Civil War Era

Markings are clues to Alamo's past

Alamo officials have discovered a clue to the building's mysterious past, right over the doorway some 3 million visitors pass through each year.

Experts believe “1802” might have been scratched into the wall when the Alamo was a mission under Spanish rule, or perhaps decades later, after the U.S. Army added a second floor and roof in the mid-1800s.

Or, as Alamo historian and curator Bruce Winders suggests, it could have been left by an Alamo defender who kept watch from a ledge by a window during the 1836 siege and decided to mark the year of his birth.

More than likely, it's evidence of a little-known period between 1793, when Mission San Antonio de Valero was secularized; and 1803, when Spanish troops began to occupy the former mission that later would be known as the Alamo, Winders said.

“If you look at historic graffiti at face value, people usually put the date when they did it,” he said. “Americans at that time were kind of notorious for leaving behind something that says, ‘I was here.'”

The Alamo's on-site conservator, Pam Jary Rosser, made the discovery last week while removing dust and mold from a wall with a sponge and distilled water.

She spotted the date, the earliest ever found in the building, etched in numbers nearly an inch high into the mission-era plaster and limestone wall.

Also by the window above the Alamo's main doorway were etchings of “WVA,” and what appears to be “54” or “SA,” and “TEX.” Since “W” rarely is used in Spanish, and West Virginia didn't become a state until 1863, Winders could not explain the markings.

The find was the latest of several intriguing discoveries Rosser has made while working as the Alamo's on-site conservator for more than a year.

As a contractor in 2009, she uncovered an arched doorway leading to one of the side rooms of the Alamo that dates to the 1700s. She and her mother, Cisi Jary , also discovered remnants of mission-era frescoes about a decade ago.

Rosser said it's exhilarating to find clues to the past at the Alamo, which is filled with markings and etchings, including many that can be seen only with ultraviolet lamps.

Some historic graffiti she's uncovered might date to the Civil War era. Alamo officials believe markings in ink or paint might have been left by the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secretive organization in the South that had a chapter in San Antonio.

Thursday's announcement of the discovery came less than a week after Gov. Rick Perry signed a bill giving the state oversight of the Alamo for the first time in 106 years.

A Reenactment of Civil War Era Reconnaissance Ballooning | Around ...

One hundred and fifty years ago on June 18, President Abraham Lincoln received a telegram from an unusual place: a gas balloon floating 500 feet above Washington, D.C. The message, sent through a cable connected to the ground, described the view of the capital city from high above. The Smithsonian Institution’s first secretary Joseph Henry, an advisor to balloonist Thaddeus Lowe, and his daughter Mary Henry observed the balloon’s controlled flight.

“About sundown he [Lowe] moved majestically along through the air to the President’s grounds, the balloon drawn by a crowd of men and boys,” Mary Henry wrote in her diary, describing the tethered balloon being pulled along the National Mall. “He seemed to be enjoying his ride greatly.”

With this attention-grabbing stunt, Lowe was determined to prove to Lincoln that balloons would be valuable military reconnaissance tools. He got what he wanted— in October 1861, the president created the Union Army Balloon Corps, which was used for surveillance throughout the Civil War.

This Saturday, the National Air and Space Museum commemorates the event on the National Mall by inflating a gas balloon similar to the ones used by Lowe, and allowing visitors to interact with Lincoln, Lowe and Mary Henry themselves (portrayed by actors, of course). There will also be presentations about ballooning and espionage during the war, and hands-on activities and tours inside the museum.

“We think it is really neat that an event of importance in the history of flight in America took place on the Mall just a few hundred feet in front of the present location of the museum, a building dedicated to the past, present and future of flight in America,” said Tom Crouch, a senior curator at the museum and the man in charge of coordinating the event.

“It is a chance to remind visitors of the role that the Smithsonian has played in the history of flight,” Crouch said, “from the time of Joseph Henry and T.S.C. Lowe, through the early advice and publications that helped provide the foundation for the Wright brothers, to the financial and publication assistance offered to Robert Hutchings Goddard, who not only explained the theoretical possibility of space flight, but built and flew the world’s first liquid propellant rockets.”

The event will take place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, June 11, on the Mall in front of the National Air and Space Museum. The museum will also be hosting a scholarly conference on Civil War ballooning on June 17, from 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM in its Lockheed Martin Theater.

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