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

"A Reservoir of Spiritual Power": Patriotic Faith at the Alamo in the Twentieth CenturyAuthor(s): Edward Tabor LinenthalSource: The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 91, No. 4 (Apr., 1988), pp. 509-531Published by: Texas State Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30240053 .Accessed: 13/10/2011 15:10

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

in the Twentieth Century

EDWARD TABOR LINENTHAL*

T HE CELEBRATION OF THE TEXAS 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 his-

tory of the Alamo in American culture are nearing completion. Further- more, 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 anti-

quarian curiosity, as part of a nostalgic impulse, or as an anachronistic attachment to the minutiae of history. Rather, such vibrant cultural ac-

tivity 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 be-

longs "to American history-and all Americans must be allowed to 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- versity of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. He is the author of Changing Images of the Warrior Hero in Amer- ica: A History of Popular Symbolism (1982) and is currently writing a book on cultural interpretations of American battlefields.

I William 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 Southwestern Historical 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 re-

gional heroes, and national monuments and buildings, for example. Battle sites function as ceremonial centers on this landscape, connect-

ing 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 static symbols that convey only one constant meaning-they are very 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 no-

bility 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 pu- rity 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 (Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones Co., 1913), 95; Edith Mae Johnson to E. T. L., July 18, 1986, interview.

4The "700 Club" at the Alamo, San Antonio, Texas, Mar. 6, 1986 (videotape in possession of the author).

512 Southwestern Historical 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 omi- nous 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 appreci- ate the lessons the site offers.

Different language is used by the Reverend Balthasar Janacek, arch- diocesan 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 Lex-

ington and Concord, through the heroes of the Alamo, to current in- carnations 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 re-

5 Balthasar Janacek to E. T. L., July 16, 1986, interview.


vitalization, a faith that the idealized attributes of the American fron- tier can provide models of contemporary public behavior. For those guided by such traditional messages, the symbol of the Alamo is com- plete; 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 Al- amo Day, or in speeches given in Alamo pilgrimages during San An- tonio'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- 1930os they had become an all-city event. While Fiesta is a "week- long 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 Tex- ans' 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 civi- lized 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 des- ignated 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.


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 dio- cese 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. Roo- sevelt sent a message that the battle was a "victory for principles of lib-

erty." 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 won- dered, 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 cour-

age 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," Southwestern Historical 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.


battle had heightened meaning in the cold war. In 1948 Admiral Ches- ter 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 edito- rial 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! Crock- ett... 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 fore- fathers? 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."


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 Penny- backer's A New History of Texas for 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 Contest of 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. Acri- monious 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 emo- tions and heroical impulses" provided by the story of Travis's line. In a letter to the editor of the Southwestern Historical Quarterly in 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 de- finite proof that Travis did not draw the line, "let us believe it," in order to "keep our illusion of... Texas heroes as patriotic, loyal, and good citizens." The story of the line has been acted out in innumerable Alamo dramas, including the reenactment during the Sesquicenten- nial 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."

13 Mary 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 Penny- backer, 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


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 commemora-

tions 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 en-

emy lines to stand at the Alamo, and, finally, the heroism of the Last Stand. Direct application of the lessons of the Alamo, speakers con-

tinued, 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 "omi- nous 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

(lst quotation); San An-

tonio Express, Apr. 21, 1964 (2nd quotation); Bennie L. Davis quoted in File: "Pilgrimage to the Alamo."


need only say "Remember the Alamo." More recently, in 1984, Lt. Gen.

John R. McGiffert, commander of the Fifth Army at Fort Sam Hous- ton, delivered the Alamo Heroes Day address and warned of the dan-

ger of believing that nothing is worth dying for. "It seems almost sacri-

legious," 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 An- tonio'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. Tradi-

tional 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. Re- newed 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).

'7 Author's notes at "Dawn at the Alamo Celebration," Mar. 6, 1986; T. R. Fehrenbach, Alamo

Day Sesquicentennial Address, 1986, File: "Alamo Day Addresses." '8 The transformation of martial sacrifice is explored more thoroughly in Edward Tabor Lin-

enthal, Changing Images of the Warrior Hero in America: A History of Popular Symbolism (New York:


There are those, like Gary Foreman, who might agree wholeheart-

edly 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 shock-

ing evidence of the battle's carnage as well as the ruined Alamo build-

ings." At first, threat of continued Mexican incursions into the city pre- vented 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 (prob- ably 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 ne-

glect. Some used language of defilement to express their anger at the treatment of such a holy site." In 1881 a letter to a Galveston news-

paper 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 Re- vivalism 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." 20 Santa 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." 21 Ibid.


filled with sacks of 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 de- mocracy, 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. Expres- sions 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 Trav- is'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 cen- turies. The growth of San Antonio itself is viewed with ambivalence by Alamo celebrants. The high rises and active construction may be under- stood 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 re-

sponse 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 nation- wide 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, candle- sticks, 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-


Star reported in July, 1843, that the monument was "doubtless the most beautiful and impressive piece of sculpture ever completed in the Re-

public" 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 archi- tect 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 his-

tory. 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] unwor-

thy 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 im-

posing 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.


