"A Reservoir of Spiritual Power": Patriotic Faith at the

"A Reservoir of Spiritual Power": Patriotic Faith at the Alamo in the Twentieth Century
Author(s): Edward Tabor Linenthal
Source: The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 91, No. 4 (Apr., 1988), pp. 509-531
Published by: Texas State Historical Association
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"AReservoirof SpiritualPower":
PatrioticFaith at theAlamo
in the TwentiethCentury
EDWARD
T
HE CELEBRATION
OF THE
TABOR
TEXAS
LINENTHAL*
SESQUICENTENNIAL
IN
1986
HAS
focused attention anew on the saga of the Last Stand of the Texas
heroes at the Alamo on March 6, 1836. Both the Witte Museum in San
Antonio and the DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University in
Dallas have had major displays on the evolution of the old mission and
on American perception of the battle. At least two books about the history of the Alamo in American culture are nearing completion. Furthermore, a replica of the Alamo built originally for John Wayne's 1960
movie in Brackettville, Texas, was recently refurbished for a new Alamo
movie that appeared on NBC, on January 26, 1987.'
It would be a mistake to dismiss such attention as a sign of antiquarian curiosity, as part of a nostalgic impulse, or as an anachronistic
attachment to the minutiae of history. Rather, such vibrant cultural activity reminds us of the care we take to cultivate symbols that will link us
to events perceived as crucial to both the life of the nation and our
understanding of contemporary dilemmas. As Maj. Gen. H. L. Grills,
commander of Lackland Air Force Base, said in 1957, the Alamo beall Americans must be allowed to
longs "to American history-and
share the pride of Texans in it." Many Texans have indeed taken a
* Edward Tabor Linenthal is associate
professor of religion and American culture at the Uni-
He is the author of Changing Images of the Warrior Hero in Amerversity of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.
ica: A History of Popular Symbolism (1982) and is currently writing a book on cultural interpreta-
tions of American battlefields.
IWilliam Elton Green, now historian at the Texas State Capitol in Austin, prepared an exhibit, Remember the Alamo: The Development of a Texas Symbol, 1836-1986, for the Witte
Museum in San Antonio. It opened in February, 1986, and was due to close in August on the
birthday of David Crockett. The exhibit was so popular, however, that the closing date was
extended until November, 1986. The companion catalogue to the DeGolyer display is Susan
Prendergast
Schoelwer
et al., Alamo Images: Changing Perceptions of a Texas Experience (Dallas:
DeGolyer Library and Southern Methodist University Press, 1985). Both Paul A. Hutton and
William Green are at work on book-length studies of the Alamo.
510o
SouthwesternHistorical Quarterly
tribal pride in the Alamo story as the crucial event in the creation of the
Republic. Like the Exodus story in ancient Israel, the saga of the Alamo
has become part of the national storehouse of patriotic symbols, just as
its heroes and "lessons" have become the measure of each new generation and each new set of crises.2
This article traces the history of the symbolic interpretation of the
Last Stand at the Alamo from the time the Daughters of the Republic
of Texas (DRT) began reverent guardianship in 1905. By that date the
Alamo already occupied an important place in the patriotic landscape
of the United States. There are numerous types of sacred patriotic sites
in America: birthplaces and burial sites of various national and regional heroes, and national monuments and buildings, for example.
Battle sites function as ceremonial centers on this landscape, connecting each generation with the actions of cultural heroes whose courage
and willing sacrifice have provided archetypal models of devotion to
the principles of the nation. Visitors to such sites, whether categorized
as tourists or pilgrims (the boundary is not always clear), have exhibited
the universal desire to be near a place of great power.
It is appropriate to use the language of religion to describe the symbolic function or characteristics of these centers: forms of patriotic attachment are surely religious postures, whether they engender deep
and abiding reverence or deep and abiding contempt for a particular
public symbol. Battle sites, like all sacred sites, are subject to veneration
and defilement, and their lessons are subject to revision. They are not
are very
static symbols that convey only one constant meaning-they
much alive and changing. Our tour of the symbolic history of the
Alamo in the twentieth century focuses not only on how the symbol
speaks, but also on the struggle over who should speak for it: who
are the legitimate owners of the "true" meaning of the symbol? This
struggle for ownership has been characterized by attitudes of veneration, defilement, and redefinition. Ideal types of each attitude provide
an appropriate beginning for our tour.
While the Alamo lay in ruins in the first decade after the battle, from
1836 until the United States Army occupied the site in 1847, visitors
often responded to the scene with words of awe and veneration, mixed
with regret that the heroes were not memorialized in a more fitting
way. Many still use the language of veneration. Edith Mae Johnson, for
example, is chairwoman of the Alamo Committee of the Daughters of
the Republic of Texas, whose mission has been to maintain the Alamo
2File: "Pilgrimage to the Alamo," Alamo, Historic Sites, San Antonio Clipping File (The
Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library at the Alamo; cited hereafter as DRT Library).
Patriotic Faith at the Alamo
511
as "a sacred Memorial to the heroes who immolated themselves upon
that hallowed ground." She talks of the awe that fills her, even today,
when she enters the shrine. She speaks with reverence of men who die
in war, and she measures a man by his "willingness for self-sacrifice" in
a heroic cause.3
The Alamo has also been venerated as an enduring model of patriotic behavior by popular television evangelist Pat Robertson, who
broadcast his "7oo Club" at the Alamo as part of the Sesquicentennial
celebration. Setting the tone for the show, Danuta Soderman, one of
Robertson's cohosts, asked him, "Was that sacrifice worth all those
deaths? Was the Alamo worth dying for at that time?" In response,
Robertson talked of the importance of the Alamo sacrifice for those
who later fought at San Jacinto, the battle that ended Mexico's rule of
Texas. That battle was won because Texans were "inspired by the nobility of those who had died for this cause." Robertson asserted that
"bravery and heroic actions in behalf of freedom have never been in
vain," and that from this historic "moment of liberty" America must
learn a truth repeated by many Texans: "eternal vigilance is the price
of liberty." He warned that we cannot only enjoy "freedom, prosperity,
and wealth," but must also "get involved." We must help Mexico's "chaotic economy," and we must not allow "Communist tyranny to take over
nation after nation." For Robertson, the Alamo freedom fighters provide Americans with personifications of the timeless values of patriotic
commitment. If we will learn from them, he said, we will help a "little
outpost of freedom fighters down in Central America who are saying
'we want to bring freedom and liberty to our country."'4
The Alamo has been venerated as well by Gary L. Foreman, a member of several Living History reenactment groups and an amateur historian who moved from Chicago to San Antonio in 1985. For him, the
patriotic truths nurtured at the Alamo are intimately tied to an accurate physical reconstruction of the Alamo complex as it was in 1836.
Foreman uses the language of defilement to describe threats to the purity of the Alamo message from within and without. Foreman believes
that the DRT has commercialized the site and turned a sacred place
into a tourist trap. This internal defilement can only be altered by a return to historical authenticity that will be apparent in museum displays,
3Message of Governor O. B. Colquitt to the Thirty-third Legislature Relating to the Alamo Property
Co., 1913), 95; Edith Mae Johnson to E. T. L., July 18, 1986,
(Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones
interview.
4The "700 Club" at the Alamo, San Antonio, Texas, Mar. 6, 1986 (videotape in possession of
the author).
