HGB Ep. 461 - The Alamo

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Moment in Oddity - Owl Attacks

As spooky weird kids, many of us love critters that are often associated with Halloween, such as owls. But there's one woman in Washington who may not be a fan of this feathered creature any longer. Her frightening experience occurred while out for her daily walk in the woods near her home. A white barred owl silently swooped from the sky and clawed her scalp. She stated that, "It felt like getting punched in the back of the head by someone wearing rings". So after getting cleaned up, she determined that she would avoid the owls territory for a bit. However, that feisty feathered fowl found her again one week later and accosted her in her own driveway, this time leaving damage even worse than the first encounter. Upon further research, the woman discovered that during nesting or 'pre-breeding' season, the barred owl can become quite aggressive and territorial. The woman read of a female jogger who would actually wear an owl mask on the back of her head while out for a run to avoid such conflicts. Most of us are probably surprised to learn about this type of behavior from such an adorable creature and getting attack even once is pretty rare, but getting attacked by an owl twice in one week, certainly is odd. 

This Month in History -  The Inception of the U.S.M.C.

In November, on the 10th, in 1775, the United States Marine Corps began with the founding of the Continental Marines by the Continental Congress. They were the amphibious infantry of the American Colonies (and later the United States), during the American Revolutionary War. The Corps' mission was to conduct ship-to-ship fighting during naval engagements, provide shipboard security, protecting the Captain and his officers, assist with landing forces and discipline enforcement. The Continental Marines totaled 131 officers and around 2,000 enlisted Colonial Marines when they were disbanded in 1783. The organization would then be recreated in 1798 and the United States Marine Corps still marks November 10th, 1775 as it's birth date. Over the years the U.S. Marine Corps has been involved in nearly every conflict in the history of the United States. Due to the availability of Marine forces at sea and their ability to respond quickly and on short notice, the United States Marine Corps has become a principal tool for U.S. foreign policy. 

The Alamo

The Alamo is stunningly small considering its place in Texan history. The battle that took place at this former mission became a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution and made famous men like Davy Crockett and James Bowie. The complex is incredibly haunted and the sighting of spirits is what saved it from demolition. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of the Alamo!

The Texas Revolution began in October of 1835. This was a rebellion of Texians, who were Anglo-American residents of Mexican Texas, and Tejanos, who were descendants of Spaniards living in Mexican Texas, against the Mexican government. Mexican Texas was known as Tejas and only incorporated the bottom portion of today's Republic of Texas. Immigrants living in Mexican Texas had once lived in Federalized America and they were used to living with liberty. As the Mexican government centralized power, these immigrants resisted. Some of them also wanted to continue to be slave owners and that was outlawed by Mexico. Colonists first tried to secede from Mexico with the Fredonian Rebellion in 1826. The first skirmish between Texas and Mexico took place on June 26, 1832, the Battle of Velasco. The battle lastest for three days and the number of causalities is unknown. A convention was held in 1832 where Texas representatives met to discuss what they should do about the Mexican government. General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna claimed he was a Federalist and that he needed the Texians' help to overthrow the Centralist Mexican President, Anastacio Bustmente. Santa Anna had lied. The Texians met at Turtle Bayou and signed the Turtle Bayou Resolutions pledging loyalty to Santa Anna. At the Convention of 1833, Texas created their own constitution. After the first official battle of the Texas Revolution, Santa Anna pulled together a force to quell the rebellion.

Father Antonio Olivares had founded the original Franciscan mission in San Antonio, San Antonio de Padua Mission, in 1716 and this combined with the San Francisco Solano Mission in 1718 to become the Mission San Antonio de Valero. The monks had a goal of witnessing to the Native Americans in the area.  The site for the mission was selected in 1724. The main complex of the Alamo was built by Franciscan monks with the cornerstone being laid in 1744. The missions religious efforts started to wind down in 1765 and the monks finally abandoned it in 1793. A company of Spanish soldiers then occupied the mission and used the complex as a barracks. The Spanish word for cottonwood was Alamo and since there was a large cottonwood tree sitting outside of the gates of the mission, the soldiers started calling their barracks, The Alamo. 

