1/2/2024 0 Comments Blood of heroes reviewDavis's monumental triple biography of Crockett, Travis and James Bowie, "Three Roads to the Alamo," and Stephen Harrington's "The Gates of the Alamo."Īllen Barra's next book, "Mickey and Willie, The Parallel Lives of Baseball's Golden Age," is due out this fall. Those making their entrance into Alamo lore for the first time are well advised to begin with "The Blood of Heroes." It belongs on the shelf of any enthusiast along with William C. Best of all for the true romantic, Colonel William Travis's "line in the sand" and legendary speech did, in fact, happen. "Total casualties likely comprised about 75 killed during the battle and approximately 300 wounded" and, according to the best evidence, David Crockett did, indeed, die fighting. Mexican casualties were far lower than has always been assumed. But the massacre by Santa Anna of some 400 Texians who had surrendered near Goliad was not. He contends that, given the circumstances of the rebellion and the conditions under which the battle was fought, the death of every defender at the Alamo - probably close to 200 men -and the execution of a few prisoners, was defensible. With the skill of a historical detective Donovan pieces together the most plausible account of what happened over the next 13 days, from February 23 to March 6, 1836, when the Mexican army finally stormed the walls in an all-out assault in the pre-dawn darkness, rockets and cannon fire illuminating the cold Texas night. The Alamo's defenders, eight of whom were native-born Tejanos, quickly retreated into the compound and began fortifying it the women of San Antonio wept and cried, "You will all be killed what shall we do?" After the surrender of the Alamo, "soldiers of both armies were mingling, some playing cards together," Donovan writes.įaster than any of the Texians had calculated, faster even than rebel leader Sam Houston could train an army of resistance, Mexican dictator General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna force-marched an army of several thousand soldados, many raw recruits - "Indians, peasants, vagabonds, prisoners, and the poor of the larger cities and towns" - to San Antonio to take back the Alamo. Well, some might say that he uses Nazi-influenced aesthetics. Once again, Rob Darken has created a mixture of Valkyrie-like background choirs, fairly simple yet elegiac melodies, mid-paced rhythms and raw lead vocals. The early Texas army was "little more than a well-intentioned mob " still, it managed to capture the Mexican garrison at San Antonio de Bexar with relatively little bloodletting. 'Blood of Heroes' appears as the logical continuation of the preceding full-length 'Memory and Destiny'. Some, Donovan writes, "were for independence some for the constitution of 1824 and some for anything, just so it was a row."Īt least the third group got their wish. A Triumphant Return To The World Of Richard Fox Blood of Heroes is my favorite entry into the series so far. The motives of the new settlers were mixed.
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