512
SouthwesternHistorical Quarterly
in historical reenactments, and even in the choice of items to be sold in
the gift shop. The threat of external defilement comes from the ominous growth of the city. Consequently, only by a commitment to the
physical transformation of the bustling secularity of Alamo Plaza can
the Alamo and its message be preserved from the encroachment of an
uncaring modernity symbolized by the city. Only a pure context can
provide orientation for an experience that will allow tourists to appreciate the lessons the site offers.
Different language is used by the Reverend Balthasar Janacek, archdiocesan director of the Old Spanish Missions and pastor of Christ the
King Church in San Antonio. He is interested in the process of symbolic redefinition. For "Father Balty," as he likes to call himself, the
symbol of the Alamo has been a vehicle of separation and bitterness
between ethnic communities in San Antonio. Like Pat Robertson, he,
too, thinks of current events in Nicaragua; but for Father Balty, the
muscular American imperialism that provided impetus both for the
Mexican-Texan conflict and for the rigid and simplistic anticommunism
currently at work in Nicaragua is a prime example of our "need to control events." Father Balty is interested in expanding the symbol of the
Alamo. Unlike other dissenters from traditional Anglo orthodoxies, he
is not interested merely in restoring to their rightful place the Tejanos
(Mexican Texans) who fought in the Alamo. He is interested in changing the symbolic landscape, bringing into view the Alamo's prerevolutionary past.5
Many believers share the reverence of Edith Mae Johnson and, like
Pat Robertson, are persuaded that lessons from the Alamo are relevant
to contemporary situations. Occasions like the Sesquicentennial recall
the power of blood sacrifice and trace the life of republican virtue in a
series of righteous American warriors: from the Minutemen of Lexington and Concord, through the heroes of the Alamo, to current incarnations of American freedom fighters. Symbolic continuity with this
past, celebrated in patriotic rituals, has become even more important
because many fear that the nation has lost the commitment of these
original cultural heroes. Commemorations become opportunities for
jeremiads, warning of dangers from within and without if a process of
rededication does not soon begin.
The fear of such broken connections has been expressed most clearly
in Alamo commemorative rhetoric that emphasizes the continued efficacy of martial sacrifice. Rededication, it is assumed, will bring re5Balthasar Janacek to E. T. L., July 16, 1986, interview.
Patriotic Faith at the Alamo
513
vitalization, a faith that the idealized attributes of the American frontier can provide models of contemporary public behavior. For those
guided by such traditional messages, the symbol of the Alamo is complete; it has no need of revision. It requires only proper veneration and
each generation's rededication. Failure to live up to the heroic ideal reveals only a lack of personal commitment to the lessons of the Alamo,
not a deficiency in the symbol itself. These traditional patriotic themes
are most obvious in the rhetoric delivered by military celebrants on Alamo Day, or in speeches given in Alamo pilgrimages during San Antonio's April Fiesta week, which honors Texas Independence. Fiesta
week was first celebrated in 1891, in honor of the visit of President
Benjamin Harrison. It continued as a celebration of the Texans' victory
at San Jacinto and the creation of the Republic. Fiesta pilgrimages to
the Alamo began in 1927 as a schoolchildren's commemoration, but by
the mid- 1930osthey had become an all-city event. While Fiesta is a "weeklong period of unprecedented hilarity," the city always pauses "in the
twilight ... to pay solemn and thankful tribute to Texas heroes."'
Curiously, throughout the nineteenth century there were no ceremonies at the Alamo on March 6, the day the Alamo fell. San Antonio
newspapers would usually mention the significance of the date, but
even the fiftieth anniversary passed with nothing except a comment
from the Daily Express: "It is suggested that a society be formed, whose
duty it shall be to see that the prominent anniversaries of Texas histories are properly observed." Formal anniversary ceremonies on March
6 were not held in San Antonio until 1897. The DRT then began to
hold services at the grave of Benjamin R. Milam, who died in the Texans' capture of San Antonio in December, 1835. Although no formal
services were held at the Alamo itself, visitors to the site could listen as a
Texas veteran, Captain Tom Rife, the custodian of the mission from
1885 to 1893, told the story "in a manner and a tone so impressive that
the mind [would] unconsciously go back to the story of the Iliad." By
19o9 formal anniversary services were being held at the Alamo as well,
and were so popular in 1912 that the Express proudly noted that "even
representatives of races the Anglo-Saxon world does not consider civilized have been moved by the story every stone in the old church tells."7
6San Antonio Express,Apr. 23, 1946. It was not until 1960, when Governor Price Daniel designated March 6 as Alamo Day, that the anniversary was officially recognized by the state. San
Antonio Light, Mar. i, 1960; San Antonio Express-News, Mar. 1, 1960.
7San Antonio Daily Express,Mar. 6, 1886; San Antonio Express,Mar. 6, 1890 (2nd quotation),
Mar. 6, 1912. I wish to thank William Green for the opportunity to read the manuscript of his
forthcoming book, "Remembering the Alamo: The Development of a Texas Symbol." My understanding of the nineteenth-century background relies heavily on his thorough examination.
514
SouthwesternHistorical Quarterly
Familiar themes were repeated in a series of elaborate Centennial celebrations in 1936. Anniversary events were led by Governor James V.
Allred and Governor Hill McAlister of Tennessee (home of Crockett's
volunteers), with the support of religious, civic, military, and patriotic
groups. Five bishops celebrated a pontifical high mass for twenty thousand in front of the Alamo, after which the Episcopal bishop of the diocese of West Texas, William T. Capers, gave an address. He declared
that the heroes had died for the sacredness of the home, threatened in
modern times by materialism. In what would become a familiar tribute,
the bishop asked, "Who could follow in the footsteps of Travis, Bowie,
or Crockett?" Governor Allred told the assemblage that the Alamo was
the crucial event in the birth of Texas, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent a message that the battle was a "victory for principles of liberty." When Roosevelt visited the Alamo in June of the Centennial
year, he honored the men who had died there, declaring that "without
the Alamo the great Southwest might never have become a part of the
nation." He assured the crowd that "we have not discarded nor lost that
virility [or] ideals of the pioneers."'
The crises of World War II brought renewed calls for adherence to
the animating lessons of the Alamo. Writing in the dark days of 1942,
Charlie Jeffries traced the spiritual inspiration of the Alamo heroes for
generations of Texans who have had to go to war. He asked if Texans
were now prepared for a war that would "try these people as they have
not been tried since the dark days of the Civil War." Will they, he wondered, be able to stand the "baptism of fire"? He thought they could,
for "they have been properly imbued for the ordeal." As the Alamo has
served Texans in the past, "the lights of the Alamo will shine on them,
too." Anniversary spokesmen in 1943 and 1944 honored those who
had died in the war that was still going on and declared that their courage was formed by allegiance to the principles for which those at the
Alamo had died. Modern courage had "its roots and very being in the
faith of their fathers," for in troublesome times "we must go back to
the original foundation from which we sprang."'
Commemoration rhetoric in the postwar years also used the Alamo
drama continually to interpret each new crisis of public faith. Speech
makers and newspaper editorials declared that lessons drawn from the
8San Antonio
Light, June 12, 1936.
9Charlie Jeffries, "The Lights of the Alamo," SouthwesternHistorical Quarterly,XLVI (July,
1942), 8; Evelyn M. Carrington, Alamo Day Address, 1943 (5th quotation), File: "Alamo Day
Addresses," Alamo, Historic Sites, San Antonio Clipping File (DRT Library); Samuel L. Terry,
Alamo Day Address, 1944 (6th quotation), ibid.
