The Alamo :: essays research papers

To understand the real battle, one must appreciate its strategic mount in the Texas Revolution.qv In December 1835 a Federalist army of Texan (or Texian,qv as they were called) immigrants, American volunteers, and their Tejanoqv allies had captured the town from a Centralist force during the beleaguering of Bexar.qv With that victory, a majority of the Texan volunteers of the "Army of the People" left service and returned to their families. Nevertheless, many officials of the provisional governmentqv feared the Centralists would mount a spring offensive. Two of import roads led into Texas from the Mexican interior. The first was the Atascosito Road,qv which stretched from Matamoros on the Rio Grande northward with San Patricio, Goliad, Victoria, and finally into the heart of Austins colony. The second was the Old San Antonio Road,qv a camino real that go across the Rio Grande at Paso de Francia (the San Antonio Crossingqv) and wound northeastward through San Antonio de Bxar, Bastrop, Nacogdoches, San Augustine, and across the Sabine River into Louisiana. Two forts blocked these approaches into Texas Presidio La Baha (Nuestra Seora de Loreto Presidio) at Goliad and the Alamo at San Antonio. Each in viewpointation functioned as a frontier picket guard, cause to alert the Texas settlements of an enemy advance. James Clinton Neillqv received command of the Bexar garrison. Some 90 miles to the southeast, James Walker Fannin, Jr.,qv subsequently took command at Goliad. Most Texan settlers had returned to the comforts of home and hearth. Consequently, newly arrived American volunteers-some of whom counted their time in Texas by the week-constituted a majority of the troops at Goliad and Bexar. Both Neill and Fannin determined to stall the Centralists on the frontier. Still, they labored under no delusions. Without speedy reinforcements, neither the Alamo nor Presidio La Baha could long withstand a siege.At Bexar were some cosh artillery pieces of var ious caliber. Because of his artillery experience and his regular army com military commission, Neill was a logical choice to command. Throughout January he did his best to fortify the mission fort on the outskirts of town. Maj. Green B. Jameson,qv chief engineer at the Alamo, installed nigh of the cannons on the walls. Jameson boasted to Gen. Sam Houstonqv that if the Centralists stormed the Alamo, the defenders could "whip 10 to 1 with our artillery." Such predictions proven excessively optimistic. Far from the bulk of Texas settlements, the Bexar garrison suffered from a lack of rase basic provender.