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Title details for Exodus from the Alamo by Phillip Thomas Tucker - Available

Exodus from the Alamo

The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth

by Phillip Thomas Tucker
ebook
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The award-winning historian provides a provocative new analysis of the Battle of the Alamo—including new information on the fate of Davy Crockett.
 
Contrary to legend, we now know that the defenders of the Alamo during the Texan Revolution died in a merciless predawn attack by Mexican soldiers. With extensive research into recently discovered Mexican accounts, as well as forensic evidence, historian Phillip Tucker sheds new light on the famous battle, contending that the traditional myth is even more off-base than we thought.
 
In a startling revelation, Tucker uncovers that the primary fights took place on the plain outside the fort. While a number of the Alamo’s defenders hung on inside, most died while attempting to escape. Capt. Dickinson, with cannon atop the chapel, fired repeatedly into the throng of enemy cavalry until he was finally cut down. The controversy surrounding Davy Crockett still remains, though the recently authenticated diary of the Mexican Col. José Enrique de la Peña offers evidence that he surrendered.
 
Notoriously, Mexican Pres. Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna burned the bodies of the Texans who had dared stand against him. As this book proves in thorough detail, the funeral pyres were well outside the fort—that is, where the two separate groups of escapees fell on the plain, rather than in the Alamo itself.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 15, 2010

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781935149521

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781935149521
      • File size: 1961 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      March 15, 2010
      Over the years, a few scholars and history buffs have indicated that some aspects of the Alamo story may not have occurred as commonly believed. Now military historian Tucker ("Burnside's Bridge") has used letters and reports of Mexican officers written immediately after the skirmish to show that almost everything we know about the fight at the Alamo is a myth. He explains that what drew Americans to Texas was cheap land that could be used for plantations worked by slaves, indicating that the Texas independence movement was designed to preserve slavery in Texas against a Mexican government that wanted to abolish the institution. Tucker demonstrates that the battle of the Alamo was in reality a 20-minute predawn skirmish of no military significance, one that literally caught the militarily inexperienced and overconfident defenders asleep in their beds. When aroused, they resorted to their natural instincts and fled (hence the title here), only to be cut down by Mexican cavalry. VERDICT As Tucker provides long-overdue corrections to the Alamo story unknown to most readers, this should be read by scholars and lay readers alike despite much unnecessary repetition and lots of heavy-handed prose. A better editor could have turned this into a far better book. Recommended nonetheless for its corrective value.Stephen H. Peters, Northern Michigan Univ. Lib., Marquette

      Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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