Patriotic Faith at the Alamo
515
battle had heightened meaning in the cold war. In 1948 Admiral Chester W. Nimitz pronounced that the sacrifice at the Alamo was a beacon
to all Texans who had fought in other wars and that it served as a
"warning to present-day dictators." A 1951 San Antonio Express editorial stated that, "should the aggressor begin a World War III, he would
find the name and flame of the Alamo a force to reckon with." Evil
forces should be wary because the moral force that was the inspiration
at the Alamo still existed. In 1947 Governor Beauford H. Jester stated
that against the menace of communism "our mightiest weapon is that
Excalibur of the spirit handed down to us by Travis and his men." A
1953 speech by Gen. Kearie L. Berry, adjutant general of Texas, emphasized the moral orientation that the Alamo could provide in an otherwise
chaotic world. "As the growing menace of Communism seeks to enslave
the world, free men everywhere must 'Remember the Alamo.'"
Although warnings of doom and degeneration have also been prevalent in the commemorative rhetoric, continuity with the heroic past has
been emphasized. Heroism in recent wars was thought to show that the
animating spirit of the Alamo was still alive. In 1952 Lt. Gen. William M.
Hogue, Fourth Army commander, declared that the "performance of
our soldiers in Korea proves that there has been no weakening of our
spiritual fibre since the Alamo." The next year, Texas attorney general
John Ben Shepperd called forth the heroes: "Look down Travis! Crockett... Bowie, Bonham. Look down! Yes, we are keeping the faith. We
kept it at Normandy, at Okinawa, and we are keeping it in Korea." In
1962 Col. Armin F. Puck's speech traced the history of the First Battle
Group of the Texas 141st Infantry. He asked, "Are we like our forefathers? I believe yes." Battles fought at San Jacinto, by Hood's Texas
Brigade in the Civil War, at the Meuse-Argonne, at Salerno, and in
France 'justified the placing into our custody the sacred trust of the
streamer for the Battle of the Alamo." "
Alamo rhetoric presented communism as a spiritual challenge to the
resources of America, and each eruption of military conflict during this
seemingly endless cold war gave patriots a chance to "examine the
American spirit." Stocktaking in 1963 was, declared Lt. Gen. Carl H.
Jark, commander of the Fourth Army at Fort Sam Houston, analogous
to the contemplative discipline of the Alamo heroes who looked into
I"San Antonio Express, Apr. 20, 1948 (ist quotation), Mar. 6, 1951 (2nd quotation), Mar. 6,
1953 (4th quotation); San Antonio Light, Apr. 22, 1947 (3rd quotation).
"San Antonio Light, Apr. 22, 1952 (1st quotation); San Antonio Express, Apr. 21, 1953 (2nd
quotation); Armin F. Puck, Alamo Day Address, 1962 (3rd and 4th quotations), File: "Alamo
Day Addresses."
516
SouthwesternHistorical Quarterly
their "innermost selves as they sought their answer to the challenge of
Travis" to cross the line. Hence, one of the Alamo's enduring legends
provided the occasion for a renewal of the patriotic covenant.'2
When all hope of help for the Alamo was finally gone, the legend
goes, Travis, the commander and chevalier of the Alamo, drew a line
on the ground with his sword, and all except Moses Rose crossed the
line to face certain death. William P. Zuber, who claimed that Moses
Rose told the story at his family's house when Zuber was a little boy, first
made the story public in the 1873 Texas Almanac. Soon the story was
popularized in the first three editions of Anna M. J. Hardwicke Pennybacker's A New Historyof Texasfor Schools (1888). As skepticism about the
truth of the story grew, it was often deleted from the school history
canon. Following the example of George P. Garrison's Texas:A Contestof
Civilizations (1903), the last three editions of Pennybacker did not mention the drama of the line.'"
But the story is not so easily expunged from popular history. Acrimonious debate has accompanied the retelling of this controversial
story. For some, the story has symbolized Texan courage and should
not be debunked even if it is not historically accurate. Noted Texan
folklorist J. Frank Dobie declared that no amount of research would
ever diminish the "Grand Canyon cut into the bedrock of human emotions and heroical impulses" provided by the story of Travis's line.
In a letter to the editor of the SouthwesternHistorical Quarterlyin 1939,
J. K. Beretta, a member of the Texas Centennial Control Commission,
warned of the danger to the nation of whittling away at heroes. He
thought the story so crucial to the saga of the Alamo that without definite proof that Travis did not draw the line, "let us believe it," in order
Texas heroes as patriotic, loyal, and good
to "keep our illusion of...
citizens." The story of the line has been acted out in innumerable
Alamo dramas, including the reenactment during the Sesquicentennial celebration on Alamo Plaza in San Antonio. It has been a required
part of the celebration of the "conversion" drama, for it was at this
point that men from various states and countries became Texan and
American heroes and revealed their authentic American courage and
determination."4
12Newspaper clipping dated Apr. 22, 1963, File: "Pilgrimage to the Alamo."
13Mary Ann Zuber, "An Escape from the Alamo," The Texas Almanac for 1873, and Emigrant's
Guide to Texas ... (Galveston: Richardson, Belo & Co., [1872]), 80-85; George P. Garrison,
Texas: A Contest of Civilizations (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1903); AnnaJ. Hardwicke Pennybacker, A New History of Texas for Schools ... (Tyler, Tex.: n.p., 1888). The next two editions of
Pennybacker were published in Palestine, Texas (Percy V. Pennybacker, [1895]) and in Austin
(Mrs. Percy V. Pennybacker, 1900oo).
'4J.Frank Dobie, Mody C. Boatright, and Harry R. Ransom (eds.), In the Shadow of History,
Publications of the Texas Folklore Society, XV (Hatboro, Penn.: Folklore Associates, 1966), 14
Patriotic Faith at the Alamo
517
In a pilgrimage speech in 1975, Lt. Gen. Allen Burdett, Jr., commander of the Fifth Army at Fort Sam Houston, stated that, even
though the fact of the line could not be proven, "each man had crossed
a line in his heart." This same decision, he believed, was being asked of
Americans in 1975. In 1964 Lt. Gen. Robert W. Burns, commander of
Air Training at Randolph Air Force Base, declared that each person
"has had to, or will have to, answer the question: Are we prepared to
die for the cause of freedom?" In 1980, crises in Iran and Afghanistan
moved Gen. Bennie L. Davis, also a commander of Air Training at
Randolph, to suggest that similar lines had to be drawn. "Crisis revives
the spirit of this nation," Davis declared, observing that we now faced
the "crossroads of our destiny as a nation." The final test of whether or
not patriots had crossed the line would come in the answer to the question John Ben Shepperd asked in 1954: "Can we say . .. that not one
Texan has turned Communist? Can we say we have not surrendered a
single ideal or compromised a single principle?"15
There was often a common pattern to the rhetorical commemorations of the thirteen-day siege at the Alamo. Recitations emphasized
the heroism of the besieged, which was then identified in various ways:
acts of defiance in the face of the "no quarter" flag raised by Santa Anna,
the voluntary return of James B. Bonham after an unsuccessful attempt
to recruit help, the dash of the volunteers from Gonzales through enemy lines to stand at the Alamo, and, finally, the heroism of the Last
Stand. Direct application of the lessons of the Alamo, speakers continued, could be made because of the continued potency of blood sacrifice. The blood of the Alamo heroes was spilled in defense of the love
of liberty and made possible the birth of the Republic of Texas. There
are still things worth dying for, most rhetoric finally declared, and
modern America's insidious loss of the will to sacrifice made the historical analogy all the more important.
Even the brooding omnipresence of the nuclear age could not vitiate
the power of sacrifice. In 1955 Dr. W. S. McBirnie of Trinity Baptist
Church in San Antonio noted that while the mushroom-shaped "ominous cloud" rose to threaten all, the Alamo reminds us that "some
things never change." When we need faith in freedom and in God, we
(1st quotation); J. K. Beretta's letter, "Debunking and Debunkers," is found in the Southwestern
Historical Quarterly, XLIII (Oct., 1939), 252, 253 (2nd and 3rd quotations). For a fascinating
account of the history of the Zuber story, see Llerena Friend, "Historiography of the Account
of Moses Rose and the Line That Travis Drew," in William Physick Zuber, My Eighty Years in
Texas, ed. Janis Boyle Mayfield (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971), 255-262.
15San Antonio Light, Apr. 20, 1954 (5th quotation), Apr. 22, 1975
quotation); San Antonio Express, Apr. 21, 1964 (2nd quotation); Bennie L. Davis quoted (lstin File: "Pilgrimage to
the Alamo."
518
SouthwesternHistorical Quarterly
need only say "Remember the Alamo." More recently, in 1984, Lt. Gen.
John R. McGiffert, commander of the Fifth Army at Fort Sam Houston, delivered the Alamo Heroes Day address and warned of the danger of believing that nothing is worth dying for. "It seems almost sacrilegious," he said, "to whisper those words, let alone speak them within
earshot of the Alamo." As a nation, said McGiffert, we have honored
those who are willing to die for freedom, honor, family, and country.
"We honor all who believe that freedom is worth dying for. That is why
we Remember the Alamo."16
Similarly, in i986, Sesquicentennial events emphasized the creative
power of sacrifice. Gathering with others outside the Alamo at 5:30 A.M.
to commemorate the moment of the final Mexican assault, San Antonio's Democratic mayor, Henry G. Cisneros, declared that the heroes
"made the sacrifice in order that we modern Texans may enjoy what we
do." Later in the day, standing before a large crowd in Alamo Plaza,
amidst the flags of the states and countries that had men in the Alamo,
Texas historian T. R. Fehrenbach delivered his address as a part of the
patriotic worship service. He noted that the modern age will be "baffled"
by the Alamo if it does not understand courage and honor. The Alamo,
he believes, is a "fearful symbol for any age that hopes to eradicate
risk . . . for it is [a] symbol of a thousand battles, ... fought by men
prepared to make the supreme sacrifice."17
This emphasis on the necessity of sacrifice was not incidental. Traditional patriotic observance must make coherent symbolic connection
between heroic sacrifice in the past and its potential viability in the
modern world. In the United States, perception of the efficacy of sacrifice in war has been questioned at least since the later years of the Civil
War and underwent a striking transformation during the Vietnam
War, when sacrifice came to be seen by some as a blood payment for the
sins of the nation, a stunning inversion of traditional meaning. Renewed emphasis on the horrors of nuclear war continues to threaten
heroic interpretations of sacrifice and thereby makes a frontal attack on
the essence of the symbol of the Alamo. In response, Alamo celebrations and their attendant rhetoric look to the heroes of 1836 as patriotic
archetypes who have set forth the ideal that every future age must try
to reach.'8
16San Antonio Express, Mar. 6, 1955 (1st quotation); San Antonio Express-News, Mar. 7, 1984
(2nd quotation).
'7Author's notes at "Dawn at the Alamo Celebration," Mar. 6, 1986; T. R. Fehrenbach, Alamo
Day Sesquicentennial Address, 1986, File: "Alamo Day Addresses."
'8The transformation of martial sacrifice is
explored more thoroughly in Edward Tabor Linenthal, Changing Images of the Warrior Hero in America: A History of Popular Symbolism (New York:
Patriotic Faith at the Alamo
519
There are those, like Gary Foreman, who might agree wholeheartedly with the moral conclusions dramatized in Alamo celebrations but
worry that a nonauthentic environment pollutes the message. Fears of
such defilement have endured since the Alamo lay in ruins after the
battle and have led to various attempts to either immortalize the sacrifice by erecting monuments or by reconstructing the complex.
The first visitors to the Alamo after the battle saw "real and shocking evidence of the battle's carnage as well as the ruined Alamo buildings." At first, threat of continued Mexican incursions into the city prevented any attempt at preservation of the site, and this neglect endured
throughout the nineteenth century. A part of the original mission (now
called the Long Barrack, the site of fierce fighting) had passed into private hands in the 1870s; in the early years of the twentieth century it
became the center of a controversy between two groups of the DRT,
who disputed the building's historical authenticity. The famous Alamo
chapel, owned by the Catholic church, was leased to the army and later
sold to the state in 1883. In 1885 the city assumed control, retaining it
until the DRT's guardianship began in 1905. Since 1905 attention has focused on cultivation of the Alamo chapel as a shrine and development of
a whole square block area that includes a gift shop and library.'9
The lack of formal preservation and the mystery surrounding the
burial places of the bones and ashes of the Alamo heroes have made
informal veneration all the more important.20 From the earliest days,
various kinds of relics were popular and kept attention focused on the
drama of the battle. Carvings were made out of Alamo rock, while
pieces of bone, pieces of cannon, and even human skeletons (probably from prerevolutionary times), found during construction projects
in the nineteenth century, were treasured. Veneration of such relics
heightened public declarations of bad conscience over the formal neglect. Some used language of defilement to express their anger at the
treatment of such a holy site." In 1881 a letter to a Galveston newspaper expressed these common sentiments:
You cannot imagine my amazement and disgust upon this my first visit to the
old church fortress of the Alamo at finding the structure, so famous not only in
the history of Texas but [in] the annals of liberty and the record of the world,
Edwin Mellen Press, 1982); and in Edward Tabor Linenthal, "Restoring America: Political Revivalism in the Nuclear Age," in Rowland A. Sherrill (ed.), "Religion and the Life of the Nation:
American Recoveries" (Urbana-Champaign:
University of Illinois Press, forthcoming).
'9Green, "Remembering the Alamo."
20Santa Anna had ordered the bodies of the Alamo defenders burned, and the ashes and bits
of bone were not given burial until February, 1837. Green, "Remembering the Alamo."
21Ibid.
