Here Is Where: Discovering America's Great Forgotten History (52 page)

The State Department served as the Declaration’s primary custodian, and the document’s well-deserved rest was abruptly interrupted during the War of 1812, when British troops stormed Washington on August 24, 1814, and torched every federal building in sight (except the Patent Office, which, in 1836, we proved perfectly capable of burning down on our own, thank you very much). The day before the attack, a quick-thinking State Department clerk named Stephen Pleasonton crammed the Declaration and other official materials into coarse linen sacks and hid them in an abandoned gristmill just outside of Georgetown. After borrowing a wagon from local farmers, he hurried to Leesburg, Virginia, some thirty-five miles away, and kept the Declaration in a private home. It returned to the capital several weeks later.

Secretary of State Daniel Webster transferred the Declaration in 1841 to the new “fire-proof” Patent Office, a seemingly secure choice. Unfortunately, though, the document was hung opposite a large window in a bright hallway, where it stayed—exposed to direct sunlight—for thirty-five years, causing permanent discoloration and fading. The Declaration was returned to the State Department in 1877 and just
in time; months later the Patent Office once again went up in flames. (The damage was extensive but not nearly as bad as in 1836.) The State Department entrusted the Declaration to the Library of Congress in 1903, and by then the document was deemed too fragile to be displayed and remained out of view for twenty-one years.

As conservation techniques improved over the decades, curators felt confident that the Declaration could be showcased publicly again, and on February 28, 1924, it was placed in the Library of Congress’s Great Hall between double-paned, hermetically sealed glass. Three weeks after America declared war on Japan and Germany in December 1941, the Declaration was scuttled out of Washington and taken by train to the Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky. It came back to the Great Hall in October 1944.

When the Declaration was finally delivered to the National Archives on December 13, 1952, the military pulled out all the stops. A twelve-man team of the U.S. Armed Forces Special Police carried both the Declaration and the U.S. Constitution, which were enclosed in a special helium-filled glass case, down the front steps of the Library of Congress and into an armored Marine Corps personnel carrier. The vehicle and its cargo were then escorted by machine-gun-toting soldiers and two light tanks along a parade route lined with Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine, and Navy service members. This was a far cry from the days when the engrossed copy was tossed into burlap bags and carted around on rickety horse-drawn wagons.

Remodeled in 2003, the National Archives Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom currently holds the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, all shielded behind bulletproof antiglare glass, framed by pure titanium and gold plating. Inside the airtight casing, argon gas maintained at 67 degrees Fahrenheit (give or take 2 degrees) prevents further deterioration, and the encasement can be lowered into a bomb- and earthquake-proof vault at a moment’s notice. Each year more than a million people, Americans and foreigners alike, view the Charters of Freedom.

·  ·  ·

Nine South Ninth Street in Philadelphia has been paved over and is now a street-level parking lot. I will say, this certainly makes visiting the spot a breeze. There’s no need to rent a boat or helicopter, no permissions have to be secured, it’s visible twenty-four hours a day in good weather or bad, and photographing a bunch of parked cars doesn’t elicit the same censure that snapping pictures of a prison, a military base, or a hospital does. A few passersby have looked at me quizzically, wondering what exactly I find so fascinating here, but mostly I’m met with indifference.

That Leary’s was destroyed in the name of urban expansion isn’t particularly shocking. It was not, after all, as historic as other local sites such as Congress Hall just a few blocks away, where the First United States Congress met in 1790 and the Bill of Rights was ratified; the President’s House on Sixth and Market Streets, which was inhabited by George Washington and then John Adams before the White House was built (and this was the same mansion Ona Judge fled from in 1796); or, venturing out of Philadelphia, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello in Virginia, Fraunces Tavern in New York City, or Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.

What did surprise me, prior to coming here, was learning how many iconic American landmarks—
including
Congress Hall, the President’s House, Monticello, Fraunces Tavern, and Ford’s Theatre—have either been slated for destruction in the interest of commercial development or come irreparably close to utter ruin due to apathy and neglect. The President’s House actually was torn down, and the other buildings would have been razed or condemned if preservationists hadn’t jumped to their defense.

A U.S. Navy officer named Uriah Levy almost single-handedly saved Monticello in 1836, when he bought Jefferson’s crumbling and forlorn estate in order to restore its former grandeur. The Colonial Dames of America prevented the demolition of Congress Hall in 1870, and thirty years later the Daughters of the American Revolution spared
Fraunces Tavern from being flattened to make room for a parking lot. Ford’s Theatre had fallen into such disrepair by the end of the nineteenth century that on June 9, 1893, twenty-two government clerks inside the building (which, by then, had become a War Department annex after serving as a glorified warehouse) were crushed to death when the entire front section collapsed. Today, all of these sites are well-maintained and protected national landmarks.

Rescuing old structures is tedious, unglamorous work that often involves tangling with local bureaucracies, filling out endless paperwork, getting petitions signed, and mastering arcane city ordinances and zoning laws. On rare occasions, though, these efforts explode into dramatic clashes, and in the history of the preservation movement, no battle has become more of a public spectacle than the fight to save a former Spanish mission deep in the heart of Texas, my next destination.

Its name, appropriately enough, is synonymous with defiance against overwhelming odds.

It is, of course, the Alamo.

