Goofs

When Sam Houston enters the town of Franklin and has the townsfolk called together to announce that the Alamo has fallen, he's wearing a blue US Army cavalry hat with crossed swords that dates from at least the Civil War, which started in 1861. The Alamo fell in 1836.

The Battle of the Alamo was fought in 1836, but John Stroud is wearing a Stetson-type cowboy hat that wasn't even invented until 1865. It is more in appearance to the cowboy hats of the 1880s or 1890s. Many of the townspeople in Franklin are wearing clothes that are more appropriate to that period, also, rather than the mid-1830s.

The one-armed man as he exits the river at the last scenes of the movie reveals his hidden arm in the back of his pants.

The siege of the Alamo occurred in late February and early March. While South Central Texas does not get "cold" in the sense that it would in the Northern United States, temperatures in the mornings and evenings would certainly be in the 30s and even 40s Fahrenheit.

The characters in the film are clearly dressed for mid to late spring weather rather than that of late winter,

The Glenn Ford character remains clean shaven from the time he leaves the Alamo to the very end of the film, which takes place over a period of many days.

During the fight between Stroud and Cobby on the rocks before the planned attack on the wagon train, Stroud flips Cobby and pulls a gun from Cobby's left side and shoots him. Yet before that, Cobby had taken Stroud's gun because he didn't trust him and only had a knife/sheath on his left side. So where did Stroud get the gun.

The rifles shown in the film are period correct muskets. However, the sounds heard when they are fired are those of repeating rifles which were decades into future from when the film is set.

The revolvers employed by many of the characters all date from after the American Civil War (1861-1865). The film is set between the Battle of the Alamo (February/March 1836) and the Battle of San Jacinto (April, 1836).

In the sheriff's office in Franklin the picture on the wall is of Rutherford B. Hayes, President from 1877 - 1881. In 1836, when this movie takes place, Hayes was 13 years old.

While many of the costumes were period correct, several items noticeably were not. The one-armed wears a full front button shirt which was only made in the early 20th century almost 100 years after the setting of the film. Also several of the men are shown with pants with belt loops around the waistline which again was a 20th century invention.

As the families are leaving San Antonio by wagon (when Stroud was in jail), a pole with telegraph wires can be seen in the background. The film supposedly takes place in 1836, but a telegraph wasn't patented in Britain until 1837 and Morse's first demonstration of his telegraph wasn't until 1838. That same year he offered to give his invention to the new Republic of Texas but withdrew the offer after receiving no response. The first telegraph office in Texas wasn't opened until 1854.

The area shown in the film does not correspond with the areas it purportedly shows to be in Texas. Both Franklin and San Antonio were wooded and verdant areas and mostly flat at that time. The areas shown in the film are clearly the rolling and dry hills of Central California.

San Antonio, the location of the Alamo, is 200 miles BY CAR from Franklin, Texas, the setting of the film. On horseback that journey would take at least a week on horseback, especially considering the dearth of roads in that era. Much of the action in the film would not be possible given the time constraints caused by this distance.

Equally, the Houston area ( the location of the film's pivotal San Jacinto gathering of troops by Sam Houston) is roughly 150 miles and at least 2-3 days travel on horseback making some elements of the film improbable, if not impossible.

The Glenn Ford character, John Stroud, remains silent until the end of the film as to why he abandoned the Alamo, leading Sam Houston's messenger, who was present when Stroud refused to remain, to falsely regard him as a coward and a traitor and to label him as such when Stroud arrives in Franklin, turning the townspeople against him. There appears to have been no logical reason for Stroud's silence, which nearly resulted in his being lynched in the town.