520
SouthwesternHistorical Quarterly
filled with sacksof salt, stinking potatoes, odorous kerosene and dirty groceries
generally. It's a strange, very strange mingling of fame and sourkraut, and still
stranger the fact that the great State of Texas, . . . should permit a historic
building like the Alamo, once consecrated to deity and latterly baptized in
blood of heroes like Travis and Crockett, slain in the cause of liberty and democracy, to become a grocery warehouse.22
As is the case with any sacred center, the very earth was perceived to
have been transformed by the heroic acts that took place on it. Expressions of this veneration abound. In 1947 Mrs. Floyd V. Rogers dug soil
from the Alamo that would serve as a base for a Lone Star flag in Eagle
River, Wisconsin. In 1954, A. Garland Adair, executive director of the
Texas Heritage Foundation, gave a small piece of Alamo block to each
of the 254 Texas counties; attached to each piece was a replica of Travis's famous letter appealing for aid, in which he declared, "I shall never
surrender or retreat. . . . Victory or Death.""23
Recent complaints about the physical preservation of the site bear
much similarity to those of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The growth of San Antonio itself is viewed with ambivalence by
Alamo celebrants. The high rises and active construction may be understood as the fruits of the heroism of those who died in the Alamo. Yet
the city is also a threatening presence. As the city has grown around the
Alamo, it has blurred the boundaries between sacred center and secular city. For many who visit, there is no satisfying passage from city to
ceremonial center, no satisfactory markers to frame the site. One response to this secularizing threat was the persistent call to construct a
monument in Alamo Plaza, the city-owned area in front of the Alamo.
This desire to memorialize the heroes in stone was another form of
veneration, another attempt to respond to neglect of the physical site.
Reuben Marmaduke Potter, whose song "Hymn of the Alamo" (1836)
and heroic account "The Fall of the Alamo" (186o) aroused nationwide interest in the Alamo story, had occasion during his 1841 visit to
San Antonio to talk with two men, stonecutter Joseph Cox and artist
William B. Nangle, who were "engaged in manufacturing, from the
stones of the Alamo, various small mementos, such as vases, candlesticks, seals, etc." These men had constructed a ten-foot-high Alamo
monument from Alamo stone. When the poverty-stricken Republic
could not afford to buy it, the men carried it to several Texas cities by
wagon and charged admission from the public. The Houston Morning
22Quoted ibid.
23San Antonio Express,Mar. 11, 1947; San Antonio Express-News,Dec. 7, 1954-
Patriotic Faith at the Alamo
521
Star reported in July, 1843, that the monument was "doubtless the most
beautiful and impressive piece of sculpture ever completed in the Republic" and implored citizens who felt even a "single emotion of respect
for the martyred heroes" to visit this "relic hallowed by the blood of
martyrs." The monument passed through private hands until the state
placed it in the vestibule of the new capitol and finally purchased it in
1858. Only fragments survived the capitol fire of November 9, 1881.24
Interest in the preservation of Texas history grew after the founding
of the Texas Veterans Association in i873 and the celebration of the
national Centennial in 1876. A sign of this interest in San Antonio was
the formation of the Alamo Monument Association in 1879. For almost
twenty years this group would try, without success, to raise money for a
fitting monument. In 1887 the association adopted a proposal by architect Alfred Giles to build a monument on Alamo Plaza that would be
165 feet high, with an elevator stopping at a large balcony at a height of
loo feet. The project stalled, but by December, 1909, the San Antonio
Express believed it was time to resurrect the idea, for "Alamo Plaza then
would become the most beautiful spot in the world." Looking down
from the balcony, the visitor would see the progress of civilization made
possible by the "fearless sacrifice of life when a brave band of Texans
made liberty in Texas possible by their devotion to duty and to the flag
of the Empire State." Even after the formal demise of the association,
ambitious monument proposals continued. In 1912 Giles envisioned a
monument 802 feet tall and 85 feet square at the base. The building
would house museum displays and art galleries devoted to Texas history. The base of the monument would consist of twelve columns of
Texas granite and thirty-foot statues of Travis, Crockett, Bonham, and
Bowie.25
The Texas Centennial in 1936 brought about renewed interest in
erecting an Alamo monument. Newspaper editorials declared that if
this opportunity should be missed, "the rich commonwealth [is] unworthy of its heritage." Finally, in 1939, ground was broken for the Alamo
Heroes Cenotaph, made of Georgia marble with a base of Texas granite. During a 1940 radio interview, Italian-born San Antonio sculptor
Pompeo Coppini said that patriotic memories evoked by such monuments are as "necessary as schoolbooks." Surrounded on all sides by imposing figures of the major heroes and a female figure representing
24See C. W. Raines, "The Alamo Monument," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association,
VI (Apr., 1903), 300-302,
303 (2nd quotation), 304 (3rd and 4th quotations), 305, 306 (ist
quotation), 307-310.
25San Antonio Daily Express, Dec. 12, 1909.
522
SouthwesternHistorical Quarterly
Texas is a naked masculine figure consumed in flames, "The Spirit of
Sacrifice." Consistent with Alamo rhetoric, the inscription praises the
heroes for giving birth to the "Empire State" through their noble sacrifice. The monument did not please everyone. Texas folklorist J. Frank
Dobie remarked that it "looked like a grain elevator." Nevertheless, the
cenotaph remained, and various plaques and markers in Alamo Plaza
and in the Alamo complex supplement it as permanent patriotic statements of faith.26
Despite this enduring form of patriotic veneration, the threat of defilement from secular culture remained. Irreverent behavior, as well as
indifference to the site, has been perceived as a form of defilement.
Such fears are not new. In 1879 a visitor remarked that visitors could
be both "surprised and indignant at the condition in which they found
the shrine of Texas liberty." Even then, Alamo Plaza was the scene of
vendors selling wares and of "rollicking cow-hands." More recent complaints have persistently called attention to disrespect in tourist clothing and the continuing problem of vandalism; taking chunks of Alamo
rock or carving initials in the walls dates back at least to 1841.27
In the late 1940s and early 1950s women still were not allowed to
wear shorts in the Alamo, and in 1958 a newspaper headline shouted,
"Vendors, Nude Girls Battle for Tourists' Attention at Shrine." The
paper deplored the ice-cream vendors, beggars, and "characters" who
populated the Plaza. In 1968 a Michigan tourist complained that people
were "talking loudly . .. wearing hats! . . . I had rather see the Alamo
closed forever and fallen into decay than to see such desecration." Almost unmentionable were desecrations that occurred in 1982: heavymetal rock singer Ozzy Osbourne urinating on the walls of the Alamo
and joggers throwing paint on the cenotaph as a group gathered in the
early morning of March 6 to commemorate the battle. Such acts were
taken as proof of the degenerate state of modern society.28
Other writers have attacked the commercial defilement of the Alamo.
They suggest that creeping secularity has infiltrated the Alamo because
the site houses a gift shop that carries kitsch, and also because there are
26San Antonio Light, Nov. 19, 1939; unidentified newspaper clipping, n.d. (ist quotation),
File: "Texas. Centennial, 1936," Holidays, General Clipping File (DRT Library); KTSA radio
transcript, Jan. 23, 1940 (2nd quotation), File: "Cenotaph," Alamo, Historic Sites, San Antonio
Clipping File, ibid.
27Joseph Gallegly, From Alamo Plaza toJack Harris's Saloon: O. Henry and the Southwest He Knew
(The Hague: Mouton, 1970), 27.
28San Antonio News, Nov. 1i (Ist and 2nd quotations); San Antonio Express,Sept. 26, 1968
(3rd quotation). These contemporary desecrations are described in San Antonio Light, Feb. 21,
1982, and Mar. 7, 1982.
