José Enrique de la Peña

Jose Enrique de la Peña (1807-1840) was a colonel in the Mexican Army. Under General Antonio López de Santa Anna, de la Peña participated in the Battle of the Alamo.

In 1955, a book of his memoirs of the battle, 'With Santa Anna in Texas, was published in Spanish. The memoirs are controversial in that they said that Davy Crockett did not die fighting (as is the common belief), but instead surrendered (along with his Tennessee boys) during the battle of the Alamo and was later executed. Historians disagree on whether the memoirs are accurate.

Life De la Peña was born in Jalisco, Mexico in 1807. After training as a mining engineer, he entered the Mexican Navy in 1825, as a cadet first-class. Within two years he was promoted to second lieutenant, and in 1827 he requested an assignment as part of the Mexican Legation to a European country. The assignment was not granted. Between July and November 1828, he wrote a series of articles for El Sol. Published under the pseudonym "Lover of the Navy", the articles were highly critical of David Porter, the American-born commander of the Mexican navy. Later that year, de la Peña travelled to Veracruz to report for sea duty. During his journey he met Antonio López de Santa Anna, the commander of the state of Vera Cruz. He did not follow the order, later explaining that he was ill. By the end of the year he reported for duty on the corvette Morales.

When Santa Anna assumed power in 1833 de la Peña requested a commission as a lieutenant colonel in the Mexican Army. He was granted a post as captain of a cavalry unit. After unsuccessful attempts to change his assignment to France, de la Peña withdrew his request and instead asked to become a part of the Federal Division of the President. He was transferred to the Federal Division in December 1833, but in May 1834 he requested to be assigned to the Mexican Legation in the United States; this request was denied. After the Battle of the Alamo, de la Peña saw no further action. And all of them testified to his brave actions in the Alamo death fight, hence they all agreed to write recommendation affidavits testifying to De la Pena's brave conduct in the Alamo battle. In December 1836 de la Peña was in Mexico City, where he testified in the inquiry into the actions of General Vicente Filisola during the army's retreat from Texas. De la Peña joined Urrea in an uprising to overthrow Santa Anna and restore the Constitution of 1824. While De la Pena was in Texas, he had kept a diary which was not published till 1955. It was located by researcher J. Sanchez Garza and subsequently translated into English by Carmen Perry of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.

Imprisoned in 1838, following his involvement in the Urrea rising, De la Peña was freed in 1840 and discharged from military service. Suffering from poor health he is believed to have died shortly thereafter. There is no reference to his name in surviving records after that year.

Alamo memoirs While in prison, de la Peña wrote an article about some of his experiences fighting in Texas. This article contained de la Peña's first mention of the execution of Texian survivors at the Alamo, but did not mention names of any of those executed and did not claim that de la Peña was an eyewitness. In 1975 the Texas A&M University Press published an English translation of the book, called With Santa Anna in Texas: A Personal Narrative of the Revolution. The English publication caused a scandal within the United States as it asserted that Crockett did not die in battle. Garza never explained how he gained custody of the documents or where they were stored after de la Peña's death. Historic illustrator Joseph Musso also questions the validity, also basing his suspicions on the timing of the diaries' release. However, James Crisp, a history professor from North Carolina State University, has studied the papers and is convinced they are genuine. In October 2001, in a Southwestern Historical Quarterly article, Dr. David B. Gracy II, and his science team, attested to the authenticity of De la Peña's work. This analysis found that the type of ink and paper used in the manuscript was used by the Mexican military in the 1830's, and that the handwriting matched that of de la Peña's in other archived Mexican military documents. The original manuscript, consisting of 200 loose pages, was auctioned in 1998 for $387,500. It now resides at the Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin.