from under gods wing enrique esparzas account of the battle of the alamo
enrique esparza was a boy who survived the alamo massacre and told his story completely only when an old man to a newspaper reporter . the account was published in san antonio in a series of articles which are recreated at book length in from under gods wing by paul j. lyon . the premise of this history fiction novel which contains extensive footnotes is that the manuscript was suppressed for a century as being contrary to the popular conceptions about the famous battle . the majority of the footnotes are excerpts from travel books journals novels poems and first person accounts of the early 1800s . esparza sketches the details of the alamo fight from the ground up filling it in with the similar descriptions by these others of the same era the reader is introduced to the slang common food clothing and attitudes of the people trapped in the fort for 12 days of siege discusses why the men decided to stay and die and reveals a blow by blow account of the battle itself .