Review: Exodus from the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth by Phillip Thomas Tucker

 

I don’t usually review nonfiction. However, I’m making an exception for Exodus from the Alamo: The Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth by Phillip Thomas Tucker (Ph.D. history, 1990).   

First, because although I’ve long suspected we weren’t getting an entirely accurate story from our grade school history class, it never occurred to me that almost all of what we thought we knew was wrong. Wrong, or worse, outright lies.

I’ll hit the high points. The Alamo had no strategic value whatsoever and was indefensible. It had never been intended as a fort, it covered three acres, its perimeter wall was about one-quarter mile long and could not have been defended by the 182 men known to have been in the old mission. They were short of gunpowder, food and clothing—and had been before the thirteen day siege began. The majority of the defenders’ bodies were found outside the Alamo, as three separate groups broke out soon after the attack began. Tucker describes several acts of heroism by individuals but none of them had any hope of prevailing and none of them are the ones we hear about in the “legend” of the Alamo. And no, the Mexicans did not suffer thousands of casualties. Their losses were between two and three hundred, including wounded—and a number of those were likely from “friendly fire” in the pre-dawn attack.

And those are only the high points. To learn how this pointless effort was doomed from its conception, you’ll have to read the book. Every time I thought Tucker had revealed the worst failure by those in charge, I was mistaken. The words incompetent, ignorant, and undisciplined spring to mind.

My second reason for reviewing it is his glaring omission of a number of the Alamo’s inmates. Tucker presents convincing evidence of the survival of six or eight of the defenders and what became of them after the skirmish (General Santa Anna’s word). Yet he fails to mention approximately 20 women and children who were present and also survived. He was aware of them, as he quotes from an  account one of them wrote later, and he mentions a woman who tended Bowie during his illness.

What, were they chopped liver? Oh, wait! It was 1836, so women ranked with lapdogs: no need to mention them. However, Tucker is a product of the late 20^th century so his silence on the women’s survival seems odd. After the fighting ended (about 45 minutes after it began), Santa Anna issued each woman two silver dollars and a blanket to speed them on their way, one assumes.

Minor details: the first section of the book, dealing with the political background and motivations of the American influx into Texas, is not riveting. Once it moves on to the Alamo and the siege, it is fascinating and horrifying. For those interested in sources, Exodus from the Alamo’s notes and bibliography run to pages. 

Better editing might have resulted in correction of some peculiar typographical errors, like "abode" instead of "adobe", "rouges" instead of "rogues", and "would of" instead of "would have". 

Even if you have no interest in 19^th century America, military history or Texas, I recommend reading it. Ignorance is not bliss.

Portia & The Merchant of London on sale for $0.99 for one month

 My latest historical fiction/historical romance ebook is on sale from March 19 to April 17, 2021 on Amazon, Nook and ibooks. 

No bodices are ripped in my books; they aren't steamy. There is some "language" as my characters get into situations where "Zounds!" is not adequate.  

After her father's stroke, Portia Gillespie finds they have just enough money to live on, so where is her brother's

school tuition to come from? She and Mama have no idea until a moneylender comes to call. In spite of the prior debt, he is willing to lend this year's tuition. The only alternative to accepting the loan is to apprentice Benedict to one of the less expensive trades. Papa would be horrified.

Solomon de Toledo has fulfilled none of his family's expectations. He is neither a rabbi nor a physician, nor even a respectable importer or banker. Still, as a moneylender, he is able to aid Portia, whose character he admires as much as he respects her father's scholarship.

But when her father recovers and arranges Portia's betrothal, how will Solomon save her from her ruthless suitor?

Review: The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

I requested an ARC for my unbiased review of The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner because I enjoy historical fiction, and particularly the eighteenth century. Ms. Penner’s novel weaves the story of a modern-day woman whose marriage is in crisis and that of two women in late eighteenth century London with crises of their own. The problem is different for each one but at the same time, they are interrelated. The cuts back and forth between the centuries and the three women are done with skill and the characters are three-dimensional. The mudlarking section made me want to be there searching the Thames foreshore to find cool old stuff. This is evidently her first novel. I’ll look forward to reading her future books. 

