Dear Alamo Friends,
Hey, I was born in Alamo City- San Antonio. I have been to the old "shrine" over 1,000 times. It was my favorite place when I was a kid. It is quite moving when the Alamo myth is combined with the actual physical place.
Part of the problem is that it is just a myth and nothing more. When I got to college and grad school and studied a lot more history from an objective standpoint, the Alamo myth turns out to be a lie of history and nothing more.
Travis had orders from Sal Houston, a distant relative of mine, to abandon the mission and join his forces. Travid, who was borderline insane from stage 3 syphylis at the time was eager for glory and disobeyed the orders from his superior. He thought he could fend off over 5,000 Mexican troops with ledd than 200 men in the Alamo. That is part of the myth. The "Texans" did not hold off the Mexicans as was claimed. Santa Anna just took his time to get his forces there, and basically took it in a day. Davy Crockett did not go down swinging Old Betsy (another myth), but was captured and executed.
The bodies were burned.
In the meantime, Sam Houston the brilliant strategist
had gotten enough distance between him and the Mexican army in East Texas. One day, when the Mexican Army under the command of Santa Ana was waking up from either a siesta or from the previous night, the forces of Houston attacked and slaughtered the Mexican troops. One woman who offered no resistance to the Texans, was gunned down. Some of the Mexican soldiers were cannibalized and their livers eaten. Houston had planned well, but he could not control the vengeance of his troops. The slaughter finally ended, Santa Ana was captured in a private's uniform, and Houston cut a deal for both independence and peace.
There was no honor displayed at the Alamo, only stupidity under an insane leader with a bunch of glory hunters. Also , Texas was wanted by the rest of the South to be another slave state. One of the big reasons for the Texas Rebellion against Mexico, their home country was the fact that Mexico did not allow slavery. It was a land grab by the US and glory seekers and a bunch of slave states. Not much glory there huh!
I hope the movie tells the whole truth and not the fiction which I grew up with and heard displayed at the Alamo in their propaganda videos and advertizing and myth making.
As a Christian, we should be concerned about historical reality and truth more than myth and lies.
Peace and Truth in Jesus,
Gary Cummings
Texan and Truthteller
