ELIZABETH CREEK + 258 MILES, or 6 Padres & a Babe
Mar 6, 2014 13:51:30 GMT -5
khj, Fire, and 4 more like this
Post by Gordon Lee on Mar 6, 2014 13:51:30 GMT -5
ELIZABETH CREEK + 258.4 MILES, or Six Padres and a Babe
“Great God, Sue, they’ve breached the walls! All is lost! If they don’t kill you, take care of the child. I love you both.”
.
Her husband’s words were hardly discernible above the clamorous din of cannons, muskets, and rockets, and the reverberating screams of dying animals and men. Giving Susannah Arabella and baby Angelina Elizabeth a quick hug and kiss, Captain Almeron Dickinson extracted his sword from his belt scabbard and rushed from the sacristy back into battle. She never saw him again.
.
The previous twelve days and nights, except for the last night, there had been a steady bombardment directed at the small garrison by the Centralist army. The loll from the cannon fire provided a much welcomed respite. The lack of noise helped calm nerves and provide a sleep without a constant jolting. However, it did not take a military genius to realize it was but the calm before a storm -- a deadly, giving of a no quarters storm, as apparent from the red flag fluttering from the church steeple in town.
.
The storm started in earnest with bugle blares shortly after five-o-clock on this cold Sunday morning, the 6th of March. Twice during the first half hour the defenders of the small compound stopped the onslaught of soldiers with the intent on their total inhalation. Both times it looked like the outnumbered resisters obtained a reprieve from the attack. Both times, within minutes, the carnage resumed with even more rushing soldiers.
.
The eighteen women and children huddled in the sacristy prayed and cried. There was nothing else for them to do. Outside the four-foot thick adobe chapel walls the clamor of battle intensifies.
.
Suddenly, two soldiers barge into the chapel and make their way to the sacristy. Their Baker’s rifles cocked and primed. Frightened by their sudden appearance, twelve-year-old Avram Wolfe jumps up and throws a blanket over his head. Instinctively, both bayoneted rifles are simultaneously thrust into the boy. His body topples onto his younger brother, eleven-year-old Augustus.
.
Both soldiers stand there in shock, as are the women and children, at what they
have just done.
.
Miraculously, two men raced in through the chapel doors. Robert Evans, ordnance chief of the garrison, with torch in hand, runs towards the side room designated “powder magazine.” He is attempting to “fire” the magazine to prevent it from being captured by the Centralists. He is shot down before his torch reaches the gun powder, thus, saving the lives of all in the chapel from a terrible explosion.
.
The second man is a bloodied Anthony Wolfe, the father of the boys. Crashing into the sanctuary he knocks the two soldiers down, scoops young Augustus into his arms and climbs up and out the window casement. A barrage of bullets hit their bodies before they hit the ground.
.
Another soldier enters the little church. This one is an officer. This man is an Englishman; Colonel Black in the Centralist army. His bloody sword is drawn. Pointing it towards the door he tells the surviving noncombatants, in both English and Spanish, “if you want to live, gather your children and follow me!”
.
Susannah, with fifteen month old Angelina clutched to her bosom, follows Colonel
Black. Outside the chapel doors she enters a world of horror and chaos. Thick wafting smoke and dust fills her lungs. The noise is deafening. She squeezes Angelina closer. Dead bodies lay scattered amid rampaging soldiers that are running, shooting, chopping, and clubbing anything that twitches. Bodies are repeatedly shot and bayoneted; clothing stripped and all personal items absconded.
.
Colonel Black keeps the women and children close to the chapel wall while
leading them towards a gentle grade at the breached palisade blockade. She looks for her husband. She does not see his body, but she does recognize the carcass of a famous Congressman. She feels a burning sting on her right calf. She’s been shot.
.
The officer collars a couple of soldiers and forces them to assist Susannah. Dazed, she does not loosen her grip on her daughter. With the help of the soldiers she limps to safety.
.
