Exodus from the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth

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His timeline for these breakouts just don't make sense. If the collapse started at the north wall, then sure, perhaps a group of men at the palisade decided to take off running to the south. But his arguments for the second and third breakouts don't seem to take into account the fact that, by this time, the Mexicans would have filled every corner of the Alamo. How could anyone still be alive to run?

My main problem, however, is Tucker's extrapolation from the primary sources.

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At various points, Tucker is claiming, without any support, that both Travis who Tucker earlier argued committed suicide and Crockett were among the men who tried to flee. Why not add Daffy Duck to the mix? And while we're at it, let's ignore Susanna Dickinson's eyewitness - and totally believable - testimony that she saw Crockett's body outside the chapel.

He makes some interesting suppositions, chief among them that the hero of the dawn was Almeron Dickinson, who stayed in the chapel and used his cannon to fend of Sesma's cavalry, which was harrassing the fugitives.

Yet this heroic stand is conjured from thin air actually, a sentence of testimony that the cannons were firing from the chapel. Tucker does this a lot. No one knows where any of the bodies were found except for Travis's and Crockett's , but that doesn't stop Tucker was placing individuals at certain places on the battlefield with absolute certainty.

Then, to top of this crap cake, Tucker passes on the story of Almeron Dickinson jumping off the roof of the chapel with his son in his arms. The only problem is that Dickinson didn't have a son. He had a daughter named Angelina. We know this because her mother also survived, and spent the next 50 years telling the story. If her infant son had died, she probably would've mentioned that. John Jakes made a fricking picture book out of it! It's called Susanna of the Alamo.

Exodus from the Alamo

I read it when I was five! I'm just about out of characters, and I've spent my anger. It takes a certain kind of book to make me want to tear up my ACLU membership card and seriously consider joining a rural militia. This book achieved that feat. It is a fraudulent, bankrupt revisionist history. I noticed on the back flap that Tucker is listed as living in "the vicinity of Washington D.

View all 23 comments. Jan 01, Jimmie Aaron Kepler rated it liked it. If you remember the movie "The Alamo" with John Wayne and use it as your primary source for understanding the Alamo you will not like this work. The book presents an interpretation that is different from the traditional view and anything I previously encountered.

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As I started reading I was at first shocked finding the book unsettling. It just wasn't the story being told the way I had learned. My family's roots are in Gonzales County, Texas near the Cost community. That is where the Battle of If you remember the movie "The Alamo" with John Wayne and use it as your primary source for understanding the Alamo you will not like this work.

That is where the Battle of Gonzales happened in Oktoberfest As a sixth generation Texan, member of Texas First Families member , holder of a bachelor of arts in history from the University of Texas at Arlington, a person who has studied Texas and military history on the university level, and one how has been to the Alamo over a dozen times I found myself realizing the book lives up to its title - "Exodus from the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth ".

The title is accurate. The author cuts open and examines the story of the Alamo. The historian in me started looking at the research and documentation of the author. After all, I was reading the story from a point of view totally foreign to my experience. The author used letters and reports of Mexican officers written immediately after the battle. The book is well referenced. I knew we had slavery in Texas prior to the battle of the Alamo, but keeping the "peculiar institution" had never been listed as a primary motivating factor for the Texas War of Independence in my previous study.

Most shocking to me was the author's conclusion that the battle of the Alamo was a short predawn clash that held no real military significance. He concludes that the inexperienced defenders of the Alamo were overconfident, caught asleep in their beds, run scared when attacked hence "The Exodus" and routinely killed by Mexican cavalry who were guarding the rear exits.

This is not the heroic last stand the movie told. The research is hard to argue against. Just because the story doesn't match the myth doesn't mean the story isn't true. I'm still reflecting on the book. I say let the scholars read and react to his research. Let the average white person reflect on the content. Let those of Hispanic heritage hold their heads high.

I had never viewed the Alamo as a bunch of rebels trying to break free from the legitimate government or the Mexican Army as simply soldiers trying to suppress a rebellion. Time will tell how this point of view and research is received. I hope this is just the first of several works to reexamine the battle of the Alamo. The research is pretty straight forward.