My only reservation about the book is because of one flaw which many readers will not even notice (though I’m hoping it was corrected before release). It’s a problem not limited to Ms. Penner’s otherwise excellent book. Even those who have written historical fiction for years sometimes make assumptions about past eras: for example, that letters must have been written on parchment or that bourbon was known in 18th century England. Unless a reader happens to be informed and fussy about historical details—as I am—such things will not interrupt the flow of a good story.

 

Review: Learning to Waltz by Kerryn Reid

 

I read a lot of historical romance novels, partly for enjoyment and partly for market research. My preference is for books with some depth, good writing, and no silliness (unless it’s intentional). 

Kerryn Reid’s Regency novel Learning to Waltz came my way recently via a free review copy, and what a delightful surprise it was.  Learning to Waltz exceeded my expectations.

I won’t describe the story; if you’re reading a book review, you’ve probably already seen either the blurb or a review giving a synopsis of the plot. I’ll just say that one of the things I particularly liked about Ms. Reid’s novel was that the characters were not cardboard and the situations they faced were the sort that real people might encounter. For me, that makes a more memorable story than the dukes/earls/Mayfair ballrooms kind of romance.

Oh, and I didn’t notice any cringe-worthy anachronisms. This is so rare in the historical romance genre that it deserves mention, and I’d give it an extra star just for that. As I can’t give it six stars, I’ve bought Ms. Reid’s other historical romance, Anna’s Refuge.    

A Drachm For What Ails You

 

We’ve all heard of the old medical procedure of bleeding a patient for…well, almost anything. Less well known are the remedies for various ailments and injuries. Many of them probably did no harm, though most probably required a strong stomach and no gag reflex. I haven't included any that used animal dung as an ingredient although various sorts, including that of peacocks, continued to be employed as medicaments in England until 1721. No, I don't know why they stopped in that year.

Don't try any of these. 

The Pharmacist by Pietro Longhi, 1752

From The English Physician, Enlarged with Three Hundred and Sixty-nine Medicines Made of English Herbs, Not in Any Former Impression of Culpeper's British Herbal ... to which is Added The Family Physician and A Present for the Ladies (1810, but reproduces almost unchanged Culpeper’s text of 1666, with the addition of The Family Physician and A Present for the Ladies):

Compound Tincture of Sena, commonly called Daffy's Elixir. Take of the best sena two ounces; jalan, coriander seeds and cream of tartar, of each one ounce; coarse sugar three quarters of a pound; of brandy three pints. Let then stand all thus mixed together for ten or twelve days, then strain off what is fine for use. This is an agreeable purge and nothing can be more useful than to always keep it ready made in your houses for family use.

My note: I’ll bet it was agreeable, all right: the sugar and brandy would take the curse off almost anything.

How to cure warts. Go into the field and take a black snail, and rub them with the same nine times one way, and then nine times another, and then stick that said snail upon a black thorn and the warts will waste. I have also known a black snail cure corns, being laid thereon as a plaister. If you have what is called blood or bleeding warts, then take a piece of raw beef that never had any salt, and rub them with the same just in the same manner as you used the snail above mentioned: after this operation is performed you must bury the piece of beef in the earth.

How to make Salve for all wounds. Take one pound of hog's lard, three ounces of white lead, three ounces of red lead, three ounces of bees wax, two ounces of black rosin, and four ounces of common turpentine; all these ingredients must be put together in a pan, and boil three quarters of an hour; the turpentine to be put in just before it is done enough, and give it a gentle boil afterwards. This is an excellent salve for burns, old sores or ulcers, as it first draws then heals afterwards; it is excellent for all wounds, and ought to be always kept in your house.

A remedy for a strain, &c. Take the oil of swallows, the oil of peter, and the oil of turpentine, of each an equal quantity, mix them well together, and anoint the part afflicted with the same.

