brought in a military contingent. And those guys came from Coahuila in Mexico, and it looked like their hometown that was called the Alamo and so they renamed this the Alamo because they had cottonwood trees around here and that's how I got that name but for a long time it operated as a mission to Christianize the Indians and that that mission was being run by what the Spanish Mexican Mexico was part of the Spanish empire and it was that this was part of the Spanish Empire, and this was part of that extended up into what is now the U.S. Right, that's right. And so it was part of the Spanish Empire at the time, and they were, of course, like all of the Spanish Empire in South America,

they worked to Christianize the indigenous peoples. And then, of course, Mexico won its independence, and then they assumed control of the mission, and they militarized it to some extent and i mean i got we got a list to describe what we can see here we've got the we got the classic frontage of the church we've got some high walls and we've got a remarkable monument tell me tell me kind of where are we standing now okay well we're standing in front of uh the church as it's called and that's what most people call the alamo. But the Alamo was actually about a five-acre compound.

And so it's much, much more than that one building, but that's just what everybody knows as the Alamo. Now, if we look over to the west, we're looking east as we look at the facade of the Alamo, but if you turn around and look to the west, you see what was the parade grounds, Alamo, but if you turn around and look to the west, you see what was the parade grounds, about probably three acres of space. That was where the major battle took place, and it actually goes about a block and a half to the north. Now there are buildings in what was the parade grounds, and then across to the west, where they would look toward the city of San Antonio at the time, only about 3,000 people at the time that the battle occurred.

They were slightly elevated, so they would be able to see Santa Ana's army over there quite easily. But anyway, they want to now remove all these stores that are in the way and reclaim the original footprint and get rid of the road that goes through the middle. They're going to make it a much more sacred site than it's ever been. And the big monument in the middle of this square, what was the part of what the parade ground would have been? I mean, this is like a kind of almost a side of religious devotion.

There's a Christ-like figure stretching up and then all the figures of the resistance, whose names are etched on it and all looking very heroic. Yes, a lot of people think that that contains, that's called the cenotaph. And a lot of people think it contains the ashes of the men who died here because Santa Anna burned 189 bodies because he couldn't bury them I guess he could have but he he burned them and he considered them terrorists by the way he thought of them as terrorists he said they had no rights and so a lot of people think that cenotaph which was created 100 years exactly after the battle, contains the ashes, but it doesn't because nobody knows where the ashes are. So it's kind of the tomb of the unknown soldier in a sense,

except we know who died here. And actually, this has caused a lot of controversy because it's going to move the cenotaph. It's leaking. It's got a lot of problems. It needs to be rebuilt. And so they're going to move it over here about 100 yards to the south. And a lot of people don't like that because they think it has ashes and they think that it's a violation of its sacred nature. But, of course, it is merely a monument to kind of like the unknown soldiers. We don't know where they're buried. Okay, so let's okay so

let's um tell me so we we learned a little bit about the alamo itself it was a mission station for converting uh the indians to to christianity catholicism why did it turn into this epic battlefield in the uh third of the way through the 19th century well it was the most defensible position in the landscape around. It's hard to see with all these hotels around that have been built up. I mean, it is really a tourist center. The major one in Texas, nothing even comes close to the some two million visitors they get a year here. But if you and I were looking in 1836 across to the west, you would just see prairie.

But this would be the highest point in any direction. You could see to the west you would just see prairie but this would be the highest point in any direction you could see to the east for miles you could see to the west for miles so over and over again it's been used as a military post the spanish used it the mexicans used it even the americans after the alamo used it as a military post so it's always been seen as a strategic position for military defense the other other thing is, if you look at that corner right over there, that little corner, that's where the Texans had their 18-pound cannon, which was a big gun. And it was there because it looked across to the entrance of San Antonio, and they could control military entrance from that point of view.

But they didn't fire much because it took 12 pounds of explosives to shoot one ball. So, yeah, for those listeners who don't understand the intricacies of Texas's status, tell me, why was there fighting here? Why did they end up coming to blows here? Okay, well, essentially, Texans came here and became Mexican citizens because it was owned by Mexico, Texas was.

