Themes
Harrigan is more concerned with history than myth, and he re-creates the Texas of the early 19th century and puts into human terms the story of this struggle by Texas to separate itself from its mother country. Through the experiences of Harrigan's characters, readers witness the inevitable consequences when governments, ethnic groups and individuals cannot or will not understand each other.
Even if the real story of the Alamo is something less than the legend, to Harrigan it is no less powerful or inspiring. The Alamo story is part of America's heritage of fighting tyranny. "The Alamo as an icon speaks to an ideal that I think is very legitimate and very alive and transcends all sorts of cultural and ethnic boundaries," Harrigan said. "The ideal is that there is something worth dying for, there is something you would willingly give your life for.
"Whether that's the liberation of Texas from Mexico or the stealing of Texas from Mexico or any other enterprise is kind of irrelevant. What matters is that people have faith in that concept. That's why people remember the Alamo -- because that ideal is worth remembering."
Also part of Harrigan's novel is the tension between mythology and revisionism. He had been intent on writing a novel about the Alamo since he was a boy, but in the intervening years he discovered some myths he learned as a child were probably not true. Early in the book he dispels the story of Travis drawing a line in the dirt with his sword to challenge his men to fight to their deaths for freedom.
"That moment to me is the linchpin of the Alamo myth," he said. "Once that is gone and once that idea of deliberate self-sacrifice is gone, the Alamo story becomes a human story and not a mythical one. You realize these guys were not intent on dying. They were intent on living."
In the author's note at the end of the book, he writes, "Many find themselves surprised by some of the details in this book and assume that they are errors of fact or simply the careless filigree of a novelist's imagination...In the writing of this book, I have not been whimsical with the facts...When I began The Gates of the Alamo, I made a pledge of absolute fidelity to the truth of the events."
He joins the debate over the diary of Mexican Lt. Jose Enrique de la Pena, which tells of the surrender and subsequent execution of Crockett. Forgery or not, he says, it is a "document of dubious historical veracity. It becomes less impressive with every reading." The debate over this diary, Harrigan explains, is sometimes particularly heated because "it matters to people how Davy Crockett died."
And he sides with historian Thomas Ricks Lindley that the number of defenders at the Alamo should be amended from the traditional 183 to at least 254. There is evidence that Crockett left the Alamo late in the siege to meet reinforcements and guide them to the fort.
Harrigan wasn't satisfied with the folklore version of the Alamo. "I kept wondering what it was really like," he said. "What would it have been like to be there? To see the sights? To experience the cold, the pain, the illnesses, the bombardments, all the things these people went through on both sides of the wall?"
