Alamo Personnel - Contemporary Casualty Lists

Introduction

The effort to compile a complete list of fallen Alamo defenders has been ongoing since a few days after the battle occurred. Today, these lists are made by people with an interest in the Alamo who are driven by a passion for history and research. The first Alamo casualty lists, however, were not made by historians and researchers, but by people who were distraught over the Texian defeat at the Alamo and grief-stricken about the deaths of their family members, friends, neighbors, and countrymen. They were grateful for the sacrifice that these men made for the cause of Texas liberty and wanted to make sure their names were not forgotten. They did not look in libraries and data bases to find out who died at the Alamo, they spoke to the survivors and witnesses who were the last people to see them. They read letters from family members who said their husband or son went to San Antonio to fight for Texas and never came back home.

This article covers the three most important contemporary Alamo casualty lists. Two were compiled less than three weeks after the battle, while Texans were scrambling to get out of the Mexican army's way as it marched eastward. The third was made two or three years after the Revolution, when Texas officials needed to know which men's heirs were entitled to rewards for their loved ones' sacrifice.

William Fairfax Gray's List

William Fairfax Gray was a Virginia lawyer who had an interest in real estate. In October 1835, he left home for a trip to Texas to check out the real estate market there for potential investors, including himself. He kept a daily diary of his travels. On his way, he accepted a job of proposing a loan to the government of Texas, so he went to San Felipe, the seat of government, arriving there on February 16, 1836. At that time, delegates from across Texas were assembling at Washington-on-the-Brazos for a convention to form a new government. On February 26, letters began to arrive every few days from Lt. Colonel William Barret Travis at Bexar, reporting on the arrival of the Mexican army and making appeals for aid. On February 28, Gray was in Washington, where Travis's famous "To the People of Texas & all Americans in the world..." letter was read. Gray was present when the convention delegates passed a declaration of independence from Mexico. Travis's last letter to the convention, written on March 3, was read on March 6. On March 10, Gray and the members of the convention noticed that the letters had stopped, and became worried. The convention continued its business of writing a constitution. On March 15, letters from Sam Houston and Juan Seguin brought the news that the Alamo had fallen. On March 16, John Sutherland, who apparently left Gonzales after hearing Susanna Dickinson's report, arrived at Washington and put "the intelligence of the fall of the Alamo beyond a doubt." The following day, the delegates and members of the government began to disperse. Many joined the Runaway Scrape to the east. Gray went with them. On March 20, while Gray and his companions were at Groce's Retreat, Travis's slave, Joe, arrived. Gray listened as the members of Texas' new government questioned Joe about the events of the Alamo. After summarizing Joe's account of the final battle, Gray wrote, in his diary entry for March 20, "A list of those who fell in the Alamo, March 6, 1836, as far as they are known."

Gray's list of names has 151 lines, with one name per line, except for Line 63, which reads, "Three Taylors, Trinity" referring to brothers Edward, James, and George Taylor. Every line contains at least a surname, except for Line 126, which reads, "John (clerk in Desanque's store)." Over 100 of the names include a first name or initials, and most include a place of origin. The first 25 names on the list are officers, ordered by rank. The rest of the list is in no particular order, and has some officers included in it.

Gray does not explain how or why he made the list, but he obviously worked hard to get as much information he could. John Sutherland and Joe could have given him some names, but it seems improbable that those two sources alone would have carried all of those names, ranks, and places of origin in their heads. Sutherland, who was not in the Alamo past February 23, would not have known about the members of the Gonzales relief force, 28 of whom are on Gray's list. Obviously, Gray collected information from many of the people he became acquainted with during his time in Texas, which included Governor Henry Smith, Lieutenant Governor James Robinson, General Sam Houston, Major Robert M. Williamson, President David G. Burnett, Vice President Lorenzo de Zavala, and publisher Gail Bordon. He met Captain Juan N. Seguin, San Antonio Alcalde Francisco Ruiz, and delegate Jesse Badgett, who had all recently come from San Antonio. He knew Joseph Durst, who cared for a widowed Alamo defender's daughter. Gray's list also shows, however, that he had little to no first-hand knowledge about the people on it. His list has more misspellings, erroneous first names, erroneous places of origin, and incorrect ranks than any other contemporary list or muster roll. It also contains 11 duplicates. For example, Line 15 reads, "Lt. Dickenson, wife and child," while Line 139 reads, "Capt. A Dickerson, Gonzales." Some of Gray's duplicate entries have slight variations such as this which might indicate he thought they were two different people, but some are exactly the same, such as "Christopher Parker, Mississippi" on both Lines 33 and 110. Evidently, Gray got lists of names from multiple sources and did not successfully weed out all of the duplicates when combining them.