In January of 1836, the mission had become a storage facility with much of the material being armaments. General Sam Houston was worried that the weapons would fall into the hands of General Santa Anna and he decided the Alamo should be demolished. He sent a garrison led by James Bowie to do the job. Bowie was born in the late 1790s and made his way in life clearing land and sawing timber in Louisiana. He bought and renovated a sugar plantation and served in the Louisiana state legislature. Bowie left Louisiana after he killed a man in a duel and he ended up in Texas in 1828. He became a Mexican citizen, but later became interested in the Texas movement to revolt. He became a colonel in the Texas army and fought valiantly in several battles. Many people know the name Bowie because of the Bowie knife.

*Rabbit Hole: The Bowie Knife was designed by James' brother Rezin and forged by their neighbor, blacksmith Jesse Clifft. This was like butcher knife with a thin blade and no silver mounts. The special knife became public after the Sandbar Fight on September 19, 1827. This started as a duel between Samuel Levi Wells and Dr. Thomas Maddox. Neither man hit the other and so they shook hands and started to leave when members of Maddox entourage fired on Wells' group. James Bowie was in Wells' group and he was shot in the lung. One of the men, Norris Wright, started stabbing Bowie who grabbed his knife and sunk it into Wright's chest. Every one who saw this started talking about this legendary knife that Bowie carried. The Red River Herald of Natchitoches reported, "All the steel in the country it seemed was immediately converted into Bowie knives."*

When James Bowie arrived at the Alamo, he realized that this was the last line of defense and made a great location to stop Santa Anna's march.  There was also a practical reason why Bowie didn't line the Alamo with dynamite and blow it up. He was supposed to remove the armaments before doing that and he knew that his small group of twenty-five couldn't move two dozen cannons without oxen and carts. He ordered his men to reinforce the former mission. 

William Barret Travis was born in 1809 in South Carolina and grew up on a family farm. He went on to become an attorney. He married a woman named Rosanna in 1828 and the two had a son about nine months later. Travis abandoned his wife and son a year later when Rosanna was pregnant with a girl, a child that Travis claimed wasn't his and he apparently killed a man whom he thought had been with his wife. Travis headed for Texas where he would become a hero helping Texas fight the revolution as a cavalry officer. He went to the Alamo with thirty men to serve as reinforcements on February 3, 1836. A few days later, frontierman Davy Crockett arrived with a small group of volunteers.

David Crockett was born in August of 1786 in the future state of Tennessee. Davy, as everyone called him, spent much of his childhood working off debts for his father. He eventually married twice and had five children and two step-children. Davy became a scout for the Tennessee militia in 1813 and he served as a third sergeant during the War of 1812. He served in the Tennessee General Assembly and ran several businesses that were destroyed in a flood. Crockett served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1827 to 1831, but would not be re-elected because he opposed President Andrew Jackson's 1830 Indian Removal Act. He managed to get re-elected in 1833 and served until 1835. Crockett decided to move to Texas when he heard talk of revolution. His daughter later wrote of his leaving, "He was dressed in his hunting suit, wearing a coonskin cap, and carried a fine rifle presented to him by friends in Philadelphia.... He seemed very confident the morning he went away that he would soon have us all to join him in Texas." Crockett arrived at the Alamo with five men on February 8, 1836.

Travis and Bowie jockeyed for command of the Alamo before Santa Anna arrived. The men agreed to share command until Bowie fell ill. Santa Anna started to make his way to San Antonio de Bexar in February of 1836 with the goal of finally ending the rebellion. Santa Anna arrived with his army on February 23rd. The Alamo had a small garrison of men, four women, a baby and five children. The Mexicans raised a blood-red flag signifying no quarter and Travis ordered a cannon to be fired in response. Bowie wasn't happy with this and ordered chief engineer Green B. Jameson to meet with Santa Anna. Santa Anna informed Jameson that there would be no honorable surrender and that they must surrender unconditionally. Travis and Bowie decided to fire the cannon again and the siege of the Alamo began. 

The Mexicans set up batteries that they inched closer and closer to the Alamo. In the first week of the siege, nobody died, but the Mexicans fired more than 200 cannonballs into the Alamo plaza. The Texians fired as many, reusing many of the Mexican cannonballs. The Texians started to lose steam as they had to conserve fire power and Bowie fell ill. Two Mexicans were the first to die. Then six more were killed and four others were wounded, while no Texians died. Unfortunately, that would not remain the case. One of the greatest works ever penned about American patriotism would be written by Colonel Travis on February 24th. This was the man who had unsheathed his sword and drawn a line on the ground before his battle-weary men and declared, "Those prepared to give their lives in Freedom's cause, come over to me!"

