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How Lies Surrounding the Alamo took Root and Other Historic Myths

Khalid Elhassan February 28, 2022 38 min

29. The Many Myths of the Alamo

Much of what was long accepted as true about the Alamo is anything but. For starters, there was no need to fight the battle in the first place. The defenders did not try to hold off Santa Anna’s forces in a bid to buy Sam Houston time to raise a Texan army. The Alamo’s commander, Colonel William Travis, ignored numerous warnings that Mexican forces were on the way, and got trapped when they arrived. Nor did the defenders buy Houston time. Santa Anna had expected to take San Antonio on March 2^nd, 1836, but instead took it on the 6^th. The Alamo cost him all of four days and had no impact on his ultimate defeat six weeks later at the Battle of San Jacinto. So the mission’s defenders died for nothing.

Myth vs Fact - 'The Fall of the Alamo' by Robert Jenkins Onderdonk, 1903, depicts Davy Crockett wielding his rifle as a club in a last stand against Mexican troops who had breached the mission's defenses — ‘The Fall of the Alamo’ by Robert Jenkins Onderdonk, 1903, depicts Davy Crockett wielding his rifle as a club in a last stand against Mexican troops who had breached the mission’s defenses. Texas State Archives

Also untrue is the account of Travis’ line in the sand. Towards the end of the battle, the Mexican commander issued an ultimatum: surrender or be killed. Travis drew a line in the dirt with his sword, and asked the men to choose their fate: surrender, or cross the line and join him in a fight to the death. To a man, they crossed the line. There’s no evidence that ever happened. In reality, the defenders did not fight to the last man. As the battle was lost, about half the Alamo’s defenders tried to flee, only to get run down and killed in the open by Mexican lancers. Nor did Davy Crocket go down fighting, as John Wayne depicted him doing. He surrendered and was subsequently executed.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.