If you haven’t figured it out, dear family and friends, I’ve just documented the final moments of the . . . Battle . . . of the . . . Alamo. You’ll also notice that some things are a bit different from the movies you may have seen. Specifically, Davy Crocket (the famous Congressman), shown as the last person to die, did not blow up the powder magazine, as portrayed by John Wayne. If that was true, there would have been no survivors from the chapel. Furthermore, there’s considerable evidence that Davy Crocket was not taken alive and placed at the feet of a gloating General Santa Ana as per the Billy Bob Thornton depiction. The actual testimony of Mrs. Dickinson records her visually recognizing his body, whom she met personally during his short stay at the fort, as opposed to the diary of Lt. Col. Jose Enrique de la Pena, a Mexican army officer, which states six men were captured, one claiming to be Crocket, and were brutally executed.
.
The aftermath of the battle was grizzly. All 289 Texicans and Tejanos (two of which we have seen, were only 11 and 12 years old) and all of the garrison’s livestock were killed. As mentioned in the above narrative, the defenders were not treated kindly. To make it even more macabre, the Alamo’s graveyard was drastically torn up, exposing some of the nearly one thousand interred bodies. To top it off, an estimated 600 Centralist soldiers were killed, not to mention those that died from the wounds sustained during the battle. (Santa Ana did not have a medical corps.)
.
A strange fact after the battle was the unusual order given by General Santa Ana to clean the faces of all the dead. One of his favorite officers, Fransico Esparza, successfully requested the retrieval of his brother’s body so it could be properly buried. His brother, one of the defenders, was Gregorio Esparza. Gregorio’s wife, daughter, and three sons (the youngest eight-year-old Enrique) also sought
sanctuary in the Alamo sacristy and are listed as surviving noncombatants. Gregorio Esparza’s body was the only defender that was properly buried. The rest, including the animals, were stacked in three different piles and burned. Oh, and most of the 600 dead Mexican soldiers were buried, too … it seems the burial detail got tired of digging and just ended up throwing the rest of the bodies into the river.
.
As the Mexican Centralist army marched off to chase the running Sam Houston and the rest of the Federalist rebel rousers across Texass, General Santa Ana gave another strange order. He ordered General Andrade to send a contingent of soldiers, led by Colonel Sanchez, back to the Alamo complex for the complete destruction of all buildings of the fort.
.
This order is not so strange when one considers the myopic view Santa Ana imposed upon himself when he first left ....Mexico City.... to put down the northern uprising. How dare these misguided Tejanos and Texicans disregard the new Centralist Government? They must be punished and punished to the max for their utter contempt. They needed to be bloodied to in order to learn a lesson. The complete ruin of their attempted arrogance in defiance of his extreme power would remind them and give them reason to remember the Alamo.
.
Colonel Sanchez and his work crew returned and prepared to dismantle the
garrison. They were abruptly stopped. Six fierce-looking padres approached them from the chapel waving flaming swords above their heads and announce, “Do not touch the walls of the Alamo!” Sanchez and his men stopped, dropped their tools and fled all the way back to report the ghostly apparitions and message to General Andrade.
.
General Andrade was not happy. Why did he have so many knuckleheads under his command? Well, if you need something done right, do it yourself.
.
That’s exactly what General Andrade did. He returned to the Alamo with two hundred troops and a couple of loaded cannons. Taking aim at the front doors
of the chapel, he ordered his artillerymen to fire away. But before the flame could be put to the fuse, six huge monks re-emerged from the chapel. Again, wielding blazing swords and approached the soldiers the spectral beings repeated their warning, “Do not touch the walls of the Alamo!” The soldiers were resolved to obey their orders, right up until the six ghostly priests started hurling fire-balls at them. That’s when the men abandoned the cannons and Andrade was thrown from his frightened horse and they all vamoosed.
.
Did this really happen? Did the spectral energy of all of the dead Alamo defenders continue their defense of their fortifications? Why didn’t these six phantom fire throwing dudes show up on the morning of March 6, 1836? Or, is this wishful thinking and ingenious bit of folklore established by the citizens of San Antonio to immortalize this Texass shrine?
.
Factual evidence shows that General Andrade did level many of the walls and
removed all the wooden fences. The chapel itself and sections of the barracks did remain. Maybe it was time restraints and not ghosts that prevented the total destruction?