The letter reads, "To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World: Fellow citizens & compatriots—I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna—I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man. The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken—I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls. I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch—The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country—Victory or Death.

Lt. Col. William Barret Travis

P.S. The Lord is on our side—When the enemy appeared in sight we had not three bushels of corn—We have since found in deserted houses 80 or 90 bushels & got into the walls 20 or 30 head of Beeves."

Reinforcements were sent, but they only went a mile before turning around. The Alamo was on its own. The Mexicans had received reinforcements, by March 3rd there were 3100 Mexicans outside of the Alamo. On the evening of March 4th, Bowie's cousin-in-law Juana Navarro Alsbury went to Santa Anna to negotiate a surrender, but this was denied as Santa Anna saw no glory in a bloodless victory. On the evening of March 5th, Santa Anna stopped the bombardment of the Alamo to lull the Texians into a sense of peace. At 5:30am on March 6th, the Mexicans attacked, killing three Texian sentinels outside the walls. The buglers started playing and the soldiers started cheering, "Viva Santa Anna!" The Texians awoke sending the civilians to the chapel for protection. The Texians were out of canister shot, so they stuffed the cannons with chopped up horseshoes, door hinges, nails and other pieces of metal. This was very effective and some of the new Mexican recruits killed their fellows with friendly fire.

Travis was one of the first Texians to die. His men kept the Mexicans from climbing the walls and they withdrew and prepared for a second attack, which was also repulsed. A third attack wasn't going well either and Santa Anna had to send in his reinforcements. At this point, the Mexicans realized that they could scale the north wall. The Mexican army swarmed up the walls, killed the gunners on the south end and took control of the 18-pounder cannon. The east wall had also been penetrated. The Texians fell back to the barracks and the chapel. Some of the Texians headed out for the prairie, but were killed. Crockett and his men were attempting to hold the low wall in front of the chapel and had to use their guns as clubs because they had no time to reload. Crockett would die there. All the Texians were forced back to the chapel as the Alamo fell under the control of the Mexican army. They raised their flag above the complex. The cannons were turned on the Texians and doors were blown open and the Mexicans rushed in to do hand-to-hand combat.

James Bowie died in his sick bed either fighting off the Mexicans or committing suicide. There is no accurate account, but we'd like to believe he was brandishing his famous knife and went down with a bit of a fight. Whatever fight a sick man could give. The only people left alive at this point were in the chapel, 11 men and the women and children. The Mexicans blasted open the door and bayoneted all the men. One of the men made a valiant effort to try to torch the gunpowder, but he fell dead before he could. The blast would have killed the women and children, so that was a good thing. One of the male children was killed when he was mistaken as an adult. Twenty women and children survived, as did Travis' enslaved man named Joe. The Battle of the Alamo was over.

But the Mexican soldiers kept firing into the dead bodies. Casualties are hard to pin down. The Mexicans lost more men by far. Estimates range from 400 to 1,600 of the Mexicans died and around 250 Texians died. The Mexicans stacked and burned the dead Texians, except for Gregorio Esparza, whose brother was in Santa Anna's army and he requested to give his brother a Christian burial. The ashes of the Texians were later collected and put in a joint coffin and buried in an unknown location near the Alamo. General Santa Anna wanted to burn more than just the bodies. He wanted to burn down the complex. This wasn't going to become a martyr shrine under his watch. He tasked General Andrade with the mission. Andrade gathered a group of his men and sent them off, but they returned shortly thereafter, white-as-ghosts and shaken. They told their General that they didn't burn down the Alamo because when they arrived, they found six diablos with flaming swords blocking the entrance. The men ran in fear. Some of the men told Andrade that they thought the entities were spirits of Franciscan monks. Others claimed they were the ghosts of the defenders of the Alamo. 

Andrade scoffed at such nonsense. Not only did he not believe the story, but he was under pressure from Santa Anna to burn the place. So he gathered a few men who had not gone before and he led them to the Alamo to get the job done himself. As Andrade expected, there were no spirits blocking the entrance when they arrived. He decided that they would burn the Long House Barracks first. Andrade directed his men to start stacking wood and other flammable material. The activity was brought to a halt when a spirit appeared on top of the barracks with balls of fire in his hands. The light from the fire was blinding and the spirit held its hands out. The men fell to their knees and covered their eyes. Andrade was no longer scoffing as he too, fell to the ground. He ordered his men to retreat and they rode out of San Antonio. He never returned and neither did Santa Anna, so the Alamo sat abandoned.

