I might have paid more attention if my Texas History lessons had been more like this book. But then, I suppose such a candid examination of the characters and motivations of the real people who created our history would not have been considered suitable subject matter for junior high school students.

Despite its subtitle (The Mexican and U.S. Fight for the Alamo), Duel of Eagles is really about the Texas revolution, covering a period of history from Andrew Jackson’s inauguration in 1829 to Santa Anna’s death in 1876. It could be considered a revisionist history, using original sources that proponents of a heroic Texas origin story may disregard or consider unreliable. Some critics of the book claim the author is pro-Mexican, but it seems to me that he is simply giving equal weight to Mexican sources and doesn’t hesitate to skewer the characters and actions of Mexicans and Tejanos as much as the Anglo-Americans. He notes where there are conflicting accounts of events and provides the reader with 71 pages of footnotes and bibliography to document his sources.

Altogether, it’s an entertaining and horrifying account of the Texas journey from Mexican province to independent republic to annexation into the United States, blowing up myths of heroic deeds and high-minded Texians seeking freedom from oppression along the way. At some point, it got a little wearisome, because, yes, we get it, this was really just a combination of speculative land-grabbing by non-residents and a push to preserve the slave state and part of the precursor to Manifest Destiny, but I started to feel as though we were beating a dead horse by the time Santa Anna surrendered at San Jacinto.

Hardcover, received as a gift from my father in 1994, who was an amateur Texas history buff. And a little surprising that he gifted it to me, as the views of the author don’t seem to fit his. How I wish I had actually read this when he was living, so I could have asked him about it. But history and the Wild West mythos didn’t interest me then, and I forgot I even had this until he passed away in January. Now it’s too late, and I can only read his books and remember him.
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This book is the story of the Texas War of Independence not just the fight for the Alamo. The author examines the motives of major players on both sides of this conflict from Santa Anna to Sam Houston as well as the economic and historical background of the time. He portrays the Texas side as greedy speculators and land-grabbers, con artists and frauds. The Mexican side gets off better in his view. ( )

Duel of Eagles

I have to admit that the reputation of this book preceded it. I had read on several sites and boards that Long was attacking the hallowed heroes of Texas history and was therefore to be cast aside. Get thee behind me, Long!

I have a deep dislike for the whole deconstructionist viewpoint that’s been in vogue with the academic set and I eagerly await the day when they grow out of it. This is not to say that I only want to read hagiographic depictions of history, it’s just that I think the Western tradition is valuable and should not be thrown under the wheels of multiculturalism. But I like to hear the truth. It’s valuable to teach what actually happened, there’s just no need to be nasty about it. Sure George Washington owned slaves, but does that mean everything he accomplished was evil? Just because you were a rich white man doesn’t mean that what you accomplished was worthless. But I digress. . .

I was just itching to hate this book. I looked forward to being outraged and disappointed. But once I started reading, I couldn’t put the book down. Long has written an excellent overview of Texas history. He has drawn on numerous sources to tell the tale of the Texas Revolution, which coupled with his flowing narrative style, make this book a necessary component of any Texana library. Long has an enviable ability to craft very evocative phrases; one of my favorites is “the Texians wallowed in their freedom like pigs in mud.” That’s good stuff.

However, Long is handicapped by his deconstructionist viewpoint. Not only must he offset the pro-Anglo history of the past, he has to swing just as far the other way to make them look as bad as possible. Therefore, Houston becomes an opium addict, Travis a suicidal dreamer unable to lead men, and Bowie is just plain nasty. Even Santa Anna gets smeared to a lesser extent. It’s like everyone was bad, bad, bad. I’m the first to admit that the Texans fighting in the revolution were there for one reason: money. I don’t think you can find a revolution where financial incentives were not a leading cause of the fight. There is no reason to continually refer to the men fighting for Texas independence as mercenaries other than to make them look bad to modern readers. The Mexican side was fighting to keep Texas in the Mexican quasi-Republic for the same reasons the Texans were fighting to leave, it’s just that the Mexican troops would never directly benefit from the war, just their leaders.

Long also contradicts himself several times in the book. First, the common Mexican infantryman is an untrained piece of cannonfodder forced into the Army, then he’s suddenly a well-trained, patriotic soldier. More importantly, he often notes the unreliability of first-person accounts which detail what the Texians were fighting for, then turns around and presents first-person accounts which support his theories as undisputable facts. Just a comparison of Filisola’s and de la Pena’s works shows that facts were rather mutable things in the mid to late 1800s.

He also makes several misrepresentations. Mexican presidial troops are presented as latter-day special forces when the were routinely victimized by Indian raiders who stole their horses and livestock, were often not paid for years on end, and were thought of as borderline criminals by their own officers. These are the shock troops Santa Anna took with him to run down the Texian dogs only to be overrun and exterminated by a bunch of greedy, drunk, opium-addicted, undisciplined rabble at San Jacinto. Long really needs to make up his mind.

Reviewing what I have written so far, it seems that I found more faults than good in the book, but that’s not the case. This is a valuable book for any person interested in Texas history and is extremely readable. I would recommend it for all who have a basic grounding in Texas history, but not for newcomers to the field. Read something a bit less nihilistic first. ( )