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THE ALAMO, UNVARNISHED
It's the first week in March. You've just survived a blue Texas winter with little to eat, no coat and just a wool blanket to make the difference between misery and hypothermia. You are one of the lucky ones...you have shoes. And now gathered around you, so close you can smell their breakfast cooking each day, are 4,000 men who daydream of putting a bayonet through your gut.
That's what you faced as an Alamo defender. There you were...stuck in a rambling, broken down mission complex that would be indefensible even with a thousand able men. There are 187 of you. You know you are going to die brutally. Your only consolation will be in setting the cost of your life to the enemy as high as possible. They will damn sure remember the Alamo!
187. That number was set by Amelia Williams during her doctoral research in the late 1920s. We always knew the number was small, certainly less than 250, but she made it exact. All it took was poring over, one by one, tens of thousands of documents and manuscripts in the State Library and the General Land Office, as well as private collections.
The Alamo Defenders is the result of her labors. This work has been the rock that nearly every serious Alamo study since has been built upon, but until now it was available only to academics.
Dr. Williams did a whole lot more than just determine the number of men who gave their lives at the Alamo. She answered lots of questions about the Alamo siege, including:
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Who were the defenders and where they had come from?
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How many Mexicans died in the final assault?
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When did Crockett arrive?
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Did he bring volunteers from Tennessee or did he come alone?
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Who were the brave few from Gonzales?
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Where were the ashes of the Texans finally buried?
She also gives us:
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The scheming between factions of the Texas army and government.
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The chaos created when the Governor suspended the Council & the Council impeached the Governor.
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A day-by-day account of the siege and full details of the final assault.
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Concise and detailed biographies of Travis, Crockett, Bowie and Santa Anna.
Order your copy now. And while you're at it, get one for a fellow Texan.
Hardcover. Trade edition. 186 pages. With footnotes and bibliography.
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