Texas was annexed into the United States and the Army decided to turn the Alamo into a barracks in 1846. In 1871, it was decided to demolish parts of the Alamo, including the church. This demolition didn't take place because the citizens wanted to keep the complex and because of all the stories of apparitions around the Alamo. Superstition made people think that if they destroyed the complex, they would bring bad luck. So the complex was turned into a police headquarters and jail. A wholesale grocery store used the complex for awhile. In 1891, The Daughters of the Republic of Texas decided that they would preserve the Alamo. Two members, Adina Emilia De Zavala and Clara Driscoll petitioned the state legislature in 1905 to purchase the Alamo and give the DRT conservatorship. The women stopped working together after that because they had different visions. De Zavala wanted this to go back to the mission look while Driscoll wanted to make the complex look much as it does today. The women formed different factions and fought over control with Driscoll obviously winning, but not before De Zavala barricaded herself in the church for three days. And the DRT would hold onto that control until 2015 when Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush officially moved control of the Alamo to the Texas General Land Office. The Alamo was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site on July 5, 2015. Today, the Alamo is one of the most popular historic sites in the country with over four million visitors a year.

And through all those years, ghost sightings continued. The San Antonio Express published a series of stories in the 1890s detailing some of these stories. Police reported that there were ghosts that marched along the roof of the police station and prisoners complained of ghostly moaning coming from the corridors of their cells. Shadow figures were often seen in the buildings. Many of the stories came from guests staying at the Menger Hotel, which is right next to the Alamo. They swore that they saw the spirits of an army marching back and forth in front of the Alamo and that spirit guards stood watch at night. Some spirits would look alive until they walked through the walls of the Alamo. The activity got to be too much for the police and they moved the jail because no one wanted to work certain shifts.

There are more than just the spirits of the Alamo defenders seen here though. The mission was originally built over what had once been the cemetery for San Antonio. Nearly a thousand people had been buried on this land and to this day, skulls and bones are sometimes dug up when construction work is being done. It is believed that the ghost of a little blonde-haired boy that is seen here, probably is from a boy buried in the cemetery. But others wonder if perhaps he was evacuated during the siege and his spirit returns here because one or both of his parents didn't survive. He is often seen in an upstairs window of the gift shop and the weird thing is that there is no way to climb up to the window and there is no ledge to stand on, so that he could look out the window.  February is his favorite month to make appearances.

Park Rangers have claimed to see the spirit of Davy Crockett holding a flintlock rifle and wearing buckskin clothing and a coonskin cap. He's not the only famous ghost here. Strangely, the spirit of John Wayne started making appearances after his death in 1979. The reason may be because he directed and produced the 1960 film "The Alamo." It was a very personal project for him and he visited the Alamo for research and a three-quarter-scale replica of the Alamo was built over a two year period. The spirit of a Mexican soldier is also reputedly at the Alamo. He is seen walking along the outer walls with his chin tilted down, his hands clasped behind his back and shaking his head, looking sad. The ghost is believed to belong to Santa Anna's commander, General Manuel Fernandez de Castrillon. Castrillon also refused to execute six Texians brought to him after the firefight. This enraged Santa Anna who killed the Texians himself and almost killed Castrillon. He was killed later at the Battle of San Jacinto. 

A residual paranormal phenomenon features a father and son duo. They are sited standing on a rooftop just after sunrise and the man wraps his arms around the child and then leaps from the parapet to the ground below and disappears. It is believed that General Andrade witnessed the actual event as he wrote that he and some other Mexican soldiers were horrified to see "a tall, thin man with a small child in his arms, leap to the ground from the parapet at the rear of the Alamo Church." A cowboy dressed in a black duster and cowboy hat and dripping wet, is seen in the garden and people believe this could be one of 22 dispatch riders that William Travis sent out to get reinforcements. Another apparition is seen sticking his head and shoulders out of the large rectangular window over the double doors at the front of the church. He looks around and then disappears. Visitors and employees have claimed to hear phantom footsteps, disembodied whispers and voices and to feel very melancholy, especially in the chapel.

Visiting the Alamo is very moving. There is a heavy spiritual energy here that reflects the deadly siege that took place. This is also a shrine to heroes. Is the Alamo haunted? That is for you to decide!