How Did Davy Really Die?
David Crockett vs. Santa Anna's Army
By: Bob Boze Bell 04/01/2009
March 6, 1836
Just after midnight, Gen. Santa Anna orders his 2,064 troops to move toward their assault positions. Select Soldados (soldiers) stealthily sneak up on Texian sentries, who lie in dugouts positioned away from the Alamo, and slit the guards’ throats.
Just before sunrise (around 5 a.m.) a soldado from the second column yells out “Viva Santa Anna!” His comrades echo the cry. Furious that he has lost the element of surprise, Santa Anna orders his musicians to sound the attack. A rocket battery fires the signal.
Four Mexican columns surge out of the darkness toward the shadowed walls of the Alamo. Awakened by the shouts, the Texians quickly man their cannon and commence a furious enfilade fire from the church and corral batteries, forcing the attackers coming in from the east to move north.
Musket and cannon fire pour from the walls of the Alamo, and three attacking columns stall at the north wall. The Texians are holding their own and laying down a deadly fire.
Momentum lost, Santa Anna commits his reserves. Granaderos (grenediers) and zapadores (sappers) charge into the fight and finally succeed in breaching the Texian defense. Meanwhile, the cazadores (light infantrymen) breach the Alamo’s southwest corner from the west side. The Texians fighting there are quickly overwhelmed and fall back, taking refuge in the adobe apartments, convento and church. Mexican troops pour into the compound unchecked; others seize the abandoned batteries, turn them around and fire at the retreating Texians with their own cannon.
Hand-to-hand combat is fierce. The fighting turns especially bloody as the Mexican troops go room to room, overwhelming each pocket of resistance and shooting and bayoneting everything that moves.
Some 60 defenders break out of the Alamo heading east on Gonzales Road, but Santa Anna’s cavalry is waiting and cuts them down.
An hour after the initial attack, David Crockett stands alone, still proudly and tenaciously defending his diminished position. A frightful gash angles across his forehead. Holding the barrel of his shattered rifle in his right hand and a Bowie knife dripping with blood in his left, Crockett faces his attackers with the courage of a lion. Twenty dead or dying Mexicans lie beneath his buckskin-clad feet.
The man from Tennessee crouches, daring his attackers to take him. As they move in for the kill, David swings wildly until he finally falls, fighting like a tiger until his last dying breath. The fight is over.
Comments (9)
It is impossible for me to read some of the comments here without frustration and anger. Those men, every one of them, died with TEXAS on their lips. There are few accounts in history that show such incredible courage. TEXAS is a free state, a great state, and a part of the greatest country in the world, past, present, and future because of those who died there. Every time I think, read, or hear about that battle, I thank them for allowing all of us to understand that Freedom is never just a word....ask any living veteran....they all stand with those men at the Alamo....Next time you want to slander, or worse, those who have given everything they could give, remember one thing, they gave you this privilege....I, for one and many, salute our veterans every moment of my life....Remember The Alamo!
For the person who wrote:
"The so-called, Alamo defenders were nothing but a bunch of slavers from the south, and it was no loss that they died while trying to steal Mexican land. As for Santa Anna, at least he was in the field of battle, not like those conservatives of today who start wars and let their fellow GOP'ers fight them while they are on hate talk radio!"
WWII, Korean, Vietnam all started or escalated during Socialist Adminstrations.
As for Hate Talk Radio? From what I've heard from the Dem Talk Radio, their hatred makes the GOPs sound mild in comparison.
But, isn't that what David, the guys at the Alamo and those of the revolution fought for. Freedom of thought and speech?
What's with the far-Left America haters who posted on 04/08 and 04/27/09?!
Seriously, is there a need to inject your hatred for the history of this great nation instead of just reading, and enjoying, the historical discussions here on this forum...If you Lefties want to gush over the history of your idols go over to a communism website and swoon over the "heroism" of Stalin murdering 20 million and Mao murdering 70 million.
The so-called, Alamo defenders were nothing but a bunch of slavers from the south, and it was no loss that they died while trying to steal Mexican land. As for Santa Anna, at least he was in the field of battle, not like those conservatives of today who start wars and let their fellow GOP'ers fight them while they are on hate talk radio!
Carmen Perry's translation is "without complaining." and she's got respectable credentials, unlike the 4/08/09 commie symp liberal has to say. As for the rest of it, it just goes to show how some people will swallow murder just to dig at the backbone of Texas lore. Santa Anna ought to've been executed by Houston, in my opinion. Slowly executed.
HOWEVER, the Alamo is found wanting, till there is a monument to the 70 Mexican soldiers who died for their country, till then Alamo saga will be incomplete and found wanting. Most battlefieleds, in time, honor both sides of a battle, but not the Alamo! A monument is way past due for those Mexican soldiers who sacrifice themselves for the honor of their nation.
Complaining aint whimpering or begging.
Cursing the S.O.B. that's running you through might be considered a
complaint!
So who cares? Anyone that stayed to the end at the Alamo displayed incredible courage against impossible odds.
Why they fought, how they fought, what they fought for are what matters.
Did they die in vain defending a strategically un-necessary and indefensible position?
Where their leaders foolhardy?
Did they really buy time for Sam Houston?
You can spin it any way you like.
Texas and the U.S. have a lot to be proud of from the Alamo.
It's hallowed ground like any battlefield in the world where U.S. soldiers,
or American Citizens fighting for anyone's freedom sacrificed their lives.
You can see and feel the history of the place when you're there.
I'm no right wing neo-con.
Some things shouldn't be politicized.
Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, William Travis and the many not so famous who fought and died there where remarkable people. Crockett was a remarkable man before he ever set foot in the Alamo.
That he chose to go there, against overwelming odds is a fitting end to that remarkable life, no matter how he died.
That goes for every man there. 'Nuff said!
If I had been surrounded and talked into surrendering under promise of protection for myself and the others, I would have "died complaining" as well.
What I see here in this article(and elsewhere) is conservative revisionism in all its glory. BEFORE all the evidence came out about Davy and his Tennessee boy's surrendering to the Mexicans at the Alamo, it WAS ok to state that Davy went down with 50 or so dead Mexicans around him. However, when the truth finally came out about his surrender, Davy's defenders of today immediately started damage control procedures. Now, they hypocritically say that what matters, is not how he died, but how he lived! .............ok. BTW, the translation about De la Pena's account is wrong, the original manuscript states that they did, "died complaining". I know, for I have a copy of the original that is located in Austin, Texas, and I have translated it, and it is published.
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