But Santa Ana came to power, and he changed the government unilaterally from a representative government, a republic, to a monarchy. Well, not completely to a monarchy, but he was certainly going in that direction. He dissolved the Constitution of 1824, which took away states' rights. So to stand down a president of Mexico, he's changing the Mexican Constitution. He changed the deal. They said, we came here for cheap land and to become good Mexican citizens, and you changed the rules.

You took away our power, and we don't have any self-government now. And so they started raising hell and they were actually pushing just for return to the 1824 constitution. But Santa Ana said, well, those people up there, those colonists are rebellious, those settlers, and I'm going to come up there and straighten them out. And in that period, what proportion of Texans were recently arrived from the U.S.? And what proportion were Mexican, if you like, who had come up from the south? Well, it was about probably 60% to 70% American because there were something like 30,000 people here in 1836

because they had encouraged immigration, you know, because no one would settle this area. So Mexico wanted immigration so that they could have a buffer between the settlements and the Comanches who were encroached from the West. But what happened is that we also had a lot of illegal immigration. You know, today we talk about illegal immigration. Well, the first illegal immigration was really coming from Anglo-Saxons. They were coming in from, because there was a process and some came in with papers and some bought land through the impresarios, which was proper. And then some just followed their relatives and came here and were squatters. And so Santa Ana actually said, I need to put the military on the river, but he was talking about the Sabine not the rio grande so there's actually some

echoes well if you can have an echo that goes backwards uh sounds like trump at times you know because he was very concerned about the borders and actually trump could use it as an argument he said you see you don't protect your borders you lose your country and so that's essentially what he did he said i want to put the military on the border to protect us from all this wave of Anglo-Saxon illegal immigration. And because they brought in these liberal ideas of republicanism. And so that's where you got this struggle. And so the Texans, having been part of the United States of America and been through the revolution with you guys. They said, we better take a stand now or we will find ourselves slaves in this country, in a sense.

So, like a lot of wars, it started with a little thing. You've seen the t-shirts, I guess, that says, come and take it? Because there was a canon in Gonzales that the government gave to the people of Gonzales to tell them, here, you can protect yourselves from the Indians with this cannon. And then when the trouble started, Santa Ana or someone from the central government said, go get that cannon. It was just a four-pounder.

It wasn't really a powerful cannon, but they said, go get that cannon. And so the Texans rose up and said, well, come and take it. And so they stood up to the Mexican army and they sent them packing. And then they followed them because they realized they cowed them. And they followed them back to San Antonio. And over a couple of months, they kicked them out of San Antonio. The whole thing. General Perfecto de Cos.

Great name, Perfecto, right? I think if I ever have another son, I'll name him Perfecto Strong. It's a great name. But anyway, they kicked him out and he was Santa Ana's brother-in-law. All right? And so the army, the Texans conquered,

they were in the Alamo. And they conquered them and sent them packing and they made an agreement they would never take up arms against Texans again. And Texas kind of felt like this might be the end of it. You know, good, we kicked out. And so now do they go back to the Constitution of 1824? Do they seek independence? Nobody had a clear picture of that yet. There was great bickering as to what they were doing. So to get to cut to the chase, that's ultimately what happened. They kicked costs out of San Antonio and this was Santa and his brother-in-law. And here's where

his mistake was made. Santana, he didn't need to conquer the Alamo. He didn't need it. He could have gone right past it and gone to the settlements and gone after Sam Houston, but it was his machismo that said i can't take this stain on the family honor i've got to go kick some butt and teach them a lesson because you know they have insulted my family and so what does santa the president of mexico do about this rebellious northern province well he brings 6 000 soldiers and he splits his army into he sends 2 000 to what they might call the coastal plane route to come up and and shut down because they thought a texan army was going to come into matamoros which is in northern mexico and he wanted to intercept that

army and crush them so urea was his name he came that way. But Santana himself wanted to come here and crush this rebellion. And he arrived right right over here, about 100, 200 yards to the west of us. And, you know, the Texans saw him coming in and they were shocked because he got here about three weeks ahead of what they thought he could. I mean, he pushed his men like crazy to get here. And then he raised what they call a pirate flag over here on San Fernando church. So they could see it from, from the Alamo and the San Fernando that, I mean, that flag at San Fernando church meant no quarter will be given. Everyone will die here because you are pirates, you are terrorists, and we're going to kill every one of you. And the fact that these