Patriotic Faith at the Alamo
523
inauthentic items in the shrine itself. Most who offer such critiques take
pains to point out that they are not unbelievers. Writing in the San Antonio Express in January, 1986, local columnist Roddy Stinson remarked
that, as he walked past the Alamo on the way to work, all the "smirks
and jokes and irreverent quips give way to a deep breath, an unseen
salute and a ripple of gooseflesh." Doug Harlan, a San Antonio attorney and local columnist, expressed directly the underlying intuition
behind the often lighthearted criticism of pseudo-patriotic commercialism: "The place itself should be more pure."'9
The fear of commercial defilement of sacred centers has been present in the histories of other United States battle sites. Prime examples
are the controversy over the 3o7-foot observation tower at Gettysburg
and the threat of commercial development of private lands that surround the thin strip of National Park Service land at Custer Battlefield
National Monument. Nowhere, however, has the sense of aesthetic defilement been so evident as at the Alamo. Some criticisms cite the inadequacy of the physical context; only a few buildings from the original
Alamo mission still exist, and this, along with the encroachment of the
city, make it impossible to imagine back to the "real time" of the battle."s
One recent response to this dilemma was a guide to the Alamo published by the owner of the now defunct "Remember the Alamo" theater
and museum across the street from the fortress. Before beginning the
illustrated walking tour, the guide suggested that to become an expert
on the Alamo's history the reader should visit a "specially designed theater" for a thirty-minute "multimedia experience" that would help the
visitor visualize the battle, since the modern site is "surrounded by
buildings of commerce, hemmed in by arteries of traffic." For some,
John Wayne's Alamo, built with such care in the late 1950s, was more
"real" because its physical context was wide open space. It qualified as
an "authentic copy of a total situation."3'
29The most celebrated of these articles are Bob Greene, "Remember the Alamo?" Esquire
and Stephen Harrigan, "The Alamo? Sure. Two Blocks, Turn Right, and
(Apr., 1984), 12-14;
It's Right across from the Five and Ten," Texas Monthly, III (Sept., 1975), 58-60,
112-123.
Stinson's comments are found in San Antonio Express-News, Jan. 12, 1986; Harlan's comments
are ibid., Mar. 2, 1986.
30For an introduction to such problems in Civil War battlefields, see Robert W. Meinhard,
"Battlefields under Fire?" National Parks and Conservation Magazine (Oct., 1979), 9-12; and
Reuben M. Rainey, "The Memory of War: Reflections on Battlefield Preservation," in Richard L.
Austin et al. (eds.), The Yearbook of Landscape Architecture (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold
Co., 1983), 69-89.
31Dean MacCannell, The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class (New York: Schocken Books,
1976), 79 (5th quotation); Alamo Visitors Guide (San Antonio: R. Jay Casell, Publisher, 1981),
unpaginated.
524
SouthwesternHistorical Quarterly
A restoration project offered by Gary Foreman is the latest and most
sophisticated manifestation of the desire to venerate the Alamo and its
heroes by preserving the sanctity of the physical site. Even more, Foreman's proposal addressed the need to mark off such sacred sites from
the homogeneity of secular space. Foreman's detailed plan sought to restore and mark the Alamo so that people might have an "accurate" perspective of the past. He leveled a series of charges against the custodianship of the DRT: there was "little actual effort to recreate the
original Alamo" and there was no attempt to provide "actual demonstrations of clothing or weapons." The Long Barrack was "badly violated with non-Alamo trivia and poorly designed displays." The "socalled museum sold cheap souvenirs" and "items from non-Alamo
periods." 32
Foreman's plan envisioned a restoration of the 1836 grounds where
possible, and marking sites of significance now in private hands. Living
History groups, displays of authentic artifacts, "tasteful" memorabilia
and souvenirs, and an underground theater with a sound and light
show would convey a new "understanding" of the battle. Foreman selected from the multiple identities of the Alamo (it was first a mission
and only occasionally a fortress) the importance of the complex as a
battle site. It was this event, enacted on this site, that must be forever frozen in the physical construction of modern downtown San Antonio.33
Spirited opposition has come from many quarters. The DRT reminded Foreman that the site was not a battlefield but a shrine. Patricia E. Osborne, of the city's Department of Historical Preservation, catalogued the complex task necessary to achieve consensus among city,
state, and federal agencies to begin even moderate changes in Alamo
Plaza, let alone the massive reconstruction Foreman envisioned. She
criticized Foreman's "obsession with the battle," while ignoring the rich
history of the mission period. Eventually, she hoped, there would be
some marking of the original boundaries of the mission, and perhaps a
limitation on traffic through the Plaza, as well as "beautification projects." She stated with emphasis, however, that the Foreman plan would
never come to pass.34
32File: "Foreman Plan," Alamo, Historic Sites, San Antonio Clipping File (DRT Library).
33Ibid.
34PatriciaOsborne to E. T. L., July 15, 1986, interview. For response to the Foreman project,
see "The Daughters of Texas Have a Curt Rebuke for a Yankee Who Remembers the AlamoForget It," People, June 4, 1984, P. 46-47; San Antonio Express, Dec. 8, 14, 1983; San Antonio
News, Dec. 9, 1983; San Antonio Light, Feb. 2, 1984; Austin American-Statesman, Mar. 2, 1984;
Waco Tribune-Herald, Mar. 4, 1984.
Patriotic Faith at the Alamo
525
Those involved in the production of Alamo ceremonies and inspired
by patriotic rhetoric and those interested in an even more inspiring
physical symbol have not, in the main, questioned the celebration of patriotic orthodoxies. Yet the symbol of the Alamo has evoked responses
that take issue with orthodox Anglo interpretations. Not surprisingly,
ambivalent responses to such interpretations have emerged from the
Mexican American community. Ferocious racism during the time of
the Revolution transformed the war for Texas Independence into a hatred of all things Mexican. "Texas," wrote historian Arnoldo De Le6n,
was "'white' spiritually, attitudinally, politically, socially, economically
and demographically. ...."35 Tejanos (Mexican Texans) came to be
hated by the new American immigrants to Texas. To immigrants, all
Tejanos were simply Mexicans, treacherous by their very nature. J. M.
Parmenter's "Texas Hymn" (1838) declares:
We'll never trust his honor, assassin he is bred.
Brave Fannin and his warriorsthus found a gory bed.
And Travis with his heroes on San Antonio height,
before the foeman legions fell in unequal fight.36
These negative images of Mexicans were strengthened during the
Mexican War. To American soldiers gazing with awe at the physical
beauty of Mexico and fascinated by the remnants of vanished civilizations, Mexicans appeared to be poor human specimens. Soldiers' comments revealed contempt, as well as optimism that an American culture
at the apex of world civilization could elevate even the Mexican. Many
spoke of the "mongrelization" that the mixing of the races had produced, with only "the evil qualities . . . retained," qualities fostered
by the oppressive nature of the Mexican government and the Catholic church.37
These persistent images had almost immediately transformed the
battle at the Alamo into a struggle between barbarism and civilization,
between Mexicans and Americans. Don Graham, professor of English
at the University of Texas at Austin, has detailed how these images have
shaped perceptions of the battle in film and literature. Novels of the
nineteenth and early twentieth century presented Alamo defenders as
"upright Anglo-Saxon heroes . .. the Mexicans [as] craven outragers of
35Arnoldo De Le6n, They Called Them Greasers: Anglo Attitudes toward Mexicans in Texas, 1821(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983), 1336Mark E. Nackman, A Nation within a Nation: The Rise of Texas Nationalism (Port Washington,
N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1975), 9237Robert W. Johannsen, To the Halls of the Montezumas: The Mexican War in the American Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 22.
