Alamo Personnel - Colonel Neill's Muster Roll

Introduction

James C. Neill was lieutenant colonel of artillery in the Texian army at the Battle of Bexar. The Texians fought Mexican General Cós to a surrender on December 10, 1835 and Cós took his army out of San Antonio, leaving the town in control of the Texians. The Texians expected the Mexican army to return, but they didn't expect that to happen soon. Many, including General Edward Burleson, left San Antonio starting in December. Some went to go find other Mexicans to fight. Many had volunteered in October, November, or December to serve in the army for three months, and took the opportunity from their discharges to go back to their homes. Neill was left in command of about 110 men, most of whom had recently immigrated to Texas and did not yet have homes there.

During January and February, some reinforcements arrived. The companies of men brought by James Bowie, Philip Dimmitt, William B. Travis, and David Crockett raised the size of the garrison - which was still simultaneously losing some of the men who fought against Cós - up to about 150. Then Neill received word that his entire family in Bastrop had fallen ill. On February 11, he took a leave of absence, placing the San Antonio garrison under the temporary command of Lt. Colonel Travis. On February 23, while Neill was still gone, Santa Anna's army arrived. Travis and his men, plus a few residents of San Antonio who opposed the dictator, took shelter in the makeshift fortress where they would make their stand - the Alamo.

At some point during his two months in command at San Antonio, Neill made a muster roll of the men serving under him. According to the heading on the document, it was made "at the time when Col. Neil left." It does not, however, have the names of Travis, Bowie, Crockett, or any of the men who arrived with them. It also does not have the names of many men who voted in an election for convention delegates on February 1. It seems, therefore, to have been made somewhere between January 6, when Francis Johnson took a large group of about 200 volunteers out on an expedition to Matamoros, and January 19, when Bowie and his men arrived. It is possible that the muster roll was made later than 1/19, but the recent arrivals were deliberately excluded. Either way, it shows a list of men in the Texian army who were in San Antonio and under Neill's command between 1/6 and 1/19.¹

There are two surviving specimens of Neill's muster roll. One is a copy that was made after the revolution (see the document here). It is part of a collection of muster rolls from the Texas Revolution in the archives of the Texas General Land Office. It originally contained the names of 110 men: 9 staff and field officers, a 3-man ordinance department, 56 artillerymen, and 42 infantrymen. Tears have removed 8 names completely and partially removed about a dozen more. The other specimen is said to be the original document made by Colonel Neill himself.² Only the first folio of the original, containing 51 names, survives, but, fortunately, they include all eight of the names missing from the other specimen, and all but two of the other damaged names. The two copies have the same names, in the same order, with one exception: surgeon Amos Pollard, who is documented by his own letters to have been in San Antonio on January 16, is not on the original specimen, but he is on the later copy. The handwriting is not fully legible on either copy, so some of the names are uncertain. In several cases, the handwriting of one copy is used to interpret the other. There are a few spelling variations between the two versions. Many are varations on the same pronunciation, but some variations change the name significantly, such as Duel becoming Dust, and Pevehouse becoming Preehouse.

The table below contains our transcription of both specimens of Neill's muster roll. "Do" is an abbreviation for "ditto," or "same as above," which is also sometimes indicated by quotation marks. The third column, "Normalized Name," is the preferred version of the name on TexasCounties.net, and is the one used consistently throughout our articles and tables, no matter how it appears on a given source document. In most cases, it is the man's name as it appears on official government paperwork, such as land grants. The fourth column, Status, shows whether the man was killed in the battle of the Alamo on March 6, 1836 or, if not, what became of him.

Note: although every effort has been made to be accurate, it is possible that we have missed something or made a copy-and-paste error or typo. If you spot something wrong, please contact us.

Summary

This is a breakdown of the 110 men listed on Colonel Neill's muster roll.

• 65 have been confirmed to have been killed in the battle of the Alamo on March 6, 1836.
• An additional 3 are believed to have died at the Alamo, possibly in the battle, or possibly earlier.
• 15 are known to have left the Alamo before the battle and survived the revolution. All of them presumably left before the siege began on February 23.
• 10 voted in the delegate election held on February 1, but their status after that is unknown.
• 1 was discharged after voting in February; his status afterward is unknown.
• The status of 14 are unknown following their appearance on this muster roll.
• 2 names are unreadable because of damage to the only surviving copy they appear on.

A study of Neill's muster roll shows how freely men were moving in and out of the Texian garrison at San Antonio in early 1836. Fewer than two thirds of the men who were under Neill's command in mid-January entered the Alamo with Travis and Bowie, the others having either gone to other posts or gone back to civilian life. By the same token, of the 150 or so men who were present at the beginning of the Alamo siege, fewer than half had been in San Antonio for more than about five weeks. With a dysfunctional provisional government and a commanding general who was absent, men made their own decisions about whether their services were needed in the army and, if so, where.