How was The Alamo Fortified?

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Hey everyone, I'm Dan Davis with the American Battlefield Trust and this is a real treat for me, a real treat to bring this to you, our viewers. Be sure to like, subscribe, tell your friends about this video. I know the background behind me may look a little bit cluttered and confusing, but we are standing right outside the Alamo and I want to talk to you today not only about our friends at the Alamo who are doing some fantastic preservation work and restoration work here, but also talk a little bit about the Alamo compound itself, the 13-day siege and the armament that is here behind the Alamo walls defending it in the garrison of roughly about 200 men between February 23rd and March 6th, 1836. So, let's walk on in to the reconstructed lunette. This is the south entrance or the main gate to the Alamo complex Mission San Antonio de Valero and it's I think it's important to remember that the Alamo was established first as a mission. It's not a military fortification. It was established as a military fortification when the Texas Revolution began in the fall of 1835.

[00:01:03]The Mexican army's going to do improvements here, the Texas forces are going to do improvements here and we're standing in the midst of one of the reconstructed improvements, a lunette guarding the main gate. There would have been a two-pounder or excuse me, a four-pound and six-pound guns inside the lunette, but one of the more interesting aspects I like here about the lunette is that it's one of the few places in the Alamo proper, in the compound, where you actually can see interlocking fields of fire. The gun here that was placed facing off to the east could catch an assaulting force attacking from the south and enfilade fire as they approach the palisade and we're going to visit the palisade, the reconstructed palisade in just a few minutes. Now, as we're continuing on here through the main gate, we see this wonderful reconstruction and displays here and interpretation that our friends at the Alamo have installed here. Uh we're also walking through and you're going to see it uh a statue of one of the famous defenders of the Alamo here to my right as we come in.

[00:02:08]There's James Bowie, known as one of the most legendary knife fighters or the most legendary knife fighter in the Southwest. Bowie is a co-commander of the Alamo garrison. He's going to come down with uh some type of ailment. We don't know exactly sure what, typhoid, typhoid pneumonia, consumption, tuberculosis, but he is going to be on his sick bed he actually here in this area where the statue is located. He's going to spend uh the bulk of the 13-day siege in uh the bed occasionally coming out to help rally the men and in spirit uh lift up the spirits of the uh defenders. Uh continuing on if you were to reach the main gate, if you're an attacking force getting through the main gate, you would have run into two uh 3-lb guns behind a barricade facing toward the main gate if that uh fortification was penetrated. Over to the left you're going to see some scaffolding uh there. That's another one of those reconstructed portions of the Alamo compound. That is where the famous 18-pounder would have been, the Southwest corner of the gate facing the town and commanding the town.

[00:03:13]From there, moving from right to left through much of the construction that you see here today and this is going to be the new Alamo Welcome Center, new visitor center and museum that's going to be opening up in 2028. I don't know about you, but I'm already booking my tickets to come back to San Antonio to see uh that uh fantastic new facility that they're going to open. But as you make your way along the West Wall, again you're facing toward San Antonio, you would have uh run into uh the blacksmith shop and artillery shop that was built on into uh one of the old mission houses that was here. Uh the Texans are actually going to position a 12-lb grenade just a little ways north facing west toward the town of the artillery and blacksmith shop. From there, you're going to have where William Travis's headquarters. He's the commander of the Alamo garrison. Then on the opposite side of Travis's headquarters is a 6-lb gun that is positioned to fire actually through a hole cut in the wall. From there, you get to the northeast corner. There's a 9-lb gun and a 6-lb gun at the northeast corner. The 9-pounder we think faced toward the west, toward the town. The 6-pounder faced to the north. Then moving around to the north, you're at the north wall.

[00:04:25]And it's at the north wall where much of the wall structure has fallen into disrepair. There's a lot of damage that is going to be inflicted upon it by the Texas forces during the siege here in the fall and into December of 1835.

[00:04:41]But from there, facing to the north, you have another gun platform facing to the north, a couple of 9-pounders and a 6-pounder. Then moving over to the right, and that command post or that gun position I had just mentioned would have been roughly in the area where the steps of the federal courthouse building is located.

[00:05:01]That's also going to be where William Travis is going to fall on the morning of March 6, 1836. Shot through the head, probably one of the first Alamo defenders to perish during the final assault. Then moving making our way around to the right, you have the long barrack. This would have extended even farther toward the federal courthouse. At the time of the siege and battle, the long barrack, the old mission convento, was about two stories in height. That is where the Texans kept their granary, their storehouses. They kept an arsenal in there, extra ammunition, as well as a hospital, which was based on the second floor of the convent. Now, we're also walking into a rather interesting area here. You're going to see the iconic facade of the Alamo, the mission itself, and the church. But we are standing in an area where there was actually a kitchen that's uh stretched uh sort of north from the low barrack. Uh there was a low wall and then an opening to get actually into the uh courtyard in front of the church itself. We think the Texans may have placed a four-pounder to guard that opening. Now, moving around to the right, we're going to move around to see probably the most famous of all the Alamo defenders or at least the statue of him uh and well as some more of the reconstruction work that our friends at the Alamo have uh done here. And, you can see probably coming up right just ahead of you is a statue of the most famous frontiersman probably of the 19th century, David Crockett. David Crockett and his men, the Tennessee Mounted Volunteers as they were so named, were given uh the assignment by Colonel Travis to defend about a 115-ft stretch of uh palisaded wall that stretched between the Alamo uh chapel and the low barrack itself. The Texans are going to place a four-pounder here. They're going to have palisaded stakes placed in the ground roughly about uh with a height of about 10 ft or so.

[00:06:51]Beyond that, there was a uh small ditch and then beyond that abatis or uh trees with their branches uh sharpened and facing toward an attacking enemy. At the near corner of the Alamo church, the Texans constructed a uh observation post so they can have a 360° panoramic view of the surrounding uh landscape. Now, the final elements uh of the uh fortifications are going to be inside the church itself. Uh there were not any doors at the time of the siege. We believe that the doors or the entrance to the uh church would have been uh sandbagged. After you moved over that sand the sandbags, you would have walked up a very long ramp to a point at the rear of the church where the Texans placed two six-pounders and one 12-pounder facing east to defend the eastern approaches to the complex. On the other side of the connecting wall, uh you would have had uh come into uh the old mission courtyard as well as uh beyond just beyond that in the courtyard. There you see uh the beautiful, in fact, oak tree beyond that courtyard where the horse and cattle pens the Texans would have had a four-pounder facing roughly off to the northeast uh from the uh the area where the horse and cattle pens were located.

[00:08:08]Now, I'd like to thank you all for watching and uh coming along on this very brief journey. Go back and take a look at some of our other videos from our Texas wing. Like, subscribe, share these videos with your friends. And for Chris White behind the camera, and my Gary Adelman, our friends at the Alamo, I'm Dan Davis. Thank you all for watching and thank you all for supporting Battlefield Education and Preservation.

[00:08:36]Hello, this is Trace Adkins.

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