Texans remained is kind of amazing because And the fact that these Texans remained is kind of amazing because at the time that that flag was raised, they were seeing an army of about 2,000 over here, and there were 150 Texans, 150 of them. And yet they didn't leave. And did they stand any chance of relief? Was a relief force on the way? Well, they, of course, hope springs eternal. They were sending out letters. They were begging Texans to come to their aid. They believed with enough men they could defend this makeshift fort. So they hoped that something would come of it. But you had Travis and Bowie who were, you know,

Bowie was very famous in the South, you might say, because he emitted the Bowie knife. So he was kind of a celebrity. But he was also a famous knife fighter and bear fighter, all that stuff. But he was known here in San Antonio particularly because he married the daughter of the vice governor of Texas. So he married into a prestigious family. So anyway, he had a great following and so did Travis, and they split command of the Alamo forces. he had a great following and so did Travis and they split command of the Alamo forces.

And these guys all came from Kentucky and Tennessee, some from England, some from Germany. They came from all over the world. The only people who died at the Alamo who were actually born here were Mexican Texans, because a lot of people don't know that, that there were Hispanic Texans fighting alongside Tejanos, they're called called they were fighting alongside the anglos it wasn't an anglo-mexican war it was a war of texans and tejanos against tyranny that's the way you know of course they saw it and i would say that santa anna saw them as insurgents they were rebels insurgents coming in coming in from the United States of America who didn't belong here, and he was going to kick them out. In fact, here's another kind of Trumpian comment from Santa Ana. He said, I'm going to invade Texas, I'm going to kill the rebels, and I'm going to make them pay for it. What he meant was that I'm going to make them pay for the cost of

the army I had to raise to crush their rebellion. I'm going to take their land and I'm going to sell it and give it to the soldiers. And I'm going to give it to the Satanistas, people loyal to me. And so I just find it amusing that, you know, two centuries ago he was saying, I'm going to invade Texas and I'm going to make the Texans pay for it. Of course, there are no corollaries really between Trump and Santa Ana. There are polar opposites in terms of government philosophy and stuff but in terms of uh perhaps egocentrism they may have some similarities so the battle lines have been drawn you got santa anna just over to our just over to our side over

here he's raised the bloody flag um was there any now hang, what about the big moment, the line in the sand? Did that happen? Tell me. No. No, there's no evidence that that happened. The first accounting of, or recounting of the alleged line in the sand really happened about 20, 30 years after the fact that it first showed up in any sort of historical literature. So probably apocryphal probably a myth no doubt but there was certainly a line in the sand in people's minds i mean they knew this binary choice i can escape which they could because santana did not have this place locked down they could slip out and go away they could have done it easily in the cover of darkness. And yet they chose to stay and to fight. And that's why we have such reverence for them, because they gave their lives, the ultimate price they paid for Texas liberty.

People go into this shrine, this church and cry, Texas, because of the gift that they gave. of the gift that they gave. There's this great virtual religious devotion to this building and the gift those men gave in this compound because they didn't have to. But they wanted to stand up for human liberty. And they were in some ways following what they felt their forefathers had done in the colonies and standing up to the king. They felt that they were following these footsteps. Now, each army had advantages. It's interesting. The Texans were very afraid of the Mexican cavalry. They never wanted to be on the open plains with the Mexican cavalry because they were great horsemen,

and they would run them down and lance them and they didn't have a chance. They weren't nearly as good a horseman as the Mexicans, but the Mexicans didn't want to fight the Texans if the Texans were in the brush or the woods because they were excellent marksmen. They were just phenomenal. Most of these guys came out of Kentucky and Tennessee with what they call Kentucky long guns, long rifles, and they were deadly at 200 yards. They've been hunting since they were seven in the forest. And so they were excellent, excellent marksmen. Whereas the Mexicans, they had, well, they had British guns, actually. They had the Brown Bess and they had the Baker rifle, which was their long range weapon, but they weren't nearly

as deadly as the Texans were. In fact, in one of these, well, not a tree like this one, a pretty, pretty big one over here, a few blocks, there was a Mexican sniper up in one of these trees. And this was in the siege of San Antonio when they threw out General Costoss. But this guy was the leader of that insurgency, Ben Milam, a great hero. They have a plaza named for him over there. He was shot and killed by a Mexican sniper, you know, right through the head, one shot right through the head. And the men were stunned for a second that their hero had been just cut down in half a second. And they looked up and they saw smoke coming out of one of those trees. And they all turned and fired at that smoke.