With the duplicates removed, Gray's list contains the names of 142 possible fallen Alamo defenders. Four men on Gray's list - (John) Ballard, Francis DeSauque, (William) Gilmore, and William Simpson - definitely did not die at the Alamo, which shows that his sources did not have the most current, up-to-date information in all cases, and were only telling him what they last knew to be true or what they assumed. John Balone, William Ellis, ____ Henderson, David Murphy, ____ Sterne, and ____ Warner are either unknown or are not recognized as fallen Alamo defenders by any authority. John the clerk, ____ (Andrew?) Smith, and (Henry) Warnell are accepted by some authorities, but not by TexasCounties.net.¹ The net result is that Gray's list provides evidence of 129 men who are on TexasCounties.net's list of fallen Alamo defenders.

Gray moved his family to Texas in 1837. He died in 1841. His son, A. C. Gray, published the diary in 1909 under the title, From Virginia to Texas. Gray's list of Alamo defenders was unknown before then. It is currently under publication as At the Birth of Texas by Copano Bay Press, 2015.

The Telegraph and Texas Register's List

The Telegraph and Texas Register, the second permanent newspaper in Texas, was founded in San Felipe, the capital of Stephen F. Austin's colony and the de facto center of government in Texas during the early 1830s. Its first issue was printed on October 10, 1835, eight days after the outbreak of the Texas Revolution. Its editor was Gail Borden Jr. Much of the paper's content, published weekly on Saturday, consisted of news about the revolution. In its March 12 issue, the Telegraph printed Travis's letter of March 3 to the convention. The Telegraph's March 19 issue has not been preserved, but the Alamo's fall was well-known in San Felipe a few days before then, so the story was most certainly covered. On March 24, the paper printed a special Thursday edition with an article entitled, "More Particulars Respecting the Fall of the Alamo." The article states that John W. Smith and Judge (Andrew) Ponton related an account of the Alamo battle as told to them by Susanna Dickinson. Following this account, the Telegraph printed a list of names which the editors said "was furnished by Mr. Jno. W. Smith, and Mr. Navon, and as we obtain more we will publish them."

The Telegraph's Alamo casualty list has 115 lines, with one name per line. As with Gray's list, the Telegraph's has surnames for all but one, "John (Cl'k in Desanque's store)." It has first names or initials for 64 men and origins for 62. It begins with 21 officers, ordered by rank, and has the remainder listed under "Privates," even though several men who follow, such as Col. J. B. Bonham and Major G. B. Jamieson, have ranks in front of their names. Only two men on the Telegraph's list are now known not to have died at the Alamo: Francis DeSauque and William Simpson. Both of these men had been in San Antonio immediately prior to Santa Anna's arrival, but at the time the Telegraph list was published, they were with Fannin's men at Goliad, where they were massacred on March 27. There are only three other men on the Telegraph's list who TexasCounties.net does not recognize as fallen Alamo defenders: the aforementioned John whose last name was unknown, but who both Gray's sources and the Telegraph's believed to be an employee of DeSauque's, an unknown man named Kedeson, and Henry Warnell, who was at the Alamo, and did die in March 1836, but did not die at the Alamo. The other 110 men on the Telegraph's list are recognized by TexasCounties.net as fallen Alamo defenders.

