An Overview Of Crisp's Sleuthing The Alamo

The Alamo is well known and glamourized battle that was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution; it has been made the subject of movies and games for many years. James E. Crisp’s historical monograph, Sleuthing the Alamo: Davy Crockett’s Last Stand and Other Mysteries of the Texas Revolution tries to express a more realistic account of the events and works to invalidate common misconceptions and myths surrounding the Alamo. His work is divided into four main myths: the racism in Sam Houston’s speech to the soldiers at Refugio, the justifiable and unjustifiable portions of Jose de la Peña’s personal narrative, Davy Crockett’s death, and how Crockett was represented as a patriotic icon during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Crisp’s work

Bill Groneman’s claims that the infamous John A. Laflin forged de la Peña’s diary added fuel to the fire that was “Davy Crockett craze”. As Crisp states, Crockett’s death was much more popular in the late twentieth century than it had been in the years immediately following the Alamo. Some of the popularity can be easily chalked up to the 1960 movie The Alamo, and Disney’s rendition of Crockett’s last stand (Crisp 67-68). Crisp made it his goal to rebut Groneman’s conclusion that the diaries were forged; he once again proves his attention to detail as he looks deeper into the original diary and evaluates it as a primary

His diary had quite an impact on the public and sparked retaliation and defense of the beloved Crockett’s death. The backlash is somewhat understandable because Crockett, typically portrayed as an American war hero, would be expected to have died a valiant death, instead of succumbing cowardly to his execution as the diary suggests. Once again, Crisp launches himself into a detailed investigation through a string of documents, his assertion that in any historical document should be thought of as, “a text behind a text” is the driving force of his