My historical research is focused on the first Texas Revolution of 1811-13, but I stumble across stuff relevant to the second, more famous revolution of 1836. Here, I have successfully disproven the existance of one of the named Alamo Defenders who is in all of our history books. Actually, he DOES exist, he just got double-counted.

Carlos Espalier: The Alamo Defender Who Never Was...Sort of

Nice read. Frankly, it is surprising that they ever thought they were two people. It's like thinking that Robert Francis O'Rouke and Beto O'Rouke are different people.

Well, they sort of are.

I enjoyed the read. Sometimes these small snippets of information can connect the dots to quite larger questions.

Rongagin71 said:

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Man, I tried to slog through your post to see if a junior was involved, but quickly gave it up as too boring... or maybe it would be nicer to say too dense with stuff I don't care about.
Why do you care?
Oh, yeah, you are a Historian.
But why do you care?

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Said the guy who clicked on the link and took 10 minutes of his life to grouch

I found it interesting. Thanks for sharing! I have researched Alamo defender Lemuel Crawford....who is on the list of defenders killed on March 6. However, his name appears in numerous accounts of the Goucher Indian Massacre in Nov of 1836....as having been killed by Comanches along with his father in law, James Goucher, and 4 other family members. His wife, Jane Goucher Crawford, and 3 children were captured. According to records, She later got land for his service at the Alamo after her rescue. ***But, he couldn't have died at the Alamo and be killed by Indians and buried at the Goucher homestead 8 months later! In accounts that don't have him massacred by Indians....there are only 5 family members killed....however, the Historical Marker reads that James Goucher and FIVE family members were buried here, etc.....University of Houston did GPR on the gravesite and confirmed there are six graves....so, is he in there are not? And if not, who is the mystery person?

Of note: The Handbook of Texas has Lemuel Crawford killed in the Indian attack on the James Gotier page (Gotier,Gotcher, Goucher are all various spellings)......then on the Lemuel Crawford page of the same book/website....they have him killed at the Alamo!