From A Collection of Over 300 Receipts in Cookery, Physick and Surgery, by Mary Kettilby, 1714:

A Powder to Stop a Hickock in Man, Woman, or Child. Put as much Dill-seed finely powder'd as will lie on a Shilling, into two spoonfuls of Syrop of Black Cherries, and take it presently.

The Ricketty Drink. Put an ounce of Rhubarb, three hundred live Wood-lice, Saſſafras, China, and Eringo-roots, of each three ounces; Roots of Osmond-royal, two onnces; Raisons of the Sun ston'd, two ounces; Hart's-Tongue, two hand fuls; Put these into six quarts of Small Ale, and Drink Spring and Fall no other Drink. 'Tis almost infallible for weak Children.

A very good Snail-Water, for a Consumption. TAKE half a peck of Shell Snails, wipe them and bruise them. Shells and all in a Mortar; put to them a gallon of New Milk; as also Balm, Mint, Carduus, unset Hyssop, and Burrage, of each one handful; Raisons of the Sun stoned, Figs, and Dates, of each a quarter of a pound; two large Nutmegs: Slice all these, and put them to the Milk, and distil it with a quick Fire in a cold Still; this will yield near four Wine-quarts of Water very good: You must put two ounces of White Sugar-candy into each Bottle, and let the Water drop on it; stir the Herbs sometimes while it distils, and keep it cover'd on the Head with wet Cloths. Take five spoonfuls at a time, first and last, and at Four in the Afternoon.

For a Strain, Put the Arm or Leg into a Pail of Cold Spring-water, and keep it there 'till the Water be warm; then take it out, and repeat it ’till it be well, which it will be without applying any other Remedy.

A Powder for Digestion. TAKE Gallingale and Setwal of each one ounce; Long-Pepper, Mace, and Nutmeg, of each two ounces; Annis-seeds, Carraway-seeds, Fennel-seeds, and Angelica-seeds, of each half an ounce: Put to these, all finely powder'd, the weight in fine powder'd Sugar ; take as much as will lie on a shilling after every Meal, and Drink a glass of Simple Carduus-Water after it: This has done mighty Cures to weak deprav'd Stomachs.

From The Elaboratory Laid Open, or, The Secrets of Modern Chemistry and Pharmacy Revealed, 1758:

Gascoigne’s Powder (in use in various formulations and by various names from the 16^th to the 19^th century; used for treating feverish conditions including smallpox, measles, plague and for consumption)

Take, of prepared pearls, crabs eyes, red coral, the whitest amber, calcined hartshorn, and oriental bezoar, each one ounce: of the tips of crabs claws powdered, the weight of all the others: make them into a fine powder; and afterwards form them in to balls, by means of a solution of gum arabic.

Note. This composition, which, from the caprice and folly of mankind, has been in very great vogue, differs materially from other testaceous powders in nothing, but the very great expensiveness of some of its ingredients. It has therefore, been seldom prepared with a strict conformity to the prescription here given…

Volatile tincture of bark. Take, of the Peruvian bark*, four ounces, volatile spirit of sal ammoniacum, two pints, digest them, without heat, in a vessel well closed; and strain off the tincture.

*My note: Also known as Jesuit’s bark, a term which was shunned in England because of its connection with the Roman Catholic religion. We would call it quinine.

The Romance of 18th Century Science: Smallpox!

 

"File:Portrait of Lady Mary Wortley Montague
Wellcome M0006755.jpg" is licensed under
CC BY 4.0

Smallpox was a dread disease in the eighteenth century. The fatality rate is estimated to have been between 20% and 60%, and higher still in infants. Those who survived were often scarred; some were blind. 

Dr. Parkins pretty much sums up the value of the treatments available for smallpox (The English Physician, 1810): Alkanet root “…is as gallant a remedy to drive out the small pox and measles as any is…” The practice of medicine still relied largely on the writings of the ancients, and trusted in the four bodily humors and astrology. 

