Alamo, Battle of the

Battle of the Alamo. On 6 March 1836, Mexican troops under General Antonio López de Santa Anna, stormed the Alamo, on the edge of San Antonio, Texas, killing or executing all of its defenders (over 180 men) and taking heavy casualties. The battle ended a thirteen-day siege of the former Franciscan mission, which had served most recently as a barracks and fortification for soldiers from the Flying Company of Alamo de Parras (1801–1825).

For Santa Anna, it had seemed essential to take the Alamo quickly, so that he could march deeper into Texas and quash an insurrection—one of several provincial rebellions against his centralized dictatorship. The defenders of the Alamo, commanded jointly by Lieutenant Colonel William Barret Travis and James Bowie, believed that significant reinforcements would come to their aid and they could defend the site. Their miscalculation and the disaster that followed helped rally Texans, who defeated Santa Anna at the decisive battle of San Jacinto on 21 April 1836 amid cries of "Remember the Alamo."

Of little military significance, the battle for the Alamo has remained important for its symbolic dimensions. Wartime propaganda and Texas enthusiasts turned the Alamo's Anglo-American defenders, including David ("Davy") Crockett, into heroic martyrs, celebrated in prose, poetry, and cinema, and the battle site itself into a national shrine. At least seven Texas Mexicans also fought to the death alongside the Anglos, but memory of their role was obliterated by the anti-Mexican passions of the battle's aftermath and largely forgotten until Mexican Americans began to become a prominent political and intellectual force in American life in the 1970s. Discovered by a Mexican coin collector in 1955, the diary of José Enrique de la Peña, a soldier in Santa Anna's army, generated controversy because it stated that Davy Crockett survived the battle and was executed afterward. While scholars still debate the diary's authenticity, the polemic surrounding the diary has led to studies on the relationship among culture, politics, and the memory of the Alamo.

See alsoSanta Anna, Antonio López de .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Few scholars have examined this battle, but there are many popular accounts, most of the older ones highly romantic. Jeff Long, Duel of Eagles: The Mexican and U.S. Fight for the Alamo (1990), offers a sprightly and unrelentingly unsentimental view and a guidance to sources. For the mythic Alamo, see Susan Prendergast Schoelwer, Alamo Images: Changing Perceptions of a Texas Experience (1985), a smart, handsomely illustrated work. For the often overlooked Mexican side, including Santa Anna's self-defense and criticism by his officers, see Carlos E. Castañeda, ed. and trans., The Mexican Side of the Texas Revolution (1928).

Additional Bibliography

Crisp, James E. Sleuthing the Alamo: Davy Crockett's Last Stand and Other Mysteries of the Texas Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Flores, Richard R. Remembering the Alamo: Memory, Modernity, and the Master Symbol. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002.

Hardin, Stephen L. Texian Iliad: A Military History of the Texas Revolution, 1835–1836. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994.

                                        David J. Weber