And the assassin didn't live about 30 seconds longer than Ben Milam because they saw the smoke and they took him out. So there was no line in the sand. They all stayed and they stayed willingly because they could have escaped. Okay, go on. Let me tell you this about the line in the sand and of course in the the famous movie by john wayne the alamo they have the line in the sand so that becomes uh a powerful image for texans and a lot of people won't give up on it they said well you don't know it didn't happen

you know it would have made sense for it to happen i mean i've seen historians give lectures and things that i would call it not revisionist. I would call it correctionist, you know, but people won't have it. They'll say, you're just not a Texan, you know, and they want to string them up for saying such things. The line in the sand is a sacred myth and they want to hold on to it. That's why I say certainly it was a line in the sand for the men there and they wouldn't leave their brothers in arms. in the sand for the men there and they wouldn't leave their brothers in arms and the one thing that did happen that i find just uh really stirs my heart to this day is that they did get about three days before the actual battle the final battle there's a 13-day siege right so it took a long time to have the final battle but 32 came in from Gonzales, 32 soldier.

They weren't really soldier. They were just the common man coming with their guns. And they came in here and they crossed through. They kind of, in a sense, fought through the Mexican lines to get the right to fight at the Alpamo. And they call them the Immortal 32. And they came in and it lifted spirits a great deal because finally they had some kind of reinforcements.

But even with that, they had 189 of reinforcements but even with that they had 189 men to defend a quarter mile of walls so there are those who figure that goliad had 300 men that was not too far from here and 90 miles away and if they could have come they might have been able to defend the fort possibly done a better job anyway but have been able to defend the fort possibly done a better job anyway but that's a matter for the military strategists to work out you're listening to dan snow's history wf strong is taking me around the alamo more after this so we're standing on one stretch of walls now uh the enclosure would have gone under all these buildings right did the mexicans just simply sit back and pound the wall of artillery or were they

launching attacks on the walls with infantry no they stood back for 13 days and uh again santa anna could have waited them out probably if he wanted to. The thing that he didn't do that a lot of his officers felt he should have done is he had two big guns coming. They were behind because there had been a lot of rain. They couldn't get it through the mud. So they were two or three days behind these cannons. So they were supposed to arrive, these cannons that were 12-pounders, really significant guns. And they were supposed to arrive these cannons that were 12 pounders you know really significant guns and they were supposed to arrive in about 3 days

but Santa Ana got impatient and said let's go ahead and do it he said it's going to cost a lot of men and he said well I don't care let's just knock them out but before that for 13 days they pounded away with their they had 6 pounders

and they hit the walls and stuff but if they had had their big guns they could have blasted holes in those walls not needed to scale them which cost a lot of men their lives so ultimately what happened is uh santa anna said all right this is i'm not going to wait for the guns let's go ahead and take them out and um and he said we'll go at 5. spire, Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits.

There are new episodes every week. Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was a master satirist who cloaked a sharp political edge beneath his absurdist wit. Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth explores the ideas of the man who foresaw the dangers of the digital age and our failing politics with astounding clarity. Hear the recordings that inspired a generation of futurists, entrepreneurs, and politicians. Get Douglas Adams' The Ends of the Earth now at pushkin.fm slash audiobooks or wherever audiobooks are sold. In the morning, we won't, he also did a kind of psychological warfare.

He fired cannons at them 24 hours a day to keep them awake. So then he let the guns go silent for the night so they would rest, get sleepy. And then he was going to hit them with a surprise attack at five in the morning. And it probably would have worked, except that some of his men got overly enthusiastic and started saying, Viva Santa Ana, as they were rushing the walls and they woke everybody up. And they, boom, they're on the walls. They light the cannons and there's carnage everywhere. Because what they did is they figured the weakest spot was the north wall.