.
Respectfully,
Gordon Lee
Great Fritian Royal Memorabilia & Coonskin Beanies Emporium
Remember the Alamo
“Great God, Sue, they’ve breached the walls! All is lost! If they don’t kill you, take care of the child. I love you both.”
.
Her husband’s words were hardly discernible above the clamorous din of cannons, muskets, and rockets, and the reverberating screams of dying animals and men. Giving Susannah Arabella and baby Angelina Elizabeth a quick hug and kiss, Captain Almeron Dickinson extracted his sword from his belt scabbard and rushed from the sacristy back into battle. She never saw him again.
.
The previous twelve days and nights, except for the last night, there had been a steady bombardment directed at the small garrison by the Centralist army. The loll from the cannon fire provided a much welcomed respite. The lack of noise helped calm nerves and provide a sleep without a constant jolting. However, it did not take a military genius to realize it was but the calm before a storm -- a deadly, giving of a no quarters storm, as apparent from the red flag fluttering from the church steeple in town.
.
The storm started in earnest with bugle blares shortly after five-o-clock on this cold Sunday morning, the 6th of March. Twice during the first half hour the defenders of the small compound stopped the onslaught of soldiers with the intent on their total inhalation. Both times it looked like the outnumbered resisters obtained a reprieve from the attack. Both times, within minutes, the carnage resumed with even more rushing soldiers.
.
The eighteen women and children huddled in the sacristy prayed and cried. There was nothing else for them to do. Outside the four-foot thick adobe chapel walls the clamor of battle intensifies.
.
Suddenly, two soldiers barge into the chapel and make their way to the sacristy. Their Baker’s rifles cocked and primed. Frightened by their sudden appearance, twelve-year-old Avram Wolfe jumps up and throws a blanket over his head. Instinctively, both bayoneted rifles are simultaneously thrust into the boy. His body topples onto his younger brother, eleven-year-old Augustus.
.
Both soldiers stand there in shock, as are the women and children, at what they
have just done.
.
Miraculously, two men raced in through the chapel doors. Robert Evans, ordnance chief of the garrison, with torch in hand, runs towards the side room designated “powder magazine.” He is attempting to “fire” the magazine to prevent it from being captured by the Centralists. He is shot down before his torch reaches the gun powder, thus, saving the lives of all in the chapel from a terrible explosion.
.
The second man is a bloodied Anthony Wolfe, the father of the boys. Crashing into the sanctuary he knocks the two soldiers down, scoops young Augustus into his arms and climbs up and out the window casement. A barrage of bullets hit their bodies before they hit the ground.
.
Another soldier enters the little church. This one is an officer. This man is an Englishman; Colonel Black in the Centralist army. His bloody sword is drawn. Pointing it towards the door he tells the surviving noncombatants, in both English and Spanish, “if you want to live, gather your children and follow me!”
.
Susannah, with fifteen month old Angelina clutched to her bosom, follows Colonel
Black. Outside the chapel doors she enters a world of horror and chaos. Thick wafting smoke and dust fills her lungs. The noise is deafening. She squeezes Angelina closer. Dead bodies lay scattered amid rampaging soldiers that are running, shooting, chopping, and clubbing anything that twitches. Bodies are repeatedly shot and bayoneted; clothing stripped and all personal items absconded.
.
Colonel Black keeps the women and children close to the chapel wall while
leading them towards a gentle grade at the breached palisade blockade. She looks for her husband. She does not see his body, but she does recognize the carcass of a famous Congressman. She feels a burning sting on her right calf. She’s been shot.
.
The officer collars a couple of soldiers and forces them to assist Susannah. Dazed, she does not loosen her grip on her daughter. With the help of the soldiers she limps to safety.
.