But almost a century earlier, a woman contributed the first means of prevention of smallpox in England. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu is remembered for her letters and for pioneering smallpox inoculation. During a stay in Turkey with her husband, the British ambassador at Constantinople, Lady Mary learned of the Turkish folk medicine practice of inoculation for smallpox. Pus from a smallpox blister would be applied to a scratch on the arm or leg, resulting in a mild case of the disease. Lady Mary’s son was the first English person to undergo inoculation, Lady Mary having survived smallpox some years before. 

In 1721, she had her daughter inoculated during a smallpox outbreak in England, and Caroline, Princess of Wales, was persuaded to sponsor a test of the treatment. Seven condemned Newgate prisoners were offered the opportunity to accept inoculation to escape their sentence. All survived.

The same year, the Massachusetts Bay Colony city of Boston also suffered a smallpox epidemic. Cotton Mather, infamous for his role in the Salem witch trials, had read a journal article about inoculation, and had also heard about a slave’s boyhood inoculation. He convinced Dr. Zabdiel Boylston to perform an experiment in the practice, which was witnessed by Benjamin Franklin, who subsequently supported inoculation.

Jonathan Edwards, theologian and president of what would eventually be called Princeton University (best known for his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God), underwent inoculation during the Princeton smallpox epidemic in 1757-1758. He was one of the unlucky ones whose resulting illness was severe and it led to his death.

In 1777, George Washington had all his soldiers inoculated as a precaution against the disease, typically a greater danger than the enemy—especially since the British troops had all been inoculated. Low Continental losses to smallpox may have contributed to the Revolution’s success.

Edward Jenner, born in 1749, was inoculated at the age of eight. At thirteen, he was apprenticed to a country surgeon and apothecary. Sometime during his training, he heard a dairymaid say, “I shall never have smallpox for I have had cowpox. I shall never have an ugly pockmarked face.” 

Anecdotal reports among country folk had long held that dairymaids who had had cowpox did not get smallpox. Benjamin Jesty, a Dorset farmer, who vaccinated his wife and children during a smallpox epidemic in 1774 was only one of half a dozen amateur of science who had tested this idea. 

At the end of his apprenticeship, Jenner studied under a surgeon at St. George’s Hospital in London. John Hunter was interested in all forms of science and was an experimental scientist as well as being a respected surgeon. Jenner’s memory of the dairymaid’s words, and his training and friendship with Hunter very likely led to his experiment in May, 1796. He took matter from a dairymaid with fresh cowpox lesions and used it to inoculate a young boy, who contracted a mild case lasting for almost ten days. Two months later, the doctor inoculated the boy with fresh smallpox material. The child showed no effects, leading Dr. Jenner to conclude the cowpox inoculation was successful. 

In a letter of October 11, 1798, John Fewster, Surgeon, wrote to a fellow surgeon that during an attempt to inoculate for smallpox in his area thirty years earlier, he found a number of his patients could not be infected with even a mild case of the disease. After several attempts to inoculate him, a farmer who swore he had never had smallpox told Dr. Fewster, “I have had the Cow pox lately to a violent degree, if that' s any odds.” 

On further enquiry, Fewster found that those in whom inoculation had failed had all had cowpox, and he communicated this information to a medical society to which he belonged. An Inquiry Concerning the History of the Cowpox, Principally with a View to Supersede and Extinguish the Smallpox (London, England: J. Johnson, January, 1798).

In 1798, Jenner published An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, a disease discovered in some of the western counties of England, particularly Gloucestershire and Known by the Name of Cow Pox. His large scale 1799 survey connecting infection with cowpox to immunity to smallpox proved the efficacy of “vaccination” as he called it (from the Latin word vaccinus, meaning “from cows”). 