Judging from the few mistakes on the Telegraph's list, and the logical explanations that exist for those, its sources and compilers were well-informed. One of their main sources was John W. Smith, who Travis sent out of the Alamo as a scout on February 23. Smith returned to the Alamo with the Gonzales relief force on March 1, and Travis sent him out again two days later as a courier. There are few people who could have given better information about who was in the Alamo both at the beginning of the siege and toward the end. As one of the "Immortal 32" from Gonzales, Smith was particularly familiar with the makeup of Lieutenant Kimbell's Gonzales Ranging Company and the rest of Captain Martin's reinforcement party. The Telegraph's list reflects this, providing the names of 28 of those men, including 23 first names. The Telegraph's other primary source, "Mr. Navon," was apparently Gerald Navan or Navin, who participated in the siege and battle of Bexar, and who Col. Niell probably sent out to procure provisions in late January. Navan would have been the Telegraph's source for many of the Alamo defenders who were around since the fall of 1835 who Smith may not have been as well acquainted with, such as the members of the New Orleans Greys. The Telegraph's list contains few of the men who arrived with Captain Harrison and David Crockett on or around February 9, after Navan left. Undoubtedly, the Telegraph editors knew many of the Alamo defenders personally, as did other residents of San Felipe and many of the people who passed through there, and they added to the information supplied by the two main sources.

On March 27, with the Mexican advance guard nearly at San Felipe, Borden and his partners dismantled the printing press and subsequently evacuated the town. On April 13, they printed six sheets of one issue in Harrisburg before Mexican soldiers seized the press, threw the type into Buffalo Bayou, and arrested the printers. The Telegraph was once again re-established after the war and continued in operation until 1877.

The March 24, 1836 and other editions of the Telegraph and Texas Register can be accessed online in The Portal to Texas History's collection of early Texas newspapers.

The General Land Office's List

The Texas General Land Office's records include a volume of over 200 pages of muster rolls of the Texas Revolution. They were originally compiled by the Adjutant General of Texas. Most of the muster rolls pertaining to the Revolution, especially those relating to the Alamo, were made after the fact. Most of the muster rolls preserved in the GLO are copies; the originals were destroyed in a fire in the adjutant general's office in 1855. The documents in the GLO archives can be viewed online at The TXGenWeb Project.

A main purpose of compiling the muster rolls was for verifying veterans' benefits claims. To that end, one of the first lists made by the adjutant general was a casualty list of fallen Alamo defenders. This list consists of 3 pages of 108 names. Theys make up Rolls 002, 003, and 004 in the GLO muster rolls collection.² As with the other lists, some men's first names or initials are given and some are not, many have their place of origin indicated, there is an officer's section at the top, and some officers are interspersed among the privates. A note added at the bottom of the last page is dated February 17, 1839, indicating that the list was made on or before then. It appears that makers of this list used the Telegraph's list as their primary source, making some additions and deletions to it and only a few small minor edits.³ It contains four names not found on the Telegraph's, three of which are valid, but one, (William) Gilmore, is not. It omits eleven names that are on the Telegraph's list. Five of those omitted men were subsequently issued land grants by the Republic or state of Texas for their deaths at the Alamo despite not appearing on this "official" list. TexasCounties.net does not recognize Francis DeSauque, Gilmore, John the clerk, Kedeson, or William Simpson from the GLO list, leaving a total of 103 men who are recognized.

Names on the Casualty Lists

The table below compares the names on the three casualty lists. The lists have been ordered alphabetically, according to the subject's "Normalized Name" - the way his name is spelled consistently throughout TexasCounties.net. The next column, Status, shows whether the subject was killed in the Alamo battle on March 6, 1836, or whether something else became of him. The next three columns show how each person appears on Gray's, the Telegraph's, and the GLO's casualty lists, respectively, including the line number.⁴

Our source for Gray's list is the transcribed copy in At the Birth of Texas. The transcriber may have introduced errors. For example, Gray most likely wrote "J. Baugh" in his diary, but the transcriber misread it as "I. Baugh," as capital I and J are often indistinguishable in handwriting of the period. By the same token, capital Z is easily mistaken for capital L, which is how "Charles Zanco" became "Charles Lanco." Our sources for the Telegraph and GLO lists are the facsimiles already presented or hyperlinked in this article. Any errors in transcription of those lists are ours.

