A Line in the Sand: The Alamo in Blood and Memory.(Review)

A Line in the Sand: The Alamo in Blood and Memory By Randy Roberts and James S. Olson Free Press, 352 pages, $26

Who doesn't know, or think he knows, the story of the Alamo? The events of the great 13-day siege of 1836 are generally familiar. General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna's numerically superior army annihilated a small garrison of now-legendary figures--Jim Bowie, William B. Travis, Davy Crockett, to name the best-known--who chose death over surrender. At San Jacinto a month and a half later, the Texans went on to pay back the Mexicans, winning Texas an independence it maintained until joining the United States nine years later.

Yes, but what did it mean? Such is the undying question which Randy Roberts and James Olson address in this admirable book. Speaking as a seventh-generation Texan, I judge the authors to have set the standard henceforth for consideration of the topic.

Not that all native Texans will savor their every conclusion. The myth of the Alamo, presently subject to disparagement and depreciation, is bred in our bones. It was a heroic fight for freedom, we learned early. As the theme song in John Wayne's epic movie The Alamo insisted, "They died to give us freedom / That is all we need to know / Of the 13 days of glory at the siege of Alamo."

Well, not quite all, apparently. Myths seem to produce counter-myths. Cultural dispositions erode. Heroism once was in vogue; selfless sacrifice was an ideal. Recognition of these deeds and qualities served national purposes, scratched cultural itches. Quite different are the standards of our era. The heroes of the Alamo, according to one prissy revisionist writer, were "pirates," "fanatics," and "hairy, wild-eyed rebels."

Roberts and Olson look coldly on that viewpoint, but what they address is not just the battle of the Alamo, but also the ways in which succeeding generations have appropriated it for their own purposes. The authors provide valuable context to details familiar from folklore, television, and movies. For instance, the cultural outlooks of the warriors: The Texans were adventurous, liberty-loving, and not over-fond of Mexican-Catholic culture. Santa Anna was steeped in some of that culture's then-worst aspects: despotism and bloody reprisal for rebellion. In ...