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The Men Behind the Alamo Diary
Alumni Charles Tate and Tom Hicks Donate Rare Manuscript to UT
Last December Tom Hicks and Charles Tate added to a strong record of University giving when they purchased the rare diary of a Mexican soldier from Santa Anna’s army and donated it to UT. The 700-page journal of Lt. Col. José Enrique de la Peña offers a first-hand record of events during the Texas Revolution, including the storming of the Alamo and a controversial version of Davy Crockett’s death.
“Charles is the hero here, he was the one who had the real passion,” says Hicks. “We were flying to Boston when he saw a feature in the New York Times about the diary. He said it would be a real a shame if it ended up being purchased by someone who was not in the state of Texas.”
Tate called a an auction to bid on their behalf in Los Angeles, where the diary was going up for sale. Four hours and $388,000 later, Hicks and Tate had made UT’s latest rare book acquisition.
Tate speaks passionately about the importance of the diary, calling it a record of events “at the absolute epicenter of our Texas culture.” The account is all the more valuable for offering a Mexican perspective on those events. “One thing one learns as one gets older,” says Tate, “is that there are always two sides to every story.”
According to the diary, Davy Crockett survived the Alamo and was assassinated afterwards. This passage has attracted controversy, but the diary covers much more than Crockett’s death. Don E. Carleton, director of UT’s Center for American History, called the manuscript “one of the most important eyewitness accounts of the Texas Revolution.” Carleton is grateful the diary will be available to scholars.
Tate and his wife Judy have been major supporters of UT, particularly in the area of rare books. They recently provided lead funding for the Ransom Center to design a new space for the Gutenberg Bible. In 1976 Judy Tate’s parents, Mary John and Ralph Spence, spearheaded the original campaign to bring the Gutenberg to Texas.
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