They flanked the northwest wall and the northeast wall. And then they sent columns of foot soldiers up the middle, backed by lancers, so they couldn't retreat. It's kind of like, you guys get over that wall there's no coming back this way they weren't supposed to kill them but you know it's kind of put pressure on the foot soldier to get over the wall but they had big cannons they had three cannons at that end and they say that the the force from toluca uh was half decimated by one cannon blast they're just gone and and not only from the uh the shrapnel from the cannon did enormous damage, but then it eviscerated the soldiers,

and they had shrapnel from their bones and things that did even further damage. They say the blood in that corner was like two to three feet deep in the sand because there was so much carnage caused by these close-range cannon blasts. Also, another thing that happened is they were supposed to have ladders to get over the wall, and the ladders were in the back, or the guys carrying the ladders got killed, so the guys at the bottom of the wall were trapped, and the Texans were just reaching over and firing and killing those guys at the bottom of the wall. But finally, they discovered there were footholds.

They could get footholds in the wall, and once they discovered that, they started scampering over like ants, started climbing over the walls. And the Texans retreated from the north wall to the long barracks, it's called. But unfortunately, they forgot to, they didn't have time to spike the cannons. So the Mexicans just turned the cannons around and used it against the Texans to blow open the doors. Let's's head over the long barracks now okay the long barracks is in front of us now it's uh maybe um nine ten feet high still still with uh still with its small windows it looks like a strong building was that the condition it would have been in no this has been rebuilt and it was actually two stories tall. So they had a second story balcony apartment, you might say. But they had actually configured this to be protective.

A lot of what you see are windows were doors. And they wanted to be able to retreat into there. They actually planned it. They said, okay, we'll retreat from the north wall into here and take a secondary stand in the long barracks. They had rifle holes and things that they could shoot, so they could shoot out. But then what happened is, as I said, they didn't spike the cannons, so the cannons were turned around to blow open the doors. And then a lot of them saw it as, you know, inside.

They said, well, this is hopeless. And they began sticking their rifles out with, some of them anyway, with the white flag. You know, I give up, I give up. But so the Mexicans thought, okay, they're surrendering. And then they went in, but not all of them were willing to surrender. So they ran into this maelstrom of bullets. And then it got crazy because, you know, in battle, how people get into this frenzy of killing for survival. And so out came the Bowie knives and out came the bayonets, and it was just a bloodthirsty scene until all the Texans were killed.

But, you know, the price that the Mexicans paid was enormous because they lost a third of their army in this. And Travis, by the way, who was the commander here, he said before the battle in writing a letter, he said, we may lose, but the victory will cost the enemy so dear that it will feel like a defeat and that was a very prophetic because even one of their own when it's saying that its own officer said uh we can't take another victory like this so it's a period of victory so we've got to imagine in this structure in front of us room

to room fighting hand to hand and and were there any survivors of the texan garrison at all no everybody was killed now they say that there were three or four survivors in the church now of course now he let the women and children live there were some women and children here and he let them that one of them was the wife of a soldier that was killed. But there were allegedly three or four survivors that the officers brought to Santana and said that, you know, they surrendered. And he said, well, execute them. And so they were executed right there. The officers didn't want to do it. So the guys, you know, the infantry took him out to impress the emperor, so to speak.

Because, you know, Napoleon called himself the Napoleon of the West. Santana called himself? He called himself the Napoleon of the West. He tried to dress like Napoleon. He admired him greatly. And he tried to always ask himself, what would Napoleon do? And so he wanted to come and crush these Texans. And a lot of people now make fun of him because they say, well, if he was Napoleon, he would have never made these military blunders like he did. Even though this wasn't exactly his Waterloo, it was the thing that preceded his Waterloo. It led to it, you might say. Let's quickly just finish up. So from here, so he's won a bloody victory here.

