New book looks at Texas Revolution from the other side

 

It is said that history is written by the victors, but in terms of the Texas Revolution, the vanquished Mexican army has a lot to say about the subject.

Some of what the Mexicans recorded in documentation conflicts with the accepted Texian narrative about the war that gave Texas its independence from Mexico. That is the gist of what author Gregg Dimmick of Wharton has to say in his three-volume book about the Texas Revolution from the perspective of the Mexican army. The first book, “Santa Anna’s Army in the Texas Revolution, 1835,” was published in December by Texas A&M University Press.

The 406-page book details events in Texas up through 1835 from the Mexican perspective using rare Mexican military documents. Last April Dimmick gave a talk about his new books at a meeting of the William Joel Bryan Chapter of the Sons of the Republic of Texas. He said he finished writing the three books four or five years ago, but the COVID pandemic and other issues got in the way of publication.

“I tried to just use Mexican army sources. About 15 years ago for their 200th anniversary, the Mexican government digitalized the military archives, and they put it online,” he said. “And a good friend of mine, an archeologist in Houston, told me about it, and I got in there, and I got on their site. I searched Texas, Alamo, San Jacinto, and all this kind of stuff. I downloaded about 2,000 documents. They’re all handwritten in Spanish.”

Among Dimmick’s findings are documentation proving that the cannon on display in the Gonzales Memorial Museum is not the actual Come and Take It cannon and that the number of Mexicans killed in the Battle of the Alamo was not in the hundreds, but only 60.

“I had good documentation required on this that the Come and Take It cannon was not the little bitty thing in Gonzales. I’m not very highly thought of in Gonzales. I keep telling people that’s not the Come and Take It cannon.

“I have a documentation from Green DeWitt saying ‘I’m sending a wagon, and I hope it’s big enough to hold the cannon.’ So that little cannon they have in Gonzales wouldn’t have needed a wagon. They could have taken it on horseback. And so I have good documentation that the cannon in Gonzales is not the Come and Take It cannon. The Come and Take It cannon was probably a four pounder, a six pounder and [made of] brass. And was taken back to the Alamo and was probably the one that was melted down [to make a church bell],” he said.

As for the Alamo, the subject of the second book in the series, he said both sides exaggerated numbers significantly, but documentation, including lists of names, shows that there were far fewer than 2,000 Mexicans attacking the Alamo on the morning of March 6, and fewer wounded or killed than what most people believe.

“I have it well documented from several sources that there was 60 Mexicans killed at the Alamo on March 6th. There were 311 total killed and wounded at the Alamo,” he said.

Dimmick said he found several sources confirming that the number of Mexicans killed that day was only 60, although some of the 251 wounded would have died from their injuries later.

“Santa Anna, on the day of the battle, said about 70 dead and 300 wounded,” he said. “There were probably 2,000 Mexicans there, but only 1,450 attacked the Alamo. There were another 250-300 cavalrymen waiting for the Texans that fled; and there were Texans that fled. I’ve got the report of the cavalry commander, and he talks about where they chased them down, and how many they killed.”

This first volume by Dimmick sets the stage for the part of history that Texans know well. It goes through the Battle of Gonzales and the Siege of Bejar.

Using source material, he looks at communications and movements of Mexican forces in defense of their land.

“I always try to correct people that say that the Mexicans invaded Texas. You can’t invade your own country. That was not an invading army that came up here. That was an army trying to preserve their country,” he said.

Just over a third of the book is the appendix, which includes pictures of the documents on one page and the English translation on the adjacent page. Dimmick had translation assistance by John R. Wheat and illustrations by Manuel Hinojosa. Dimmick’s best known work is the book “Sea of Mud,” which details the retreat of the Mexican Army after the Battle of San Jacinto. He is also an amateur archeologist, having uncovered numerous artifacts lost by the retreating army.

Copies of his documents and some of his artifacts have been donated to the Cushing Library at Texas A&M. His second volume will cover the Battle of the Alamo through the Goliad Massacre. The third edition will go through the Battle of San Jacinto.