BARRICADED IN A
freezing, rat-infested room inside the Alamo, the lone defender had gone almost three days without food, water, or
sleep after armed men had positioned themselves around the compound. Word of the standoff ricocheted across America, prompting a deluge of supportive messages for the fatigued but tenacious holdout.
WIN OR LOSE, WE CONGRATULATE YOU UPON YOUR SPLENDID PATRIOTISM AND COURAGE
, read one telegram from New York signed by John B. Adams, a descendant of President John Adams. Editors from the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
wired San Antonio:
COMMANDANT OF THE ALAMO.… WILL YOU SEND THROUGH THE POST-DISPATCH A MESSAGE TO THE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS, WHO ARE WATCHING WITH GREAT INTEREST YOUR OWN GALLANT DEFENSE OF THE ALAMO
?

The “commandant” was no military officer but a twenty-five-year-old Texas schoolteacher named Adina De Zavala, who had commenced her one-woman siege on February 10, 1908. De Zavala replied to the
Post-Dispatch
:

De Zavala’s impassioned statement echoed the urgent message William Barret Travis had dashed off seventy-two years earlier on February 24, 1836, when his two hundred Texian and Tejano rebels were fortified inside the old mission, surrounded by several thousand Mexican troops serving under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna. (Anglo Texans originally called themselves Texians; Tejanos were settlers of Mexican ancestry.) Travis, a twenty-six-year-old lieutenant colonel, had assumed command of the garrison after Colonel James Bowie was stricken with an incapacitating illness.

“To the People of Texas and All Americans in the World,” Travis wrote:

Carried past the Mexican lines by Captain Albert Martin, Travis’s plea was copied and widely disseminated. The
Texas Republican
published a version of the letter on March 2, and the
Telegraph & Texas Register
reprinted it on March 5.

Reinforcements did come, but the support was too little, too late. Before sunrise on March 6, General Santa Anna ordered his troops to invade, and they caught Travis’s men by surprise; Mexican soldiers had snuck up on the fort’s sentinels, exhausted after nearly two weeks of
constant bombardment, and stabbed them to death before they could sound an alarm.

Awakened by crackling gunfire and cries of “Viva Santa Anna!” the Alamo’s defenders grabbed their loaded rifles and scrambled into position. Travis was shot dead early on after exposing himself to enemy fire while leaning over one of the main walls. Santa Anna’s troops first breached the Alamo’s north side, and when the Texians and Tejanos tried to repel the swarming invaders, the southern end became vulnerable and within minutes the defenders were being hit from every direction. Most retreated into the small church and long barracks and, in their haste, failed to spike the cannons, enabling Mexican soldiers to swivel them around and blast the buildings at close range. According to legend, Davy Crockett remained in the courtyard and, when his ammunition ran out, swung his rifle like a club and fought hand-to-hand before being overpowered. Colonel Bowie, delirious and barely able to move, was reportedly shot in his bed.

The battle was over by sunup, and Santa Anna’s men methodically walked the grounds ramming their bayonets into any body that showed a flicker of life. Wives and children of the Texians and Tejanos, who had survived by hiding in the church’s sacristy, were spared, and Santa Anna instructed them to return home and spread the word about his victory.

They did, but far from inciting fear, as Santa Anna had hoped, stories about the slaughter sparked an uproar and brought in droves of new volunteers eager to fight for Texas’s independence. “[Had Santa Anna] treated the vanquished with moderation and generosity,” the
New York Post
declared, “it would have been difficult if not impossible to awaken that general sympathy for the people of Texas which now impels so many adventurous and ardent spirits to throng to the aid of their brethren.”

Hollering “Remember the Alamo!” 900 soldiers led by General Sam Houston descended on Santa Anna’s 1,400 troops encamped along the San Jacinto River outside of what is now La Porte, Texas, on April 21, 1836. Santa Anna knew that Houston’s men were nearby but never
expected an attack in broad daylight from a numerically inferior force. The Battle of San Jacinto resulted in one of the most lopsided triumphs in American history; approximately 650 of Santa Anna’s men were killed, while Houston, who led the infantry charge and was himself wounded, lost only 9.

More than 700 Mexicans, including Santa Anna, were taken prisoner as well. The self-anointed “Napoléon of the West” had valiantly tried to evade capture by stripping down to his silk underwear and hiding in a local marsh. Though urged by his men to sling a rope around Santa Anna’s neck and hang him from the nearest tree, Houston chose to spare his life, and the two men signed a treaty that called for the withdrawal of Mexican forces from Texas.

(Between 1837 and 1855, Santa Anna became president of—and was exiled from—Mexico three times. He temporarily retired to Staten Island, New York, where he imported a sweet, sticky substance from the Mexican sapodilla tree that inventor Thomas Adams turned into a popular confection called Chiclets. Before dying in 1876, Santa Anna, conqueror of the Alamo, helped introduce chewing gum to America.)

Throughout Sam Houston’s April 1836 negotiations with Santa Anna at San Jacinto, one of Houston’s interpreters and most trusted advisors was a forty-seven-year-old Tejano named Lorenzo de Zavala—Adina De Zavala’s grandfather. (And yes, the
de
in his name is generally lowercase, while hers is spelled De.) Elected governor to one of the largest territories in Mexico in 1832, he was appointed by President Santa Anna to be the first Mexican plenipotentiary to France in 1833. De Zavala resigned his post in protest, however, when Santa Anna revealed himself to be a vainglorious dictator. De Zavala moved to Texas, fell in love with the territory, and fervently advocated for its right to be an autonomous nation. He signed the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 3, 1836, and participated in drafting Texas’s constitution two weeks later. Impressed by his loyalty and political acumen, de Zavala’s fellow delegates picked him to be the republic’s first vice president. After assisting Houston at San Jacinto, he returned to his home in Buffalo Bayou, less than a mile from the battlefield (his house,
in fact, had served as a makeshift hospital for the wounded). While out rowboating that November, he tumbled into the bayou’s chilly waters and later succumbed to a fatal case of pneumonia.