And yet, you're right, it proved costly. And what effect did the Alamo have on the rest of the war? Well, of course, it enraged the Texans because he showed no, what you would say, international respect for customary laws of warfare. He just killed everybody and considered them pirates. And he did the same thing, by the way, in Goliad. In Goliad, the soldiers surrendered 300 of them and one of the officers there in charge told them he said you can keep your guns go back to america take your horses and go and then santa ana countermanded

he said no no no no kill them kill them all and so they made them think they said okay well we're going to escort you a ways out here to help you get on the way and then when they got them out into the country they surrounded them and shot them and they did i think they had two different groups they did this to but they killed them all to a man and often fannin who was in charge of the Goliad Fort, which was really a fort, he gets a really bad reputation in history because he sat there kind of paralyzed. He couldn't decide what to do. He didn't know if he could come to the aid of the Alamo, or should he stay and defend this, or should he retreat and go with Houston? You know, what should he do?

And so he just kind of stayed put where he ultimately lost this powerful force because he couldn't make up his mind but and you mentioned sam houston he would have been left i guess after the fall of the alamo he was the the last best hope of the texans was he yes yes sam houston was in gonzalez when they brought the news of the the fall of the alamo and how there were no survivors in fact santa anna let dick, I think his name is, Sarah Dickinson, I believe is her name. She was the wife of one of the fallen soldiers,

and he let her go to tell the story. They say Thermopylae had a messenger, but the Alamo had none until Santa Ana said, okay, I'll let you go, you tell the story. And so she went there, and a lot of the fallen were from that little town of Gonzales with the Immortal 32, so there was weeping and gnashing of teeth and people you know enormously sad and deep grief and uh houston was there and he you know there were about 300 uh volunteers there and they wanted to go to the island take on santa anna and he said no no no no let's not be rash all we'll do is go over there and get crushed let's wait let's get more men let's take

our time and so he went east and his soldiers hated it because they thought he was the general he wouldn't fight they called him a coward because he kept going east and he would tell him okay we can stand at the colorado and they and then he said no this isn't a good place we'll make a stand at the brazos no no wait let's go across the brazos but on the other, people saw him as a wily fox because he sucked Santa Ana in to a long, long march after his soldiers were demoralized. I mean, imagine you're part of the infantry and one third of your buddies are gone. And another thing sad is that there were about 100 guys who died needlessly because Santa Ana didn't have any surgeons with him. He moved too fast to bother with medical. And a lot of them died where they should have lived because they weren't hurt that badly, but infections.

And there were also two doctors in the element. He killed them, too. So he lost a lot of help that might have saved him in. In any case, Santa Ana pursued Sam Houston. In any case, Santa Ana pursued Sam Houston. And there's a saying in Texas, well, not really a saying, it's a quote I love from Isaac Klein, who was essentially famous as one of the early weather forecasters. I know it sounds kind of odd, but he was a young science, and he's the one who pushed for the development of a network of weather stations to monitor weather.

And this was back, he was in the late 1800s, not in the time of the Alamo, but he has a saying I like. He said, Texas is a land of interminable drought interrupted occasionally by biblical floods. And that spring they had biblical floods. And that's what slowed Santa Ana down. He couldn't move his cannons. His men were exhausted. They were demoralized. So that's why I say the Alamo's great gift was time.

It stalled him for two weeks while Sam Houston was able to gather volunteers and able to train them. Because they had no training. So we had this group of very independent men who came from the states. So we had this group of very independent men who came from the States. And one way to look at it, I think, is that they came from, many of them, from the rural areas of England. So they were used to rural. They even bypassed the cities when they came to America and went to the Appalachian Hills because that's what seemed familiar to them. And so when they came, and then eventually that became too civilized,

they moved to Texas, the new frontier. So incredibly independent spirits and hunters and fishermen and outdoorsmen. And they took on this mostly professional army that Santa Ana styled after European methods. And so it was that typical insurgency fighting a guerrilla war kind of not fighting in traditional ways. They were shocked, the Santa Ana's men, that these men at the Alamo could take their long guns and pick off people 200 yards away. So that's why they couldn't move their cannons in as close as they wanted to be because they kept shooting the gunners. They hadn't seen that kind of marksmanship before. But eventually, Santa Ana and Houston did meet on the battlefield in pretty much in what is now the city of Houston, right?

