Contrary to movie and legend, we now know that the defenders of the Alamo in the war for Texan independence—including Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and William B. Travis—did not die under brilliant sunlight, defending their positions against hordes of Mexican infantry. Instead, the Mexicans launched a predawn attack, surmounting the walls in darkness, forcing a wild melee inside the fort before many of its defenders had even awoken.

In this book, Dr. Tucker, after deep research into recently discovered Mexican accounts and forensic evidence, informs us that the traditional myth of the Alamo is even more off-base: most of the Alamo’s defenders died in breakouts from the fort, cut down by Santa Anna’s cavalry that was positioned to intercept the escapees. A number of the Alamo’s defenders did hang on inside the fort, fighting back every way they could, but most of the Texans, in two groups, broke out of the fort after the enemy had broken in, and the primary fights took place on the plain outside.

Still fighting desperately, the Texans’ retreat was halted by cavalry, and afterward, Mexican lancers plied their trade with charges into the midst of the remaining resisters. Notoriously, Santa Anna burned the bodies of the Texans who had dared stand against him. But as this book proves in thorough detail, the funeral pyres were well outside the fort—where the two separate groups of escapees fell on the plain, rather than in the Alamo itself.