Read all of it with an open mind before drawing your own conclusions. You just might surprise yourself. Remember, as the book's title warns, the author is challenging a years old myth. I'm trying to parse out how I feel about this book without sounding like I'm just angry that someone is trying to destroy a cultural myth. Because I'm not mad about a cultural myth being "destroyed": I picked this book up because I wanted to know the other side of this Alamo story that we all grew up with.

What I didn't like, however, was all the thin arguments used to support this author's claim. He'd say that dozens of personal letters and local newspapers and journals all said one thing, but I'm trying to parse out how I feel about this book without sounding like I'm just angry that someone is trying to destroy a cultural myth.

He'd say that dozens of personal letters and local newspapers and journals all said one thing, but somebody in Baltimore said something else two months earlier. He relies on flimsy correlation to prove causation, and quotes other poorly researched papers as his sources, rather than primary sources. He works very hard to dispel some of the racism surrounding the Alamo story. He reminds us that the spaghetti westerns of the s portrayed Mexican soldiers as bumbling, evil men who succeeded on accident. Those portrayals are obviously racist, and dedicating multiple chapters to that fact feels like overkill, especially when sentences like "the Irish were drunk and angry and always looking for a fight" are used in those same chapters.

It was well-written, semi-well researched, poorly argued, and an excellent exercise in critical thinking. Mar 02, R rated it it was ok. This could have been an intiguing and compelling argument, part of an important debate and re-examination of the myths surrounding the Texas Revolution. But it ultimately falls short because the author uses his own voice rather than the primary sources. To drive his points home, he repeatedly uses double superlatives, weakening instead of strengthening his persuasive force.

I was very disappointed. I will keep it on my shelf but will look for other works that directly quote more primary sources. Apr 23, Tfkreidler rated it it was amazing. Good book on the history of the Alamo and how different it is from the John Wayne move of the Alamo. May 18, Mick Meyers rated it did not like it. It seems there was no "last stand". Jul 07, Andrew Tollemache rated it liked it. I always like a good round of revisionist or iconoclastic history and Tucker's "Exodus from the Alamo" mostly delivers, but does have some weak spots.

His main thesis is that instead of being the heroic last stand by freedom seeking Texans sacrificing themselves to buy Gen Sam Houston time to rally the troops and eventually attain independence at San Jacinto the Alamo represented a poorly planned and led hold out of an indefensible position by a bunch of "johnny come latelys" to Texas who ended I always like a good round of revisionist or iconoclastic history and Tucker's "Exodus from the Alamo" mostly delivers, but does have some weak spots.

His main thesis is that instead of being the heroic last stand by freedom seeking Texans sacrificing themselves to buy Gen Sam Houston time to rally the troops and eventually attain independence at San Jacinto the Alamo represented a poorly planned and led hold out of an indefensible position by a bunch of "johnny come latelys" to Texas who ended up trying to make a break for it in the early morning hours of the Mexican assault. As with many revisionist historical works, Tucker does take on a great deal of strawman arguments about what typical and current historians understand about the Alamo.

Tucker seems to be under the impression that other Alamo historians use the Disney Fess Parker Alamo and the cartoonish John Wayne "Alamo" movie from the s as source material. Tucker's break and run towards slaughter is his big insight, but a logical extension of the last 25 years of books. Crockett and Travis meeting un-heroic ends is not radical, its pretty standard.

Tucker argues for a Travis suicide, which is totally plausible, but most of his sources are newspaper accounts or eyewitness accounts that differ on whether Travis stabbed or shot himself. Tucker wants to take on the overwhelming use of ugly racial stereotypes used to describe the battle, but I am not sure who in the last 50 years he is referring to.

Even the John Wayne movie portrayed the Mexican army as a well disciplined Napeleonic like force that held discipline as it staged a bloody assault replete with splendid uniforms. The Texians were no doubt pretty racist, but the Mexicans saw them as a bunch of drunken louts. Nacogdoches is hundreds of miles from San Antonio, not just to the NE.

The Kentucky rifle while smaller in calibler than the. Lastly I doubt that the Alamo defenders used their buckshot loaded shotguns to shoot many birds. In the end I think Tucker has a good book, an important book here, but instead of staying focused on the exodus angle which he docuemnts well and makes a great deal of sense since why would the Mexicans have made the funeral pyre yards away unless thats where most people died. Instead Tucker throws alot of other arguments up to break the Alamo myth, many of which are at odds with each other. Sep 03, Roy rated it it was ok.

