An Altar For Their Sons: The Alamo and the Texas Revolution in Contemporary Newspaper Accounts is a collection of rare documentary materials, the great majority of them not seen or referenced since their dates of original publication.       This book has been designed to serve several audiences, among them the scholar, serious student, casual buff, and general reader, all of whom will find much that is "new" here in terms of the history of the Alamo siege and battle, of the Texas Revolution in general, and of the lives of the people involved, not to mention the events that both preceded and followed that conflict.           Aside from the book's primary focus, the battle of the Alamo, this collection includes on-the-spot accounts of most of the other engagements, skirmishes and massacres, descriptions of the forts, towns, and geography, and information concerning the armies, weapons and clothing involved. There are also word sketches of the appearances of such important figures as David Crockett, James Bowie, and Santa Anna that have apparently eluded modern biographers. Included, too, are many anecdotes of their lives, both in and out of Texas, and descriptions of pieces of their personal property handed down in the postwar years. Newspaper accounts from later decades present interviews with survivors, or their obituaries, and descriptions of the Alamo itself as it evolved from a weed-choked ruin into an iconic shrine.      The book contains several dozen original illustrations by the author, each one explained in-depth with a footnoted, essay-long "caption". There is also a newly created pictorial representation of the entire Alamo compound as it looked in February and March 1836, accompanied by a lengthy analysis of the fortifications based on a re-examination of the old evidence and a dissection of newly found information.     Included photographs of selected Alamo- and Texas Revolution-related relics from the extraordinary collection of singer Phil Collins.