19oo
526
SouthwesternHistorical Quarterly
everything that is good, pure, and decent." Films such as Martyrs of the
Alamo (1915) also propagated these virulent racial stereotypes throughout the twentieth century, until The Last Command (1955) and John
Wayne's The Alamo (1960) moderated such images.38
Not all, of course, have given thought to the symbol of the Alamo.
Aristeo Sul, a San Antonio auto mechanic, said that the Alamo "doesn't
really register." It was a "fuzzy little thing that happened." Finally, he
allowed, 'just let it be history." Yet, as Ray Sanchez, former dean of Extended Services at San Antonio College, stated, "You can't get away
from the Alamo. It's there." Sanchez and Anastacio Bueno, who works
for a publishing company in San Antonio, remembered how the Alamo
became an unfriendly symbol during their childhood. Both spoke, in a
tone somewhere between bemusement and anger, of how, according to
Bueno, "we learned in the third or fourth grade that we killed the Alamo
heroes." Sanchez added that most of his Mexican American friends were
ashamed that "they killed Davy Crockett."39
There are scattered newspaper references to ethnic sensitivity about
the symbol. When President Jimmy Carter spoke in front of the Alamo
during his election campaign in 1976, the Moya Association, a Mexican
American group, objected because the Alamo signified "divisiveness,
conflict and violence." In the fall of 1979, Arizona governor Bruce
Babbitt said that the Alamo symbolized all that was wrong in U.S. relations with Mexico. Not surprisingly, his statement was roundly criticized in the Texas press.40
Early histories of Texas glossed over the contribution of Tejanos who
fought alongside the Anglo-Texan heroes of the Alamo and contributed much to the saga of the Texas Revolution. By the mid-1930s, Eugene C. Barker and a number of Mexican writers were resurrecting the
history of people whom De Le6n calls "anonymous souls in the history
of Texas." By the time of the Texas Centennial in 1936, it was argued
that Tejanos had been patriotic allies of Anglo-Texans during the Revolution. Gilberto M. Hinojosa, professor of history at the University of
Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), and Gerald E. Poyo, research associate
38For good treatments of the evolution of Alamo films, see Don Graham, Cowboys and Cadillacs: How Hollywood Looks at Texas (Austin: Texas Monthly Press, 1983), 41-53; Don Graham,
"Remembering the Alamo: The Story of the Texas Revolution in Popular Culture," Southwestern Historical Quarterly, LXXXIX (July, 1985), 46 (quotation); and Schoelwer et al., Alamo Images, 104-162.
39Aristeo Sul to E. T. L., July 14, 1986, interview; Ray Sanchez to E. T. L., July 15, 1986, interview; Anastacio Bueno to E. T. L., July 16, 1986, interview.
40San Antonio News, Oct. 28, 1976 (quotation); Houston Post, Sept. 7, 1979 (Babbitt's comments); San Antonio Express-News, Sept. 9, 1979 (response to Babbitt).
Patriotic Faith at the Alamo
527
at the Institute of Texan Cultures, suggest that about three percent of
both the Anglo and Tejano populations fought for the Texas Revolution. "Tejano participants appear to have shared political ideals with
their Anglo-Texan compatriots and exhibited acceptable if not equivalent determination to see Texas free of centrist rule." 41
Mexican American restorationists believe that growing awareness of
the primal patriotism exhibited by their Tejano ancestors will lessen
racial antipathy and pave the way for greater acceptance of twentiethcentury Mexican Americans in the United States. This kind of restoration poses no direct challenge to the dominant Anglo interpretations of
the battle.42
Ignorance of this forgotten history is part of the ideological and cultural barrier that separates peoples, argues Fl1ix D. Almaraz, Jr., professor of history at UTSA. Anglo-Texan defenders of the Alamo have
been elevated to heroes, and little effort has been made to "expand" the
symbol so that we can "learn and grow." Some have tried to use the language of restoration in Alamo ceremonies. Henry A. Guerra, the Voice
of the Alamo, has been a respected radio figure at WOAI in San Antonio since 1939 and currently serves as chairman of the Bexar County
Historical Commission. He has read the roll-call of the Alamo heroes
during commemorations since the mid-196os, when the names of Tejanos who died defending the Alamo were added to the list. For Guerra,
incomplete representations of Alamo history have resulted from a
"lack of research," not from Anglo dominance of interpretations of the
battle's significance. The Alamo, consequently, is not a symbol of oppression but of the "commitment of the Hispanic population to independent Texas rule." The message, according to Guerra, is clear. It is a
message of heroic commitment to a cause and the virtue of sacrifice. In
passing, however, he mentions that, while reciting the story of the
Thirteen Days during ceremonies (most recently at the Sesquicentennial), he praised the courage of both sides in the battle and received
several complaints because he did so.43
Others attack the essence of the symbol and look upon processes of
restoration with contempt. Rodolfo Acufia's Occupied America repre41Gilberto M. Hinojosa to E. T. L.,July 14, 1986, interview; San Antonio Light, Apr. 6, 1986
(quotations). A good history of Tejanos in the early period of Texas history is Arnoldo De
Le6n, The Tejano Community, I836-Igoo
(Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press,
1982).
42See Arnoldo De Le6n, "Tejanos and the Texas War for Independence:
Historiography's
Judgment," New Mexico Historical Review, LXI (Apr., 1986), 137-146.
43F61ix D. Almariz, Jr., to E. T. L., July 14, 18, 1986, interviews; Henry Guerra to E. T. L.,
July 16, 1986, interview.
528
SouthwesternHistorical Quarterly
sents the view that Tejanos were not patriots. Those who fought with
Travis, Bowie, and Crockett at the Alamo did so because of vested economic interests. Acufia traces the U.S. desire for Texas into colonial
times and argues that Anglo-Americans have not yet "accepted the fact
that the United States committed an act of violence against the Mexican
people when it took Mexico's northwest territory." He declares that
"well armed professional soldiers" in the Alamo faced "ill-prepared, illequipped, and ill-fed Mexicans." Tejanos were nothing more than collaborators, and to make heroes of them is like "making heroes of the
Vichy government." In the same vein, Lalo Valdez, professor of sociology at UTSA, argues that the Alamo was a "bastion of racism and oppression" and that "Anglo-Texans were the first illegal aliens.""44
For others, there is only indignation at the heretical idea that the
Alamo has perpetuated ethnic contentiousness. The history has been
quite clear, claims Edith Mae Johnson of the DRT. "I always knew Tejanos took part in the battle. These people were Texians" (a term of
self-identity used by Texans in the early nineteenth century). Patricia
Osborne also vehemently rejects the belief that the Alamo has been in
essence an Anglo symbol. The problem could be found in "one hundred years of incorrect history." For her, the heart of the message has
always transcended race. It speaks to all of "standing up and sacrificing
lives for freedom.""45
There have been only sporadic attempts in Alamo rhetoric to suggest
that the Alamo symbol was one of ethnic unity because Mexican Texans
and Anglo-Texans had fought side by side. In 1960 Gen. Edward T.