If you haven’t figured it out, dear family and friends, I’ve just documented the final moments of the . . . Battle . . . of the . . . Alamo. You’ll also notice that some things are a bit different from the movies you may have seen. Specifically, Davy Crocket (the famous Congressman), shown as the last person to die, did not blow up the powder magazine, as portrayed by John Wayne. If that was true, there would have been no survivors from the chapel. Furthermore, there’s considerable evidence that Davy Crocket was not taken alive and placed at the feet of a gloating General Santa Ana as per the Billy Bob Thornton depiction. The actual testimony of Mrs. Dickinson records her visually recognizing his body, whom she met personally during his short stay at the fort, as opposed to the diary of Lt. Col. Jose Enrique de la Pena, a Mexican army officer, which states six men were captured, one claiming to be Crocket, and were brutally executed.
.
The aftermath of the battle was grizzly. All 289 Texicans and Tejanos (two of which we have seen, were only 11 and 12 years old) and all of the garrison’s livestock were killed. As mentioned in the above narrative, the defenders were not treated kindly. To make it even more macabre, the Alamo’s graveyard was drastically torn up, exposing some of the nearly one thousand interred bodies. To top it off, an estimated 600 Centralist soldiers were killed, not to mention those that died from the wounds sustained during the battle. (Santa Ana did not have a medical corps.)
.
A strange fact after the battle was the unusual order given by General Santa Ana to clean the faces of all the dead. One of his favorite officers, Fransico Esparza, successfully requested the retrieval of his brother’s body so it could be properly buried. His brother, one of the defenders, was Gregorio Esparza. Gregorio’s wife, daughter, and three sons (the youngest eight-year-old Enrique) also sought
sanctuary in the Alamo sacristy and are listed as surviving noncombatants. Gregorio Esparza’s body was the only defender that was properly buried. The rest, including the animals, were stacked in three different piles and burned. Oh, and most of the 600 dead Mexican soldiers were buried, too … it seems the burial detail got tired of digging and just ended up throwing the rest of the bodies into the river.
.
As the Mexican Centralist army marched off to chase the running Sam Houston and the rest of the Federalist rebel rousers across Texass, General Santa Ana gave another strange order. He ordered General Andrade to send a contingent of soldiers, led by Colonel Sanchez, back to the Alamo complex for the complete destruction of all buildings of the fort.
.
This order is not so strange when one considers the myopic view Santa Ana imposed upon himself when he first left ....Mexico City.... to put down the northern uprising. How dare these misguided Tejanos and Texicans disregard the new Centralist Government? They must be punished and punished to the max for their utter contempt. They needed to be bloodied to in order to learn a lesson. The complete ruin of their attempted arrogance in defiance of his extreme power would remind them and give them reason to remember the Alamo.
.
Colonel Sanchez and his work crew returned and prepared to dismantle the
garrison. They were abruptly stopped. Six fierce-looking padres approached them from the chapel waving flaming swords above their heads and announce, “Do not touch the walls of the Alamo!” Sanchez and his men stopped, dropped their tools and fled all the way back to report the ghostly apparitions and message to General Andrade.
.
General Andrade was not happy. Why did he have so many knuckleheads under his command? Well, if you need something done right, do it yourself.
.
That’s exactly what General Andrade did. He returned to the Alamo with two hundred troops and a couple of loaded cannons. Taking aim at the front doors
of the chapel, he ordered his artillerymen to fire away. But before the flame could be put to the fuse, six huge monks re-emerged from the chapel. Again, wielding blazing swords and approached the soldiers the spectral beings repeated their warning, “Do not touch the walls of the Alamo!” The soldiers were resolved to obey their orders, right up until the six ghostly priests started hurling fire-balls at them. That’s when the men abandoned the cannons and Andrade was thrown from his frightened horse and they all vamoosed.
.
Did this really happen? Did the spectral energy of all of the dead Alamo defenders continue their defense of their fortifications? Why didn’t these six phantom fire throwing dudes show up on the morning of March 6, 1836? Or, is this wishful thinking and ingenious bit of folklore established by the citizens of San Antonio to immortalize this Texass shrine?
.
Factual evidence shows that General Andrade did level many of the walls and
removed all the wooden fences. The chapel itself and sections of the barracks did remain. Maybe it was time restraints and not ghosts that prevented the total destruction?
.
Respectfully,
Gordon Lee
Great Fritian Royal Memorabilia & Coonskin Beanies Emporium
Remember the Alamo
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