Analysis

The three casualty lists provide names for a total of 145 men.

• 131 died defending the Alamo on March 6, 1836.
• 10 are unknown: ____ Ballard, John Balone, William Ellis, ____ Henderson, John ____, Kedeson, David Murphy, ____Smith, ____ Sterne, and ____ Warner. All unknowns except Kedeson appear on Gray's list. Warner is also on the Telegraph's list, and John the clerk appears on all three. Kedeson is on the Telegraph's and GLO's lists only.
• 2 left the Alamo before the siege began and were killed in the Goliad massacre: Francis DeSauque and William Simpson.
• 1 did not go to the Alamo: William Gilmore
• 1 died of wounds subsequent to the Alamo battle: Henry Warnell

Here, the names are grouped according to which lists they are on:

• Gray's list is a source for the names of 142 men. TexasCounties.net recognizes 129 of them (91%) as fallen Alamo defenders.
• The Telegraph's list is a source for 115 men. 110 are recognized (96%).
• The GLO's list is a source for 108 men. 103 are recognized (95%).
• 101 men's names appear on all three lists. TexasCounties.net recognizes 98 of them as fallen Alamo defenders (97%).
• 26 men's names appear on Gray's list alone: Micajah Autry, James Peter Bailey, John Ballard, John Balone, Joseph Bayliss, Daniel Cloud, Lemuel Crawford, William Ellis, John Goodrich, A. C. Grimes, ____ Henderson, William Marshall, Edward McCafferty, Robert McKinney, David Murphy, Manson Sheid, ____ Smith, William Spratt, ____ Sterne, A. Spain Summerlin, Edward Taylor, George Taylor, James Taylor, William Taylor, B. Archer M. Thomas, John Wilson. 17 are recognized (65%).
• 11 appear on Gray's list plus the Telegraph's list: Robert Brown, John Cain, Lewis Duel, Andrew Duvalt, John Garvin, Tapley Holland, James Kinney, Jonathan Lindley, ____ Robbins, Henry Warnell, ____ Warner. 9 are recognized (82%).
• 4 appear on Gray's list plus the GLO's list: Robert Bowen, William Gilmore, Richard L. Stockton, Joseph G. Washington. 3 are recognized (75%).
• 3 appear on the Telegraph's and GLO's list, but not Gray: John Harris, Kedeson, Willis A. Moore. 2 are recognized (67%).

This analysis shows that the Telegraph and GLO's lists, though imperfect, are highly accurate. All but two of their names match a known person, and of the few men on them who did not actually die at the Alamo, there are reasonable explanations for how the mistakes were made. Gray, as a new arrival to Texas who did not know any of the Alamo defenders personally, included more unknown men and made more errors, but he also had access to some reliable sources that the other listmakers did not, for his list adds 17 valid names to theirs.

One last piece of analysis has to do with the men who are not on the casualty lists. There are dozens of men - on the order of 50 or more - who were killed in battle on March 6 who do not appear on any of these three lists. None of the lists claimed to be complete. Gray wrote that he included the names of men "as far as they are known," which implies there could be others. The Telegraph editors promised that "as we obtain more [names] we will publish them." It was common knowledge when the adjutant general prepared his list of 107 fallen defenders that the true number exceeded 180. Is there any pattern as to those men who are now known to have been fallen Alamo defenders, but were omitted from these lists? Certainly, there is one: the lack of Hispanic names. The exact number of Tejanos who were killed in battle on March 6, 1836 is unknown, but most authorities believe it to be at least six. There are none on any of the lists - not even José Gregorio Esparza, who is a rather well-known name today, and whose status as an Alamo battle casualty has long been undisputed. Other than that, there is no apparent correlation between the men who are missing from the lists. The omissions include established residents of Texas as well as recent immigrants, men who had been in San Antonio since the Battle of Bexar, men who arrived with Travis or another reinforcement party, and men who arrived with the Gonzales relief force. This finding shows that as important as these casualty lists are, they are just one tool in the Alamo personnel researcher's toolbox.