It is obvious that a lot a research went into this book and I can certainly appreciate the time it took and the obvious passion the author has for the subject. However, it seems like the author has allowed for more of his emotions to seep into the work than should be, making it so that much of his conclusions have the feeling of the very myths he is trying to dispell.

As soon as Santa Ana created his dictatorship, Mexico ceased to be the land of promise the author makes it out to be.

Many of the It is obvious that a lot a research went into this book and I can certainly appreciate the time it took and the obvious passion the author has for the subject. Many of the rights that the author rightfully praised the Mexican government for setting up were removed as soon as Santa Ana got in.

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The author notes this but seems to not acknoledge it as he stubbornly hangs on to his view that Mexico held better to the ideal of "all men created equal. I believe that in that light it is more correct to believe that in spite of all their flaws, God was on the side of the Texans.

I do believe that the lose of life at the Alamo was unnecessary, but it was caused by ignorance on both sides and that most of the blame can be laid on Santa Ana. Were it not for his ignorant pride, the boundaries of North America might be much different today, fo better or worse. Aug 09, Bob Croft rated it liked it. Poorly organized and edited.

Much repeated information; little chronology. A dysfunctional garrison divided by ethnicity, religion, politics, loyalty to commander , in a dysfunctional nation Democrat vs Whig, old Texican vs American or other immigrant, regular vs volunteer army emphasis. Old Texicans were ambivalent about secession; they supported the Mexican constitution, under which they held their land; land grants to the new immigrants Whigs, sometimes a Poorly organized and edited.

Old Texicans were ambivalent about secession; they supported the Mexican constitution, under which they held their land; land grants to the new immigrants Whigs, sometimes anti slavery would dilute their land holdings and power. San Antonio locals ambivalent as well, though the garrison depended upon them for support. An indefensible "fortress", with no strategic value, isolated far from the center of settlement. Goliad was strategically significant, and a defensible presidio, and easy to supply. Supplies, needed for the Alamo particularly decent powder were stockpiled in East Texas for an eventual regular army, and not available.

Undisciplined garrison; little done to improve the Alamo, or move supplies from town into it, until the Mexicans hit. No firing platforms, crenelations, gun ports - so the guns were mounted too high to cover the wall. Much of the garrison was on sick call. Aug 03, Sistermagpie rated it liked it Shelves: Having just started a project where I have to research the Alamo, this was a difficult book to start with because Tucker's work is obviously being written in response to the standard Alamo myths. Yet, Tucker boasts, Santa Anna "negated the Alamo's two principal strengths.

Tucker's study embraces a few relevant non-military factors germane to the Alamo's fall. These complications, it seemed, added to obstacles imposed by the Alamo's geographic isolation and apathy of other Texans. Tucker's crowning revelation, however, is the death of at least sixty-two defenders including Davy Crockett beyond the south palisade as they fled during the final assault.

Intercepted by Mexican lancers, they died during an attempt to reach Gonzales and safety. Exodus from the Alamo will prompt a backlash from Alamo scholars and aficionados. Without much new material, it challenges conventional Alamo studies with an especially harsh view of Texas's revolution in general and the Alamo in particular. Its story "is not about romantic heroes or an alleged, deliberate self-sacrifice, but [End Page ] concerns the consequences of sheer folly" Movie director John Lee If you would like to authenticate using a different subscribed institution that supports Shibboleth authentication or have your own login and password to Project MUSE, click 'Authenticate'.

View freely available titles: Book titles OR Journal titles. Project MUSE promotes the creation and dissemination of essential humanities and social science resources through collaboration with libraries, publishers, and scholars worldwide. Exodus from the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth. Travis--did not die under brilliant sunlight, defending their positions against hordes of Mexican infantry.

Exodus from the Alamo : The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth

Instead the Mexicans launched a predawn attack, surmounting the walls in darkness, forcing a wild melee inside the fort before many of its defenders had even awoken. In this book, Dr. Tucker, after deep research into recently discovered Mexican accounts and the forensic evidence, informs us that the traditional myth of the Alamo is even more off-base: To be clear, a number of the Alamo's defenders hung on inside the fort, fighting back every way they could.

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