Eyewitness to the Alamo

Revised Edition

By: Bill Groneman

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis

Eyewitness to the Alamo is the actual account of the siege and Battle of the Alamo by those who were present during the attack. This book is the first complete accounting of the Battle of the Alamo by one of our country's foremost authorities on the event. Contains over 100 descriptions of the Battle of the Alamo by people who were witnesses or who claimed to have witnessed the event. These accounts are the basis for all of the histories, traditions, myths, and legends of this famous battle. Many are conflicting, some are highly suspect as to authenticity, but all are intriguing.

©2001 Bill Groneman (P)2017 Recorded Books

Few opinions, just raw documentation from the Alamo witnesses

This was a fascinating listen and truly puts into perspective how muddled the story of the Alamo truly is. There are few accounts that line up, whether due to language barriers, propaganda, memory loss, or the passage of time. Definitely worth the read if you like history.

The only drawback is that this book does not give context to the overall war, so some background is needed to understand the narratives.

I think it could have also done a better job of keeping track of recurring characters between eyewitness accounts. For example, we hear of one account mentioning an unnamed female witness inside the Alamo. Another account will name the female witness as Susanna Dickinson. Does the author believe this is the same person? Why or why not?

Some analysis would be helpful in allowing the reader to understand and contextualize these accounts.

The letters you've always heard about!

As a kid from San Antonio, I've always been interested in the history of the Alamo. You can't go five minutes talking about the Alamo before someone brings up a letter someone who was in the Alamo, knew someone in the Alamo, fought with Santa Anna, fought with Travis, knew how Davy Crockett died.

There are lots of letters about the Alamo. This book has them all. A lot of them tell significantly different versions of the story. The book includes the famous (or infamous) de la Peña letters.

I would go so far as to say that anyone interested in the Battle of the Alamo should read this book first, so you will already be familiar with the letters on which most Alamo related history books are based.

Jonathan Davis does an outstanding job of bringing the text to life! He is clearly bilingual, as his accent and pronunciation of the Spanish language documents is outstanding.

Highly recommended.