The Alamo :: essays research papers

To lowstand the real battle, unmatchable must appreciate its strategic context in the Texas Revolution.qv In declination 1835 a Federalist army of Texan (or Texian,qv as they were called) immigrants, American volunteers, and their Tejanoqv allies had captured the town from a Centralist force during the siege of Bexar.qv With that victory, a majority of the Texan volunteers of the "Army of the People" left service and returned to their families. Nevertheless, many officials of the provisional governmentqv feared the Centralists would rally a spring offensive. Two main roads led into Texas from the Mexican interior. The first was the Atascosito Road,qv which stretched from Matamoros on the Rio Grande northward through San Patricio, Goliad, Victoria, and finally into the heart of Austins colony. The second gear was the Old San Antonio Road,qv a camino real that crossed the Rio Grande at Paso de Francia (the San Antonio Crossingqv) and wound atomic number 10 through San A ntonio de Bxar, Bastrop, Nacogdoches, San Augustine, and across the Sabine River into Louisiana. Two forts blocked these approaches into Texas Presidio La Baha (Nuestra Seora de Loreto Presidio) at Goliad and the Alamo at San Antonio. Each installation functioned as a frontier picket guard, ready to alert the Texas settlements of an enemy advance. pile Clinton Neillqv received command of the Bexar garrison. Some ninety miles to the southeast, James Walker Fannin, Jr.,qv by and by took command at Goliad. Most Texan settlers had returned to the comforts of home and hearth. Consequently, new arrived American volunteers-some of whom counted their time in Texas by the week-constituted a majority of the host at Goliad and Bexar. Both Neill and Fannin determined to stall the Centralists on the frontier. Still, they labored under no delusions. Without speedy reinforcements, neither the Alamo nor Presidio La Baha could long endure a siege.At Bexar were some twenty-one gunslinger pieces of various caliber. Because of his artillery experience and his regular army commission, Neill was a logical choice to command. end-to-end January he did his best to fortify the mission fort on the outskirts of town. Maj. greenness B. Jameson,qv chief engineer at the Alamo, installed most of the cannons on the walls. Jameson boasted to Gen. Sam Houstonqv that if the Centralists stormed the Alamo, the defenders could " jaw 10 to 1 with our artillery." Such predictions proved excessively optimistic. Far from the great deal of Texas settlements, the Bexar garrison suffered from a lack of even basic provender.