Captain Phillip Dimmitt's Commandancy of Goliad, 1835-1836 PDF Download

Author: Hobart Huson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Goliad (Tex.)
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Author: James E. Crisp
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1625110634
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 588

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Herman Ehrenberg wrote the longest, most complete, and most vivid memoir of any soldier in the Texan revolutionary army. His narrative was published in Germany in 1843, but it was little used by Texas historians until the twentieth century, when the first—and very problematic—attempts at translation into English were made. Inside the Texas Revolution: The Enigmatic Memoir of Herman Ehrenberg is a product of the translation skills of the late Louis E. Brister with the assistance of James C. Kearney, both noted specialists on Germans in Texas. The volume’s editor, James E. Crisp, has spent much of the last 27 years solving many of the mysteries that still surrounded Ehrenberg’s life. It was Crisp who discovered that Ehrenberg lived in the Texas Republic until at least 1840, and spent the spring of that year as ranger on the frontier. Ehrenberg was not a historian, but an ordinary citizen whose narrative of the Texas Revolution contains both spectacular eyewitness accounts of action and almost mythologized versions of major events that he did not witness himself. This volume points out where Ehrenberg is lying or embellishing, explains why he is doing so, and narrates the actual relevant facts as far as they can be determined. Ehrenberg’s book is both a testament by a young Texan “everyman” who presents a laudatory paean to the Texan cause, and a German’s explanation of Texas and its “fight for freedom” against Mexico to his fellow Germans—with a powerful subtext that patriotic Germans should aspire to a similar struggle, and a similar outcome: a free, democratic republic.

Author: Stephen L. Hardin
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292792522
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 419

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Hardly were the last shots fired at the Alamo before the Texas Revolution entered the realm of myth and controversy. French visitor Frederic Gaillardet called it a "Texian Iliad" in 1839, while American Theodore Sedgwick pronounced the war and its resulting legends "almost burlesque." In this highly readable history, Stephen L. Hardin discovers more than a little truth in both of those views. Drawing on many original Texan and Mexican sources and on-site inspections of almost every battlefield, he offers the first complete military history of the Revolution. From the war's opening in the "Come and Take It" incident at Gonzales to the capture of General Santa Anna at San Jacinto, Hardin clearly describes the strategy and tactics of each side. His research yields new knowledge of the actions of famous Texan and Mexican leaders, as well as fascinating descriptions of battle and camp life from the ordinary soldier's point of view. This award-winning book belongs on the bookshelf of everyone interested in Texas or military history.

Author: Craig H. Roell
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1625110154
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 115

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When Sam Houston's revolutionary soldiers won the Battle of San Jacinto and secured independence for Texas, their battle cry was "Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!" Everyone knows about the Alamo, but far fewer know about the stirring events at Goliad. Craig Roell's lively new study of Goliad brings to life this most important Texas community. Though its population has never exceeded two thousand, Goliad has been an important site of Texas history since Spanish colonial days. It is the largest town in the county of the same name, which was one of the original counties of Texas created in 1836 and was named for the vast territory that was governed as the municipality of Goliad under the Republic of Mexico. Goliad offers one of the most complete examples of early Texas courthouse squares, and has been listed as a historic preservation district on the National Register. But the sites that forever etched this sleepy Texas town into historical consciousness are those made infamous by two of the most controversial episodes of the entire Texas Revolution—the Fannin Battleground at nearby Coleto Creek, and Nuestra Señora de Loreto (popularly called Presidio La Bahía), site of the Goliad Massacre on Palm Sunday, March 27, 1836. This book tells the sad tale of James Fannin and his men who fought the Mexican forces, surrendered with the understanding that they would be treated as prisoners of war, and then under orders from Santa Anna were massacred. Like the men who died for Texas independence at the Alamo, the nearly 350 men who died at Goliad became a rallying cry. Both tragic stories became part of the air Texans breathe, but the same process that elevated Crockett, Bowie, Travis, and their Alamo comrades to heroic proportions has clouded Fannin in mystery and shadow. In Remember Goliad!, Craig Roell tells the history of the region and the famous battle there with clarity and precision. This exciting story is handsomely illustrated in a popular edition that will be of interest to scholars, students, and teachers.

