The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 37, July 1933 - April, 1934 Page: 173
330 p. : maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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A Critical Study of the Siege of the Alamo
173
7. The Ashes of the Dead
As has been previously stated, the bodies of the slain Texans
were stripped, mutilated, and burned."4 Three pyres were built
of alternate layers of wood and dead bodies.35 Then grease and
oil were poured over the pyres and the torch applied. Barnes
says that it took two days to consume the bodies. To the mod-
ern mind this seems a far more humane way to dispose of great
numbers of dead bodies than was the fate meted out to Santa
Anna's dead soldiers. But in 1836 cremation on a funeral pyre
at the order of the victor was regarded as the greatest cruelty
and dishonor that could be shown a fallen foe.
Events moved swiftly in Texas during the next few months;
momentous happenings crowded one upon the other so rapidly
that it was almost a year after the massacre before the frag-
ments and ashes of the Alamo defenders had Christian burial.
But after the victory at San Jacinto, with Santa Anna captured,
with the invading Mexicans all driven out of Texas, with the
government of the new republic established under its own con-
stitution, with the fears of the people calmed, with peace and
prosperity fairly established-then it was that General Houston
had the time to concern himself with the more refined senti-
"Francisco Ruiz, Texas Almanac, 1860, p. 80; Ram6n Martinez Caro,
Verdadera Idea, 11; Vicente Filisola, Guerra de Tejas, 13-14. Here
Filisola says that the cruelties committed upon the Texas dead "will
always leave a stain on Mexican honor," but he adds that such atrocities
were not characteristic of Mexican soldiers.
Concerning the pyres the records differ. The Telegraph and Tewas
Register, March 28, 1837, in giving an account of the burial of the ashes
of the heroes, describes three pyres; Adina De Zavala, History and
Legends of the Alamo, 36, indicates four pyres; and Mary Austin Holley,
Texas (1836), 354, seems to agree with this opinion. Miss De Zavala
says: "The bodies of the Texas dead were ordered by Santa Anna to be
piled in heaps and burned, and this order was in part executed within the
court yard or patio of the main Alamo building north of the church.
Tradition says that this first funeral pyre was lighted in the courtyard,
but that orders were given later to burn the rest of the bodies elsewhere,
and that three pyres were then made beyond the walls. These three pyres
were to the south, southeast, and east by south." Charles M. Barnes,
Combats and Conquests of Immortal Heroes, 36-37, says "two immense
pyres," and locates them thus: "these were located on what was then
known as the Alameda, or Cottonwood grove roadway, but which is now
a wide portion of Commerce Street. The northeast end of one of those
pyres extended into the eastern portion of the front yard of what is now
the Ludlow House, the other was in what is now the yard of Dr. Ferdinand
Herff, Sr.'s, old Post or Springfield House. I have had both pyres posi-
tively located by those who saw the corpses of the slain placed there."
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Texas State Historical Association & Barker, Eugene C. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 37, July 1933 - April, 1934, periodical, 1934; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101094/m1/192/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.