This is Don Enrique Esparza, the last surviving witness of the Battle of the Alamo, late in his life. This photo of Enrique Esparaza is courtesy pf the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at UT-Austin.

In November, 1902, the San Antonio Light Newspaper published the following article about Enrique Esparza:

Since the death of Senora Candelaria Villanueva, several years ago at the age of 112 there is but one person alive who claims to have been in the siege of the Alamo. That person is Enrique Esparza, now 74 years old, who, firm-stepped, clear-minded and clear-eyed, bids fair to live to the age of the woman who for so long shared honors with him.

Enrique Esparza, who tells one of the most interesting stories ever narrated, works a truck garden on Nogalitos street between the southern Pacific Railroad track and the San Pedro creek. Here he lives with the family of his son, Victor Esparza. Every morning he is up before daybreak and helps load the wagons with garden stuff that is to be taken up town to market.

He is a farmer of experience and contributes very materially to the success of the beautiful five acres garden, of which he is the joint proprietor.

While claims of Enrique Esparza have been known among those familiar with the historical work done by the Daughters of the Republic, an organization which has taken great interest in getting first-hand information of the period of Texas Independence, the old man was not available up to about five years ago, for the reason that he resided on his farm in Atascosa county. This accounts for the fact that he is not well enough known to be included in the itinerary when San Antonians are proudly doing the town with their friends.

Esparza tells a straight story. Every syllable he speaks to uttered with confidence and in his tale, he frequently makes digressions, going into details of relationship of early families of San Antonio and showing a tenacious memory. At the time of the fight of the Alamo he was 8 years old. His father was a defender, and his father’s own brother an assailant of the Alamo. He was a witness of his mother’s grief, and had his own grief, at the slaughter in which his father was included. As he narrated to a reporter the events in which he was so deeply concerned, his voice several times choked and he could not proceed for emotion. While he has a fair idea of English, he preferred to talk in Spanish.

“My father, Gregorio Esparza, belonged to Benavides’ company, in the American army,” said Esparza, “and I think it was in February, 1836, that the company was ordered to Goliad when my father was ordered back alone to San Antonio, for what I don’t know. When he got here there were rumors that Santa Ana was on the way here, and many residents sent their families away. One of my father’s friends told him that he could have a wagon and team and all necessary provisions for a trip, if he wanted to take his family away. There were six of us besides my father; my mother, whose name was Anita, my eldest sister, myself and three younger brothers, one a baby in arms. I was 8 years old.

“My father decided to take the offer and move the family to San Felipe. Everything was ready, when one morning, Mr. W. Smith, who was godfather to my youngest brother, came to our house on North Flores street, just above where the Presbyterian church now is, and told my mother to tell my father when he came in that Santa Ana had come. (Northeast corner of Houston and N. Flores Streets.)

“When my father came my mother asked him what he would do. You know the Americans had the Alamo, which had been fortified a few months before by General Cos.

“Well, I’m going to the fort” my father said. Read the rest of this entry »

Robert Jenkins Onderdonk, Fall of the Alamo, 1903, Texas State Archives.

March 6, 1836: Following a thirteen-day siege, more than 2000 Mexican troops launched a pre-dawn attack from all four sides on the fortress defended by 180 men. The Mexicans were repulsed twice, but a third assault gained the north wall and broke through the west wall. After fierce fighting, the defenders were killed to a man. The casualties included Colonel William Barret Travis, James Bowie, and former Congressman from Tennessee David Crockett.

Robert Jenkins Onderdonk, Fall of the Alamo, 1903, Texas State Archives.

March 6, 1836: Following a thirteen-day siege, more than 2000 Mexican troops launched a pre-dawn attack from all four sides on the fortress defended by 180 men. The Mexicans were repulsed twice, but a third assault gained the north wall and broke through the west wall. After fierce fighting, the defenders were killed to a man. The casualties included Colonel William Barret Travis, James Bowie, and former Congressman from Tennessee David Crockett.

Robert Jenkins Onderdonk, Fall of the Alamo, 1903, Texas State Archives.

March 6, 1836: Following a thirteen-day siege, more than 2000 Mexican troops launched a pre-dawn attack from all four sides on the fortress defended by 180 men. The Mexicans were repulsed twice, but a third assault gained the north wall and broke through the west wall. After fierce fighting, the defenders were killed to a man. The casualties included Colonel William Barret Travis, James Bowie, and former Congressman from Tennessee David Crockett.