Author: Jesús F. De la Teja
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1603443037
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Tejanos (Texans of Mexican heritage) were instrumental leaders in the life and development of Texas during the Mexican period, the war of independence, and the Texas Republic. Jesús F. de la Teja and ten other scholars examine the lives, careers, and influence of many long-neglected but historically significant Tejano leaders who were active and influential in the formation, political and military leadership, and economic development of Texas. In Tejano Leadership in Mexican and Revolutionary Texas, lesser-known figures such as Father Refugio de la Garza, Juan Martín Veramendi, José Antonio Saucedo, Raphael Manchola, and Carlos de la Garza join their better-known counterparts—José Antonio Navarro, Juan Seguín, and Plácido Benavides, for example—on the stage of Texas and regional historical consideration. This book also features a foreword by David J. Weber, in which he discusses how Anglocentric views allowed important Tejano figures to fade from public knowledge. Students and scholars of Texas and regional history, those interested in Texana, and readers in Latino/a studies will glean important insights from Tejano Leadership in Mexican and Revolutionary Texas.

Author: H. W. Brands
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 1400096340
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 610

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Book Description
The two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, bestselling historian, and author of Our First Civil War emythologizes Texas’s journey to statehood and restores the genuinely heroic spirit to a pivotal chapter in American history. • “A balanced, unromanticized account [of] America’s great epic.” —The New York Times Book Review From Stephen Austin, Texas’s reluctant founder, to the alcoholic Sam Houston, who came to lead the Texas army in its hour of crisis and glory, to President Andrew Jackson, whose expansionist aspirations loomed large in the background, here is the story of Texas and the outsize figures who shaped its turbulent history. Beginning with its early colonization in the 1820s and taking in the shocking massacres of Texas loyalists at the Alamo and Goliad, its rough-and-tumble years as a land overrun by the Comanches, and its day of liberation as an upstart republic, Brands’ lively history draws on contemporary accounts, diaries, and letters to animate a diverse cast of characters whose adventures, exploits, and ambitions live on in the very fabric of our nation.

Author: Sharon Anne Dobyns Moehring
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
ISBN: 1412017882
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 420

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This generation of DeWitt and Jones families are early settlers at Gonzales, Texas, and most probably richest in history. They had fought several wars against the Mexicans and Indians, and in Civil War. Green DeWitt is a founder and empresario of De Witt's Colony, and Sarah Seely DeWitt is a maker of "Come and Take It" Gonzales flag in Texas Independence. DeWitt and Jones men are the volunteers of Republic of Texas Army, Texas Rangers, Terry's Texas Rangers (Civil War), and Gonzales County Sheriffs. The book includes illustrations and photographs of families, manuscripts, maps, and genealogy.

Author: Alwyn Barr
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 0292792093
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 113

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The first comprehensive history and analysis of the Siege of Béxar in early nineteenth-century Texas. While the battles of 1836—the Alamo, Goliad, and San Jacinto—are well-known moments in the Texas Revolution, the battle for Béxar in the fall of 1835 is often overlooked. Yet this lengthy siege, which culminated in a Texan victory in December 1835, set the stage for those famous events and for the later revolutionary careers of Sam Houston, James Bowie, and James W. Fannin. Drawing on extensive research and on-site study around San Antonio, Alwyn Barr completely maps the ebbs and flows of the Béxar campaign for the first time. He studies the composition of the two armies and finds that they were well matched in numbers and fighting experience—revising a common belief that the Texans defeated a force four times larger. He analyzes the tactics of various officers, revealing how ambition and revolutionary politics sometimes influenced the Texas army as much as military strategy. And he sheds new light on the roles of the Texan and Mexican commanders, Stephen F. Austin and Martín Perfecto de Cos. As this excellent military history makes clear, to the famous rallying cry “Remember the Alamo!” “Remember Goliad!” should be added: “And don't forget San Antonio!” “Will most likely remain for some time the standard work on this battle. Outstanding scholarship and research are reflected in the book, including on-site study of the locale. . . . This is an important military history, and as such, it should be in all Texana collections.” —Review of Texas Books “This is a significant contribution to the study of Texas history. Texans in Revolt will be the standard work on this campaign.” —Ralph A. Wooster, Associate Vice President and Regents Professor, Lamar University