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 state- ments 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 com-

plaints have persistently called attention to disrespect in tourist cloth-

ing 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." Al- most unmentionable were desecrations that occurred in 1982: heavy- metal 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.


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 Anto- nio 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 commer- cialism: "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 sur- round 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 inade- quacy 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 (Apr., 1984), 12-14; and Stephen Harrigan, "The Alamo? Sure. Two Blocks, Turn Right, and 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.

31 Dean 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.


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, Fore-

man's proposal addressed the need to mark off such sacred sites from the homogeneity of secular space. Foreman's detailed plan sought to re- store and mark the Alamo so that people might have an "accurate" per- spective of the past. He leveled a series of charges against the cus-

todianship of the DRT: there was "little actual effort to recreate the

original Alamo" and there was no attempt to provide "actual demon- strations of clothing or weapons." The Long Barrack was "badly vio- lated with non-Alamo trivia and poorly designed displays." The "so- called 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 se- lected 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 fro- zen 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. Patri- cia E. Osborne, of the city's Department of Historical Preservation, cata-

logued 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

32 File: "Foreman Plan," Alamo, Historic Sites, San Antonio Clipping File (DRT Library). 33 Ibid. 34Patricia Osborne 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 Alamo- Forget 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.


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 ha- tred 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 warriors thus 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 pro- duced, with only "the evil qualities . . . retained," qualities fostered

by the oppressive nature of the Mexican government and the Catho- lic 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-

19oo (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983), 13- 36 Mark E. Nackman, A Nation within a Nation: The Rise of Texas Nationalism (Port Washington,

N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1975), 92-

37Robert W. Johannsen, To the Halls of the Montezumas: The Mexican War in the American Imagi- nation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 22.


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 Ex- tended 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. rela- tions 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 contrib-

uted much to the saga of the Texas Revolution. By the mid-1930s, Eu-

gene 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 Revo- lution. Gilberto M. Hinojosa, professor of history at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), and Gerald E. Poyo, research associate

38 For good treatments of the evolution of Alamo films, see Don Graham, Cowboys and Cadil- lacs: 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," Southwest- ern Historical Quarterly, LXXXIX (July, 1985), 46 (quotation); and Schoelwer et al., Alamo Im-

ages, 104-162. 39Aristeo Sul to E. T. L., July 14, 1986, interview; Ray Sanchez to E. T. L., July 15, 1986, in-

terview; Anastacio Bueno to E. T. L., July 16, 1986, interview.

40San Antonio News, Oct. 28, 1976 (quotation); Houston Post, Sept. 7, 1979 (Babbitt's com-

ments); San Antonio Express-News, Sept. 9, 1979 (response to Babbitt).


at the Institute of Texan Cultures, suggest that about three percent of both the Anglo and Tejano populations fought for the Texas Revolu- tion. "Tejano participants appear to have shared political ideals with their Anglo-Texan compatriots and exhibited acceptable if not equiva- lent 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 twentieth-

century 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 lan-

guage of restoration in Alamo ceremonies. Henry A. Guerra, the Voice of the Alamo, has been a respected radio figure at WOAI in San An- tonio 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 Teja- nos 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 op- pression but of the "commitment of the Hispanic population to inde-

pendent 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 Sesquicenten- nial), 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 repre-

41Gilberto 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.


sents the view that Tejanos were not patriots. Those who fought with Travis, Bowie, and Crockett at the Alamo did so because of vested eco- nomic 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, ill-

equipped, and ill-fed Mexicans." Tejanos were nothing more than col- laborators, and to make heroes of them is like "making heroes of the

Vichy government." In the same vein, Lalo Valdez, professor of sociol-

ogy at UTSA, argues that the Alamo was a "bastion of racism and op- pression" 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 Te-

janos 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 hun- dred 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 Pan- American 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

44 Rodolfo 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.

46 File: "Pilgrimage to the Alamo."


The Texas Sesquicentennial engendered renewed interest in the

processes of restoration and redefinition. Mayor Henry Cisneros, inter- viewed 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 Bar- rack 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 "ma- ture" 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, dur-

ing 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 impli- cations 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.


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, Fa- ther Balty's program attempts to create and sustain interest in the sto- ried history of the Alamo mission, interest that does not arise from pri- mary 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 un- common. 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 Na- tional 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 de-

signed 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.

51 The Centennial controversies at the Custer Battlefield National Monument are described in Edward Tabor Linenthal, "Ritual Drama at the Little Big Horn: The Persistence and Trans- formation of a National Symbol," Journal of the American Academy of Religion, LI (June, 1983), 267-281.


to be presented to the DRT. It is ironic that a symbol that is still occa-

sionally 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 sug- gests 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.

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

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Transcript of "A Reservoir of Spiritual Power": Patriotic Faith at the Alamo in the