In today’s America, nincompoops and leftist demoniac fanatics have everywhere somehow managed to rise to the tippy-top of every establishment institution, even in Texas.

Texas Monthly reports that Texas Social Studies Educational Advisory Board has advocated removing the adjective “heroic” from a reference to the defenders of the Alamo.

The concept of defenders of the Alamo being heroic is engrained in the history of this state—and in the psyche of most Texans. The Alamo has been compared to the ancient Battle of Thermopylae, in which an outnumbered Greek army fended off a much larger Persian army for several days before being annihilated. But a committee streamlining the state’s history curriculum standards has removed the word “heroic” from a proposed revision of the curriculum because it is “a value-charged word.”

Last month, the advisory group, called the State Board of Education Social Studies TEKS Streamlining Work Groups and made up of educators and historians, voted to approve a final recommendation making a number of changes to the state’s history curriculum standards. The paragraph in the seventh-grade curriculum, in which Texas history is taught, currently reads as follows:

explain the issues surrounding significant events of the Texas Revolution, including the Battle of Gonzales, William B. Travis’s letter “To the People of Texas and All Americans in the World,” the siege of the Alamo and all the heroic defenders who gave their lives there, the Constitutional Convention of 1836, Fannin’s surrender at Goliad, and the Battle of San Jacinto.

But the committee is recommending to the state board that it delete several of these passages and add one so now the standards, if adopted, would read like this:

explain the issues surrounding significant events of the Texas Revolution, including the Battle of Gonzales, the siege of the Alamo, the Constitutional Convention of 1836, Fannin’s surrender at Goliad, and the Battle of San Jacinto and Treaties of Velasco.

“‘Heroic’ is a value-charged word,” the group explains in recommending the elimination of the word. The group went on to explain that “all ‘defenders’ is too vague.” Similarly, the ten-person group recommends deleting the current standard that requires students be able to explain Travis letter from the Alamo. The streamline committee said the letter can be mentioned as context for lessons about the siege of the Alamo so that “teachers will spend less time on the analysis of the letter.” There are fewer than 250 words in that letter, but they go to the heart of what Texans think about themselves and about this state. Sometimes called the “Victory or Death” letter, it has been compared to Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade,” which immortalized a British battle in its defeat by Russians in the Crimean War.

To the People of Texas and all Americans in the world: I am besieged by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna…The enemy has demanded a surrender…I have answered the demand with a cannon shot… I shall never surrender or retreat …

— William B. Travis

The recommendations regarding the Alamo come as several committees work to streamline the standards that are at the heart of the state’s Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills test. They have been at this process for the better part of a year, said SBOE spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe. The state board does not control curriculum in Texas, but they do set the standards that are the foundation of the state’s curriculum. And, in this case, they are addressing complaints that the standards in a variety of courses are too long. So committees of educators and interested parties such as historians have been reviewing the standards with the goal of streamlining them. In the case of standards surrounding the teaching of the Texas revolution, including the Battle of Alamo, the committee estimates it will shave off 90 minutes of teaching time

RTWT

1) Abolish that blinking committee.

2) Send Texas Rangers to apprehend every current member of that committee and take them to the state border and there instruct them to leave Texas and tell them that there is a rope and a tree waiting for any and all of them if they ever come back.

Clash America is warning us:

The plan to ‘reimagine’ the Alamo is well underway… and it’s a giant load of crap.

A plan to restore and ‘reimagine’ the Alamo been in the works for some years, and it’s not just a sprucing up of the place.

It’s a whole new ‘reimagined’ Alamo that won’t focus on the battle that the site is known for.

The Master Planner of the project, George Skarmeas, said, ‘We cannot single out one moment in time.’ …

The Master Plan includes items that cover 300 years of history but will focus on the diversity of cultures of the area. The plan includes being ‘inclusive’ by ‘telling all sides of the military story’.

People in Texas need to stop this.

Robert Jenkins Onderdonk, Fall of the Alamo, 1903, Texas State Archives.

March 6, 1836: Following a thirteen-day siege, more than 2000 Mexican troops launched a pre-dawn attack from all four sides on the fortress defended by 180 men. The Mexicans were repulsed twice, but a third assault gained the north wall and broke through the west wall. After fierce fighting, the defenders were killed to a man. The casualties included Colonel William Barret Travis, James Bowie, and former Congressman from Tennessee David Crockett.