"When I step inside the mission, after being reminded several times that "This is a shrine," my first thought is that it was indeed a church – and still looks and feels like one."
 By Jan Reid
The hump-backed façade of the Alamo, the 18th-Century
mission chapel that actually comprised just a small part of the fabled killing
field of 1836, is the profile and shrine of Texas. U.S. Army engineers
introduced the distinctive arched gable while restoring the structure in the
early 1850s. But that roofline symbolizes Texans’ tradition of valor, pride,
and independence. My dad attended a Wichita Falls grade school that was built
to resemble and remember the Alamo, and children still go there. Another
Alamo-look-alike school is closed and fallen almost to ruin in the hamlet of
Mosheim; doubtless more of these relics are scattered throughout the state.
That’s because our legislature in the 1920s freed up some school-building
revenue contingent on architects and brick masons aping the Alamo’s silhouette.
I’m reminded of this when I take advantage of an Interstate
35 rest stop a few miles north of San Antonio. On a wall inside the facilities
I encounter a large tile mosaic of the Alamo. As I continue the drive, brown
signs sporting a single-line graphic of the iconic Alamo façade remind me to
exit I-35 and curve around downtown on I-37. Seemingly inspired by some
architect’s notion of a spaceship, HemisFair Park’s Tower of the Americas
forever pops up around me with the happenstance of the moon. The Alamo is the
only one of San Antonio’s treasures that’s easy for me to find. Often, I get so
lost here, and I believe it’s because so many of the city’s streets were laid
out for traffic of horse carriages and donkey carts, not automobiles. But the
Alamo stands just a few blocks from the freeway exit.
I choose a parking lot, realize I’ve still gotten a bit
turned around, and follow street-corner signs pointing the way. In 1836, squat
adobes and dirt streets nestled within this bend of the San Antonio River. Upon
losing an election on who would command the defenders, Jim Bowie went on a
drunken rampage, declaring martial law, freeing prisoners of the town jail, and
looting what he wished to carry off. I’m struck now by the large number of
storefronts with “For Lease” signs posted in the windows. Above street level I
see windows that have been left broken out and some walls defaced by graffiti.
One place in particular gives me pause: barred shut and heavily padlocked, the
onetime curio shop still has the sign “Echoes of the Past.”
 I don’t mention these indications of the area’s decline to
be catty about a city I love. But the municipality owns these blocks, and part
of the Alamo’s history now lies buried under the rubble of a thousand
jackhammers. Badly spooked by a Comanche massacre of priests and soldiers at
San Saba in 1758, Spaniards put up walls around the compound that were eight
feel tall and two feet thick. They’re all gone now. A federal building (former
post office) erases the spot on the north wall where Mexican commanders thought
they had the best chance to breach the fortress. The headquarters rampart on the
north wall is where William B. Travis ducked musket balls, shouted orders, and
was killed. Along the Alamo’s west wall, sidewalk hawkers now yell at tourists
to come inside the Guinness World Records Museum and Ripley’s Believe It or
Not! and Louis Tussaud’s Plaza Wax Museum. After the ferocious battle ended,
the Mexican troops burned the vast pile of bodies under what is now the
Rivercenter Mall. Just over a century ago the Daughters of the Republic of
Texas and the philanthropist Clara Driscoll joined forces to save the old
Mission San Antonio de Valero and the roofless ruin of the convento, or priests’ residence, that became known as the
Long Barracks. The rebels’ most withering fire on the Mexicans and desperate
hand-to-hand fighting took place inside the barracks, not the chapel.
But the collective rite of remembering the Alamo could not
be content with preservation of these few remaining structures. A live oak that
was already forty years old when it was transplanted in 1912 still sprawls with
great presence in the courtyard. With federal monetary assistance, the Texas
Centennial Commission in 1936 enlisted a prolific Italian-born sculptor, Pompeo
Coppini, to conceive and execute on Alamo Plaza a cenotaph (an honorary tomb
for people whose remains lie elsewhere) called The Spirit of Sacrifice. Finished in 1939, it’s a 60-foot-tall spire of gray
marble that shines very white on a sunny day and rests on a base of pink
granite, with a lineup of eight Texas heroes of the battle sculpted into the
marble’s low relief. The traditionalist author J. Frank Dobie despised the
Cenotaph, remarking with characteristic sourness that it looked like a grain
elevator. I stand before it and watch a woman who’s innocent of the seven
decades of controversy. She walks up to the historical marker with a child’s
teddy bear and sets the toy on the ledge precisely between the boots of Travis
and Crockett, then records the image with her cell phone’s camera.