Well, right outside, San Jacinto, they call it, is the battlefield, but outside kind of to the east of Houston. Which is next door to where, by coincidence, USS Texas is parked, which is my favorite ship on Earth. Yes, there you go. Yes, it's right there, and it's kind of a large museum you know it has the great monument there to texas independence and anyway sam houston depends on who you talk to some say sam houston just got lucky you know that he kept going east kept going

east and he finally found a place where he couldn't go anymore. You know, he was kind of stuck. And his men wanted to fight. They were just saying, please, let us fight. And so a lot of them were unhappy with him. They called him and said, why won't you fight? You're a general. Fight. And, of course, he says that he was trying to work them up into this frustrated frenzy. And he wanted to suck Santa Ana in to a situation where he couldn't retreat.

Where Santa Ana was stuck. Could be so. Depends on who you talk to. What Monday morning quarterback you want to listen to. But in any case, the brilliant thing that I think he did do was he attacked them during siesta time. You know, they expect to fight in the morning. Santa Ana was expecting the battle to be in the morning, as battles always are. So they're resting and taking a rest because they've had a long march. The men are exhausted. And they're all in siesta time. And here he comes

and they march across this long prairie, 900 men across the long prairie to attack 1,200 Mexicans in encampment. And they march across this long prairie, 900 men across the long prairie to attack 1,200 Mexicans in encampment. And they have cannons, by the way, and Sam Houston only has one. But they surprise them. I mean, they are really caught by complete surprise. And they're in disarray running without their guns. And there are 600 Mexicans killed in 19 minutes and only about i think there are nine texans killed in this battle the last 18 minutes some say 10 that it

was over really really fast and uh and then of course because of goliad and because of the alamo the texans were taking their revenge so a lot of these Mexicans were swimming across. There was kind of a lake there, and they were swimming across the lake to get away and fish in the water. The Texans were just picking them off, picking them off, picking them off. They would say, remember the Alamo, remember Goliad. And even the Mexicans would throw up their hands and say, no Alamo, no Alamo. I wasn't there.

I was there. Don't take it out on me. So it was a resounding victory. You know the story, of course, that Santa Ana got away dressed as a kind of private, you know, kind of a private, got rid of all his signs of command. And he was captured the next day and they brought him in not knowing who he was they thought he was just a regular soldier and then the his soldiers started bowing to him and saying come and dante and he's a shh so they gave him up you know they outed him and so sam houston knew there were two other armies out there that he couldn't fight probably or it would be tough and so he had santa anna send them commands

to go back to mexico and then santa anna signed the documents giving texas its independence so texas won its independence on the battlefield of san jacinto and yet we really we remember the alamo so briefly like why is it that the battle that happened here is the one that is remembered? Because this was the complete sacrifice. This is the one where everybody died. You know, it was Thermopylae. They gave the ultimate gift to Texas when they didn't have to. And they stood up for freedom in that way. I think that's why also you have such a powerful support for the second amendment in Texas, because these men

defended Liberty with their own guns from their own houses for Texas that resonates, you know, come and take it. You know, I'm not going to give up my arms. I'm not going to be defenseless against tyrants. And that metaphor resonates throughout Texas culture, even to this day, not for everybody. I mean, there are people who are for reasonable gun control and things, but for many, it's a line in the sand that cannot be crossed. This cenotaph articulates that pretty strongly, like I say. I mean, it's almost religious reverence. There's Christ-like figures on it. The writing is extremely dramatic in memory of the heroes who sacrificed their lives at the Alamo. And their names are all written on it.

And there are some people from the UK on here. Oh, yes, yes. There were eight people who died here from the UK. So you guys helped us out. Thank you so much. And when did Texas become a U.S. state? So Texas appeared as an independent country. Yes.

We were on our own for 10 years and Mexico kept coming back. You know, Mexico, they came back in 1842, six years after the Alamo II here, San Antonio, and took about 12 of the citizens back to Mexico and put them in prison, prominent citizens. They were rebels and they wanted one of those guys was Samuel Maverick. He's the guy that the word maverick comes from. You're aware of the term maverick, meaning someone who's nonconformist, right? But where it attaches to this guy, Samuel Maverick,

is he had some cows and he didn't brand them. And so any cow that was unbranded became known as Maverick's cows. It's a maverick. He's a nonconformist, that cow, or she. And so that's where the idea comes from. And he was a mayor here twice. And he was taken by Santana's government anyway.

