Sacrificed at the Alamo: Tragedy and Triumph in the Texas Revolution (review)

The present-day remains of the Alamo may be small in size, but the 1836 battle fought on the grounds of the former Spanish mission turned the site into one of the holiest secular shrines in Texas, if not the United States, and its outnumbered defenders into gallant martyrs. As time has passed, however, scholars and history buffs have endeavored to strip away the layers of legend from the Alamo to tell the story of the siege in its full historical complexity. Witness, for instance, filmmaker John Lee Hancock's 2004 version of the battle, and historian William C. Davis's masterful Three Roads to the Alamo (1998). Richard Bruce Winders's monograph, which forms part of the Military History of Texas Series, also aims to set the Alamo record straight. The book achieves its goal of providing "a cohesive military and political analysis for the battle that is lacking from most previous studies" (p. 12).

Deep fissures afflicted Texas politics late in 1835, and Winders skillfully depicts these clefts as well as their consequences. Disputes between Governor Henry Smith and the General Council over issues like the establishment, composition, and use of a revolutionary army, as well as the expansion of the campaign against Mexico through the ill-fated Matamoros expedition, left the Alamo's garrison in Béxar, a key strategic location, undermanned and undersupplied. Moreover, and despite Herculean efforts by men like Green B. Jameson to improve the Alamo's defenses, the stronghold remained vulnerable. For example, the gun placements would allow its artillery to fend off a distant enemy, but once that opponent advanced past a certain point the barrels could not be trained on them. This, indeed, is exactly what transpired when Mexican troops stormed the compound on 6 March 1836.

Winders also gives provides fresh insights on the tactics employed at the Alamo by General Antonio López de Santa Anna. The Mexican strongman rejected the advice of his senior officers and ended the siege before the arrival of two twelve-pound guns; the firepower from those arms would have breached the Alamo's walls and minimized casualties among Mexican troops during the 6 March assault. While the possibility of achieving a victory that would boost his colossal ego and make an example of the rebels certainly influenced Santa Anna's decision, perhaps he also intended to follow—as Winders suggests—two of Napoleon Bonaparte's key precepts; one, that councils of war usually did not advocate aggressive military action, and two, that a general's duty was to bring glory to his nation even at the expense of his troops' blood.

The text is further endowed with eleven maps and illustrations, as well as four appendices. Particularly valuable is the one entitled "Principles of War," in which Winders applies the rules of warfare to the siege and battle to further enlighten readers as to the military advantages that each side had at its disposal. The book will appeal to specialists in nineteenth-century Mexican, Texas, and U.S. history, as well as to Alamo buffs, and should find a home in undergraduate classrooms if it were published in paperback.