 “OK, first, how’s the breeze blowin’ for goin’ in there
with some troops and blasting them out?”
Peril lies in making any sleight of the Alamo, at least in
Texas. Ask Jim Lehrer, the sage of PBS television news and moderator of
presidential debates. In 1966 Lehrer was a jaunty Dallas newspaper reporter who
had just published a first novel called Viva Max! Three years later, Lehrer’s
book inspired a funny movie starring Peter Ustinov; he was cast as a Mexican
general named Maximilian who takes advantage of a neighborly invitation to a
Fourth of July event and occupies the Alamo, reclaiming it for Mexico. Jonathan
Winters was equally inspired as the general of the Texas National Guard. Few
Daughters of the Republic of Texas were amused; requests to shoot some scenes
on the Alamo grounds were huffily turned down. Erased from the film adaptation
was Lehrer’s character The Chief, an irreverent portrayal of then-President
Lyndon Johnson. The Chief calls together his Secretary of State and national
defense team and bangs a pencil on his desk, taking no prisoners.
“Now, my
friends, we’re goin’ to sit here and reason together on this thing until we
figure out a way of getting that funny little fella out of The Alamo. Any of
you boys got any suggestions—for starters?”
Nobody had any. Silence prevailed. “OK, first, how’s the breeze blowin’ for goin’ in there
with some troops and blasting them out?”
Lest our reverence for the Alamo take on harsh tones of
jingoism, it’s useful to remember that Mexico has its own cenotaph honoring
fighters who made the ultimate sacrifice trying to defend their homeland. The
Monument to the Heroic Cadets is an impressive sculpture of torches that stands
in front of Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City. In 1848, in the conflict we
Americans call the Mexican War, Mexican cadets who’d been pressed into the
conflict made a last stand and then jumped to their deaths rather than
surrender to U.S. Marines. I was a tourist in the fascinating castle once when
something made me look up. Artfully painted across an interior dome was an
image of a wildly staring falling boy wrapped in a Mexican flag. I flinched and
cupped my hands, as I had in my boyhood’s hapless attempts to field punts on a
football practice field.
Admission to our counterpart Alamo is free. Chiseled in a
plaque that I read as I approach the mission is an excerpt from the famous
letter Travis wrote ten days before his last sunrise. February 24, 1836
To The People of Texas & All Americans In the World—
Fellow citizens & compatriots—
I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans and
Santa Anna—I have sustained a continual bombardment & cannonade for 24
hours & have not lost a man—The enemy has demanded a surrender at
discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is
taken—I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves
proudly from the walls—I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you
in the name of Liberty, of patriotism, & everything dear to the American
character to come to our aid, with all dispatch—The enemy is receiving
reinforcements daily and will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in
four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself
as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to
his own honor & that of his country—
VICTORY OR DEATH! Uncommon valor, absolutely, (though Travis’s line drawn by
sword in the sand is discounted by historians as a myth). But my eyes return to
the terror in the lines “come to our aid, with all dispatch … If this call is
neglected …” He was shaken to the depths of his soul by the fix he was in. The
man was 28 years old.
Before leaving I wander over to the gift shop, and look at a
display case detailing the evolution of the Bowie knife and Bowie’s murderous
“Sand Bar Fight,” and hold back a smile at all the mementos that have been
marked down. Etched Alamo ornament—was $13.50, now $8.99. Alamo crackers,
$1.75; a recipe for Texas guacamole, 50 cents. But when I step inside the
mission, reminded several times by politely murmuring men amid a crowd of
school kids in red T-shirts that “This is a shrine,” my first thought is that
it was indeed a church—still looks and feels like one. Then comes a
claustrophobic sinking spell and reflection of how terrifying it would have
been to be trapped in black-powder smoke inside these thick windowless walls,
shuddering with each thump of the Mexican cannon. Officers under Santa Anna
were astonished that he ordered the assault into the Texans’ own blasts of
cannon instead of waiting for them to run out of food and water and surrender.
The old sacristy, a tiny room on the left as you shuffle through, is where you
can best fathom the awfulness and strange dignity of the fall of the Alamo.
Women, small children, and a few black slaves were locked up in the room, the
only enclosure in the compound that has remained as it was. Until the
ninety-minute assault ended, about 8:00 in the morning, the survivors couldn’t
see the terrible cost to both sides. But how they must have prayed and wished
they couldn’t hear.
Jan Reid’s forthcoming books include a novel, Comanche
Sundown, and a biography of Ann Richards. Photo Editor Griff Smith enjoyed
seeing rock star Phil Collins at the Alamo during the shoot for this feature.
See the full article in the September 2009 issue. Subscribe Order back issues |