Williams, commander of the Fourth Army at Fort Sam Houston, urged
Texans to "be in the forefront of those who want to encourage PanAmerican solidarity." In 1961 Lt. Gen. James E. Briggs, commander of
Air Training at Randolph Air Force Base, suggested that the "blending
of the culture of our two nations is evident throughout the southwest,
but no more so than in San Antonio." In 1973 Gen. Patrick F. Cassidy,
commander of the Fifth Army at Fort Sam Houston, declared that the
heroes were the precursors of multiethnic Texas. There is "no place
where ethnic unity is more prevalent and apparent." Most recently, in
1985, Lt. Gen. Louis Charles Menetrey, commander of the Fifth Army
at Fort Sam Houston, spoke of his admiration for soldiers on both sides
who "fought hard and desperately.""46
44Rodolfo Acufia, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos (2nd ed.; New York: Harper & Row,
1981), 3 (1st quotation), 9 (2nd and 3rd quotations); De Le6n, "Tejanos and the Texas War for
Independence,"
143 (4th quotation); Lalo Valdez to E. T. L., July 14, 1986, interview.
45Edith Mae Johnson to E. T. L., July 18, 1986, interview; Patricia Osborne to E. T. L., July
15, 1986, interview.
46File: "Pilgrimage to the Alamo."
Patriotic Faith at the Alamo
529
The Texas Sesquicentennial engendered renewed interest in the
processes of restoration and redefinition. Mayor Henry Cisneros, interviewed on the television program "Good Morning America," stated:
"There were many Hispanics inside the Alamo. It wasn't a racial war. It
was one against central government." Father Virgil Elizondo, offering
mass at San Fernando Cathedral, where Santa Anna's "no quarter" flag
flew, spoke of his "profound gratitude" for the "efforts and sacrifices of
our ancestors." This sacrifice, he argued, should motivate all to work
for the elimination of poverty and injustice. The original purpose of
the mission was, he believed, unchanged; once it symbolized unity between Spaniards and Indians, now it celebrated a moment that "brought
about the unity of Anglos and Tejanos in the cause of liberty." He also
cautioned that to remember the battle in terms of victory and defeat
would only serve to "keep old wounds alive, and kindle new fires of
racism."
Other activities during the Sesquicentennial year emphasized the
message of civic unity and focused some attention on the prerevolutionary past. As part of a more balanced presentation, a new Long Barrack museum display included a section on the history of the Alamo as
a mission. Such subtle changes prompted Dr. Gilbert R. Cruz, historian
for the National Park Service, to judge the Sesquicentennial more "mature" than the Centennial. "People pay obeisance to the old myths," he
said, "but not too loudly." Nevertheless, Joe B. Frantz, former chairman
of the history department at the University of Texas at Austin, remarked, "It's an Anglo celebration. . . . It ignores the first 250 years.""48
The dimensions of the Alamo symbol continue to expand gradually
as the struggle for the "true" message of the symbol continues. Father
Balty spoke of one continuing attempt at redefinition. In 1968, during
HemisFair in San Antonio, he had hoped that the Alamo would be included in a tour of the Spanish missions of San Antonio. "They [the
DRT] wouldn't even put up our posters," he remembers. Yet now, during the Semana de las Misiones (week of the missions) in August, he has
been able to do an evening program about the mission period of the
Alamo within the compound, a program that does not even mention
the battle of the Alamo. While certainly a modest change, its implications are interesting, for it asks visitors to look upon the Alamo in
novel ways.49
47San Antonio Express-News, Feb. 22, Mar. 3 (quotations), 1986.
48Gilbert R. Cruz to E. T. L., July 16, 1986, telephone interview; New York Times, Mar. 16,
1986 (4th quotation).
49Balthasar Janacek to E. T. L., July 16, 1986, interview.
530
SouthwesternHistorical Quarterly
There are many ways to view the same scene, cultural geographers
remind us, and if we wish to perceive anew, "we shall have to change
the ideas that have created and sustained what we see." Certainly, Father Balty's program attempts to create and sustain interest in the storied history of the Alamo mission, interest that does not arise from primary fascination with martial heroism. To be sure, the Alamo will
continue to inspire curiosity, reverence, and awe because of the almost
universal fascination with Last Stands and the lessons they are perceived to have for contemporary cultures. Processes of veneration, defilement, and redefinition will continue to be in evidence as the struggle
for control of the symbol reveals the need for a usable past to legitimate
contemporary posture. Yet, despite the continuing contention, the
Alamo has become the focus of a different kind of redefinition, while
still retaining its traditional character as shrine and battle site. It has
served as the center for rituals of reconciliation.50
Such attempts, at battlefields, to heal the wounds of war are not uncommon. Civil War battlefields, while initially locations for monuments
commemorating the heroic action of individuals and units, became
sites for the postwar celebration of reconciliation between North and
South. In these ceremonies, the heroism of both sides was remembered
as a revelation of American courage. Even at the Custer Battlefield National Monument, scene of bitter ideological dispute in 1976, halting
steps toward reconciliation have been taken. Commemorative ceremonies at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., have been designed as rituals of reconciliation. At the Alamo, the widespread fascination with the battle fought between Mexico and Texas engendered
a ceremony that was unique, one that sought to bind wounds from a
twentieth-century conflict.51
In 1914 Japanese professor Shigetaka Shiga was inspired by the
battle of the Alamo, a Last Stand that reminded him of the sacrifice of
Torii Suneemon and others at the battle of Nagashino in 1575. Shiga
had a poem about the Alamo engraved on granite tablets. One stands
within the Alamo compound. On August 4, 1986, a group of Junior
Ambassadors from Japan came to the Alamo for a Rededication of
Friendship Ceremony, during which a portrait of Professor Shiga was
50D. W. Meinig, "The Beholding Eye: Ten Versions of the Same Scene," in D. W. Meinig
(ed.), The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: Geographical Essays (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1979), 42.
51The Centennial controversies at the Custer Battlefield National Monument are described
in Edward Tabor Linenthal, "Ritual Drama at the Little Big Horn: The Persistence and Transformation
267-281.
of a National Symbol," Journal of the American Academy of Religion, LI (June,
1983),
Patriotic Faith at the Alamo
531
to be presented to the DRT. It is ironic that a symbol that is still occasionally divisive could provide the opportunity for ajoint declaration of
friendship between two peoples still struggling to form appropriate human perceptions of one another long after World War II. As John W.
Dower has written, racial imagery among Americans and Japanese has
lived just beneath the surface in the postwar years, and "it is predictable
that harsher racist attitudes reminiscent of the war years will again arise
at times of heightened competition or disagreement." What drew these
peoples together at the Alamo, however, was the recognition of heroism and sacrifice present in each culture. Professor Margit Nagy hoped
that in San Antonio, a city with a considerable military presence, where
Pearl Harbor Day is still celebrated with vigor, this ceremony would
offer opportunity for a new way of seeing and healing. This ceremony
does not ask participants to revise the history of the Alamo, but suggests that celebration of heroism across cultures may open for each a
less stereotyped view of the other.52
The struggle for the proper interpretation of the symbol of the Alamo
will continue to use the language of veneration, defilement, and redefinition. Such a struggle points to the importance of martial symbols
in our culture. Alamo commemorations may be the occasion for both
the celebration of archaic notions of heroic sacrifice and humanizing
rituals of reconciliation. Such activities reveal both the constant human
desire to read the present through the heroic lens of the past and the
creative reinterpreting of that past through the continuing struggle for
ownership of the symbol.
52John W. Dower, War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon
Books, 1986), 312. I am indebted to Professor Margit Nagy of Our Lady of the Lake University
in San Antonio for bringing this event to my attention and for suggesting its creative potential.