"Scalpels" by Thomas Fisher
Rare Book Library, UofT is licensed under 
CC BY 2.0

This was a significant step forward in medicine. Vaccination spread quickly in England and soon reached Europe as well. Of course, some opposed it as unnecessary, unsafe, or government interference. But between 1838 and 1842, deaths from smallpox plummeted from 1,064 deaths per million inhabitants to 168 deaths per million (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1107397/smallpox-death-rate-britain-historical/). Upticks and downticks in fatalities occurred throughout the rest of the nineteenth century, including a spike of 1,012 deaths per million in the epidemic of 1871. But with the exception of 1871, the trend was downward, until in 1900 there were only three deaths per million of population.

The Romance of 18th Century Science: The Grotto of the Dogs

Ranelagh Gardens (Rijksmuseum): "File:Gezicht op de Rotunda in Ranelagh Gardens te Londen A view of the Rotundo, House, & Gardens, &c. at Ranelagh (titel op object) Ranelagh Gardens en Vauxhall Gardens (serietitel), RP-P-1932-434.jpg" by Rijksmuseum is marked with CC0 1.0

Ah, the romance of the eighteenth century: beautiful clothing, formal manners, elegance. These are the characteristics we usually associate with that period[1]. All those things existed. We may also know of non-existent sewerage, disease, unspeakable poverty, and crime. We don’t tend to think of the Enlightenment’s lively interest in science (or natural philosophy, as it was called). Yet experiment and discovery were not limited to academics or even to the privileged classes. Anyone who could read could take part if they wished[2]. 

Originally I meant to write a short, zippy post about eighteenth century science in general. But the more I read about it, the more there was to write about. So instead I’m writing about one of the many amateurs of natural philosophy. Joseph Addison (1672-1719), co-founder of the The Spectator magazine, conducted a series of experiments while touring Italy and described them in his travel book, Remarks on several parts of Italy, &c., in the years 1701, 1702, 1703.

Visiting the Grotto del cani (sometimes spelled “Grotta del cane”) near Naples, he described the poisonous steams found within a foot of the water’s surface, and the common experiments conducted there. He wrote that a dog having its nose held in the vapors “loses all signs of life (i.e., lost consciousness) in a very short time” but would revive if taken into the open air or thrown into the nearby lake. A torch held in the vapors would be extinguished in a moment, and a pistol could not be fired. He found this fascinating and devised his own experiments. 

“I split a Reed, and laid in the Channel of it a Train of Ġun-powder, so that one End of the Reed was above the Vapour, and the other at the Bottom of it; and I found, tho’ the Steam was strong enough to hinder a Pistol from taking fire in it, and to quench a lighted Torch, that it could not intercept the Train of Fire when it had once begun flashing, nor hinder it from running to the very End.” He repeated this experiment several times and found that doing so reduced the vapor enough that it was possible to fire a pistol in it.

He made a number of other observations about the vapor’s actions and properties and discounted the theory of its being sulphurous based on its lack of odor. In fact, it was carbon dioxide gas, which is heavier than air, emitted from fumeroles. Naples is near the sites of both Herculaneum and Pompeii, both of which were destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius, so the  area was known for volcanic activity. Incidentally, excavation of the ruins began in 1739. 

The Grotta del cane was described in greater detail in the January, 1753 issue of The Gentleman’s Magazine. “The water of the lake near this grotto is wont to gurgle and boil up…” The author described masses of a glittering mineral called mundick by English miners (modern spelling: mundic) in the walls, which he says all chemists affirm is made up of vitriol and sulfur[3].

"File:The lake of Agnano. Etching, 16--. Wellcome L0038338.jpg" is licensed under CC BY 4.0
The grotto is right of center, with three men and a dog at the entrance.

Another half dozen scientific articles included “The path of the Moon, with cut”, “Of tillage with marle, &c”, and “Leech, how to use as a barometer”. Imagine The Atlantic Monthly, GQ Magazine, or Cosmopolitan running multiple scientific articles in addition to poetry, political reports, and art and entertainment features. No, I can’t, either. 

Next blog: Smallpox!

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[1] Oh, and the American Revolution, of course.

[2] Women, not so much, with exceptions. This is a topic for a future blog.

[3] In fact, it is the mineral pyrite.