Alamo Bookshelf 3: The Alamo, Tall Tales of Davy Crockett & Exploring the Alamo Legends

 
THE ALAMO - John Myers Myers (1948)
A groundbreaking work: The first book-length study, with chapters on events leading up the battle and on all the major players. Still a good read, due to Myers’ easy going style, but an amazing amount of new information has surfaced in the past sixty years. It would be interesting to compare this to A Line in the Sand (Alamo Bookshelf 1), to see what’s changed and what’s remained the same. This book has gone through many printings and editions. Pictured here is a fairly recent paperback edition.

THE TALL TALES OF DAVY CROCKETT (1987)
A reprinting, in facsimile, of three complete Crockett almanacs purportedly published in Nashville from 1839-1841, with an introduction by Michael A. Lofaro. No one knows where these almanacs were really published, or by whom, but they’re full of great woodcuts and wacky stories. Beware! Even though the pages are slightly larger than the originals, the type is tiny and sometimes spotty. Bring your magnifying glass. Of the several books reprinting stuff from Davy’s almanacs, this is one of the easiest to find.

EXPLORING THE ALAMO LEGENDS - Wallace O. Chariton (1990)
I like this guy. He’s a true Texan, with the guts to say what he thinks and the humor to make it go down easy. He wrote at least two other books on the Alamo, and all are among my favorites. This one delivers his take on over a dozen Alamo mysteries, legends and controversies. How did Davy and the other heroes die? Did Sam Houston really order Bowie to blow the place up? Did Travis really draw the line in the sand? Did one man really refuse to cross it? Wally gives us the straight skinny.