Santana was president of Mexico 11 times. You get that? Sam Maverick was taken down and put in Perote prison. You know, just horrible, horrible prison, like the Tower of London sort of thing. And he was in a dungeon in chains. And, you know, Santa Ana sent word to him, said, if you'll sign this document saying that Texas was illegally seized, I'll let you go. And he said, well, I can't sign my name to a lie, so I'll have to stay in my chains. Now, that's a maverick.

That's why he should be known as a maverick. Not because he had cows that were unbranded. Ultimately, you know, he wasn't a rancher. He was an investor. He bought huge tracts of land to resell and things. And he was an interesting cow. He just got some cows that they gave him, you know, as someone paid him as a debt. Here's 400 cows. And he had a guy take care of them, but the guy didn't brand them. You

know, that's how it came to be. But I always say that he should be known as a maverick for not signing that document when it would have given him his freedom. And by the way, when he was released, he took the chains that had bound him in the dungeon with him to remind himself of the priceless nature of freedom all his life. Right over here behind you, this building, this hotel, Gibbs right here it's called, the front desk right there is about the place that Travis died, at the front desk of that hotel. That's where Travis fell. He was one of the first to die. And that used to be where Samuel Maverick

lived. There's a plaque over there to show you Samuel Maverick. It's a dedication to Samuel Maverick. And he built a house there because he felt he should. He was here at the Alamo and probably would have died here had they not elected him to go sign the Declaration of Independence for Texas. And he felt that he should honor them by living here. Now, tell me about the importance. Let's finish off by saying, what does this building mean to Texans today? And is it true that Texans are Texan first

and Americans second? Absolutely. We are Texan first and incidentally American. I like to compare us to like the Bav know, the Bavarians of Germany, that we have this incredibly strong identity as a state or a region that transcends our national identity. That's why I'm sure you see it all the time when you meet a Texan in London, they will tell you, I'm Texan. And then, you know, they don't bother to say I'm American. They say I'm from Texas. So that's our identity. And one of the things that you'll find here, and then not just at the Alamo, but it's all over Texas, is you will see t-shirts in this shop that are very common throughout Texas, where they have come and take it t-shirts. They have, of course, the Texas flag

in a t-shirt. And they have the famous saying of David Crockett when he left Tennessee. He said he lost a political race and he said, y'all can all go to hell. I'm going to Texas. And so that's a t-shirt that's very common. You see it all over. And one of the things I see in my stories that I do on the radio, I get letters from people all the time that tell me that they were moved to tears over some description I had of Texas liberty or Texas patriotism. And sometimes I'm surprised. I mean, I know it's out there, but the depth of it is stunning. Thank you so much, W.F. That was a tour de force. Now, how do people listening to this around the

world stay in touch with your work and listen to you on some of your many other subjects in which you're an expert? Well, they can just go to Stories from Texas podcast and they can get what I do on the radio in podcast form, or they can buy my book, Stories from Texas. Some of them are true on Amazon and it's on Audible also, and it's on Barnes & Noble, and most of the great bookstores in Texas, you can find it. But the easiest thing is to get the e-book on Amazon, and I make more money on that one anyway, so download that one, okay? You do it, everyone. You heard the man. WF, thank you for taking me around this truly remarkable battlefield. It was a real pleasure. One more thing.

I believe it was the great historian, Fehrenbach, a Texas historian who said that when the Mexicans looked across those plains to these Celtic warriors here in the Alamo, these Santa Ana descendants of Rome looking across at these Celtic warriors, they must have thought, we've been here before. Like Arminius, like the Romans taking on the German troops in the woods in 980. I like it. Thank you very much.

Hi, and thanks for reaching the end of this podcast. Most of you are probably asleep, so I'm talking to your snoring forms, but anyone who's awake, it would be great if you could do me a quick favour. Head over to wherever you get your podcasts and rate it five stars, and then leave a nice glowing review.

It makes a huge difference for some reason to how these podcasts do. Madness, I know, but them's the rules. Then we go further up the charts, more people listen to us, and everything will be awesome. So thank you so much. Now sleep well. Douglas Adams, the genius behind The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, was a master satirist who cloaked a sharp political edge beneath his absurdist wit.

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