Exodus from the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth (review)

"Nothing," said Mark Twain, "so needs reforming as other people's habits." And nothing, apparently, so needs revision as Texas history, which brings us to Phillip Tucker's Exodus From the Alamo. "Almost everything Americans have been taught . . . is not only wrong, it is the antithesis of what really occurred" (vii). Drawn from a broad array of newspaper and manuscript collections as well as secondary sources from eminent Texas and Alamo historians, Tucker argues that the Alamo's legacy rests on a mythology of heroism, enabled by historical distortions and probably some slick marketing. "It [the Alamo] was but a small affair," recalled Santa Anna, and Tucker defers. The Texas war for independence was a "rustic revolution of amateurs," men unable to devise effective military strategy (84). Rather than fight to the death, the majority of the Alamo defenders attempted at the last minute to flee but died instead under the lances of Santa Anna's cavalry, rendering the "last stand" legend a myth in need of exposure.

Beneath the veneer of liberty lay more sinister motives, including the deliberate extension of slavery and land profiteering. "Slavery," claims Tucker, "served as a central foundation of Anglo-Celtic settlement" (35). To protect their land grants, Texas's earliest "Anglo-Celtic" families were willing to sacrifice territorial newcomers who filled the Alamo's ranks. It was a rich man's war, a poor man's fight, and a class struggle overlooked in conventional history.

Tuckers revisionism continues with a review of the political and military career of Mexican army commander, General Antonio López de Santa Anna, the man both Americans and Mexicans love to hate. However, Tucker's Santa Anna was a "bold, dynamic, and imaginative military leader" who initiated a masterful campaign, comparable to Washington's Delaware crossing. Santa Anna's crusade would not only save the Mexican Republic but also wipe out the Anglo-Celts in Texas, an ambition he nurtured for two years. Determined to avenge the expulsion of the San Antonio garrison two months earlier, Santa Anna suddenly arrived with a vanguard of 1,500 troops. Although San Antonio and the Alamo were strategically unimportant, Santa Anna considered the Alamo symbolic of Mexico's past and present failures.

Throughout four chapters covering the siege and battle, Escape from the Alamo concludes that the Alamo's collapse was inevitable. Acknowledging the Alamo's "fatal seduction" of around twenty artillery pieces, Tucker dismisses their relevance on account of inferior gunpowder, poor battery locations, and poorly trained gun crews. The shoulder arm most often depicted, the Pennsylvania "Long Rifle," had greater range than the Mexican army's British manufactured musket. It was, however, less suited for military use (longer reloading time and not as rugged as the musket). Most defenders carried shotguns and smooth bore muskets. Yet, Tucker boasts, Santa Anna "negated the Alamo's two principal strengths . . . its large number of artillery and the deadly Long Rifles," a curious remark if neither presented a serious threat from the beginning (209).

Tucker's study embraces a few relevant non-military factors germane to the Alamo's fall. Political infighting between Whigs (most Alamo men) and Jacksonian Democrats (including Sam Houston) precluded reinforcing the San Antonio outpost. 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 331...