Author: Randy Roberts
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743222792
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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In late February and early March of 1836, the Mexican Army under the command of General Antonio López de Santa Anna besieged a small force of Anglo and Tejano rebels at a mission known as the Alamo. The defenders of the Alamo were in an impossible situation. They knew very little of the events taking place outside the mission walls. They did not have much of an understanding of Santa Anna or of his government in Mexico City. They sent out contradictory messages, they received contradictory communications, they moved blindly and planned in the dark. And in the dark early morning of March 6, they died. In that brief, confusing, and deadly encounter, one of America's most potent symbols was born. The story of the last stand at the Alamo grew from a Texas rallying cry, to a national slogan, to a phenomenon of popular culture and presidential politics. Yet it has been a hotly contested symbol from the first. Questions remain about what really happened: Did William Travis really draw a line in the sand? Did Davy Crockett die fighting, surrounded by the bodies of two dozen of the enemy? And what of the participants' motives and purposes? Were the Texans justified in their rebellion? Were they sincere patriots making a last stand for freedom and liberty, or were they a ragtag collection of greedy men-on-the-make, washed-up politicians, and backwoods bullies, Americans bent on extending American slavery into a foreign land? The full story of the Alamo -- from the weeks and months that led up to the fateful encounter to the movies and speeches that continue to remember it today -- is a quintessential story of America's past and a fascinating window into our collective memory. In A Line in the Sand, acclaimed historians Randy Roberts and James Olson use a wealth of archival sources, including the diary of José Enrique de la Peña, along with important and little-used Mexican documents, to retell the story of the Alamo for a new generation of Americans. They explain what happened from the perspective of all parties, not just Anglo and Mexican soldiers, but also Tejano allies and bystanders. They delve anew into the mysteries of Crockett's final hours and Travis's famous rhetoric. Finally, they show how preservationists, television and movie producers, historians, and politicians have become the Alamo's major interpreters. Walt Disney, John Wayne, and scores of journalists and cultural critics have used the Alamo to contest the very meaning of America, and thereby helped us all to "remember the Alamo."

Author: Kenneth W. Howell
Publisher: University of North Texas Press
ISBN: 1574416715
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 547

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Does Texas’s experience as a republic make it unique among the other states? In many ways, Texas was an “accidental republic” for nearly ten years, until Texans voted overwhelmingly in favor of annexation to the United States after winning independence from Mexico. Single Star of the West chronicles Texas’s efforts to maneuver through the pitfalls and hardships of creating and maintaining the “accidental republic.” The volume begins with the Texas Revolution and examines whether or not a true Texas identity emerged during the Republic era. Next, several contributors discuss how the Republic was defended by its army, navy, and the Texas Rangers. Individual chapters focus on the early founders of Texas—Sam Houston, Mirabeau B. Lamar, and Anson Jones—who were all exceptional men, but like all men, suffered from their own share of fears and faults. Texas’s efforts at diplomacy, and persistence and transformation in its economy, also receive careful analysis. Finally, social and cultural aspects of the Texas Republic receive coverage, with discussions of women, American Indians, African Americans, Tejanos, and religion. The contributors also focus on the extent that conditions in the republic attracted political and economic opportunists, some of whom achieved a remarkable degree of success. Single Star of the West also highlights how the Texas Republic was established on American political ideology. With the majority of the white settlers coming from the United States, this will not surprise many scholars of the era. In some cases, the Texans successfully adopted American political and economic ideology to their needs, while other times they failed miserably.