Andrew J. Sowell

A Courier From the Alamo

A grave marker in San Geronimo Cemetery in Seguin reads:

ANDREW JACKSON SOWELL
JUNE 27, 1815 - JAN 4, 1883
ALAMO SURVIVOR - TEXAS RANGER
INDIAN FIGHTER
REPUBLIC OF TEXAS PATRIOT
LUCINDA'S "OLD WARRIOR"

Alamo survivor? Hmm ... The original story of the Alamo was that all of the men who fought at there were killed, and that the only survivors were women and children. It is true, though, that in more recent times, historians have proposed that there were a few surviving combatants. Was Andrew Jackson Sowell one of those few survivors? What was his story? Another marker tells the story a little better:

ANDREW JACKSON SOWELL
BORN IN TENNESSEE 1815
CAME TO TEXAS ABOUT 1829
SERVED IN THE ARMY OF TEXAS
A COURIER FROM THE ALAMO, HE LEFT THE
FORTRESS JUST BEFORE IT FELL TO HURRY
REINFORCEMENTS AND SUPPLIES
DIED 1848
HIS WIFE LUCINDA TURNER SOWELL
BORN 1827 - DIED 1883
ERECTED BY THE
STATE OF TEXAS 1957

Ah ... a courier from the Alamo. Yes, there were some men who rode out of the Alamo. Albert Martin rode out with Lt. Colonel William Barret Travis's famous letter "To the People of Texas and All Americans in the World," then returned with the Gonzales relief force and died in the battle. John W. Smith rode in with the Gonzales men, then rode back out to deliver more letters from Travis. Juan N. Seguin was another Alamo messenger who, like Smith, survived. A bronze plaque in the Alamo long barracks museum commemorates sixteen men who are said to have been couriers from the Alamo: Martin, Seguin, Smith, and thirteen others, including Andrew Sowell. This plaque, like the large Alamo cenotaph monument and much of the other commemorative Alamo work done in early 20th century, was based on the research of Amelia Williams, who wrote her doctoral thesis, "A Critical Study of the Siege of the Alamo and of the Personnel of its Defenders," in 1931. Williams' thesis was edited and published in parts in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly in 1933 and 1934. In both editions, Williams presents the names of fifteen men who her investigation "seems to show pretty conclusively" that they were sent from the Alamo at some time between February 23 and March 6, 1836.¹ One of them was Andrew Sowell. Williams wrote that Sowell and Byrd Lockhart "went from the Alamo 'just before the fall,' to try to hurry reinforcements and to bring in supplies for the soldiers.'"² The wording on the 1957 grave marker shows Williams' obvious influence over Sowell's legacy.

Other authorities agree that Andrew J. Sowell was a messenger from the Alamo. Sowell's biography on the Texas State Historical Association's web site, written by Alamo historian Bill Groneman, reads:

Sowell served in the garrison of the Alamo, but shortly before the final battle he and Byrd Lockhart were ordered out to obtain supplies. They were delayed in Gonzales buying cattle and other supplies and did not return to the Alamo before its fall.

As of this writing, Sowell's Wikipedia entry reads:

In February, 1836 Sowell volunteered again during the Siege of the Alamo. Although he served in the old mission fort while the army of Santa Anna was already in the vicinity of Bexar, he and Byrd Lockhart were sent out as couriers and foragers. They went as far as Gonzales, Texas to buy cattle and supplies for the Alamo garrison. But upon their return to San Antonio, they were not able to enter as the Alamo was surrounded by Santa Anna's army.

This article will present a biography of Andrew J. Sowell followed by analysis of his purported role as an Alamo courier. The information about Sowell presented here comes principally from two sources. The first is a book called Rangers and Pioneers of Texas, published in 1884, three years after his death. The writer was Sowell's nephew, who was also named Andrew J. Sowell. It is important to note that Rangers and Pioneers of Texas is not a history, nor is it a biography of Sowell. It is a collection of stories set on the Texas frontier in which Sowell is a recurring character. Most of the stories are based on actual events, but the nephew took great liberties with historical accuracy in telling them, and some are outright fabrications. An example of one of Sowell's tall tales is the story about how the family patriarch, John Sowell, made the first Bowie knife at his blacksmith shop in Gonzales, based on a wooden prototype Jim Bowie gave him. In the story, it was also John Sowell who gave it the name, "Bowie knife." In reality, Jim Bowie's brother, Rezin, made the first Bowie knife, and it appeared in national newspaper reports five years before John Sowell was a blacksmith in Gonzales. For this reason, our biography of Andrew J. Sowell uses Rangers and Pioneers only for basic data such as names and ages of family members, dates and places of homes, and other information that is unlikely to have been distorted for storytelling purposes. In order to avoid confusion between the uncle, who is the subject of this sketch, and the nephew, who was the writer, the uncle is referred to from here below as "Andrew" or "Andrew J.," while the nephew is referred to as "A. J."³

The second principal source for this biography is Andrew J. Sowell's pension claim file. In 1870, Sowell applied for a veteran's pension from the state of Texas. His application was suspended or paused in 1871 because the reviewer felt that it lacked sufficient evidence to support his claim. Sowell submitted an additional packet of materials in 1874, and then his claim was approved. The evidence in this pension claim is of very high quality. While Sowell's 1874 claim provides evidence that the 1870 claim does not, and vice versa, they are consistent with each other, and mesh very well. The claim package also contains supporting affidavits from witnesses and other documentation that corroborates his claim. Moreover, the claims Sowell made about the dates of his military service, the names of his captains, etc. match very well with known or generally accepted Texas history. In short, there are no holes in it, either internally or externally, except for a few very trivial matters, such as whether he was a private or fourth corporal in a certain captain's company. The pension claim package also contains some basic biographical information on Sowell, such as age, origin, number of children, etc. This information also appears to be accurate.

In addition to the two sources named above, our biography of Sowell uses other military records from the Republic and state of Texas, General Land Office documents and maps, U.S. Census records, and other materials commonly used in 19th-century Texas biographical research.

Analysis of the Belief Sowell Was an Alamo Messenger

As the above biography of Andrew J. Sowell shows, the common yet mistaken belief that he was an Alamo messenger comes Amelia Williams' reliance on a secondary source, which is a story his nephew told about him. Williams, as a doctoral student in the field of history, should have done more research. Sometimes, where primary documentation is lacking, family tradition becomes the historian's last resort, but there is and was no lack of primary evidence in Sowell's case. Perhaps Williams did not see Sowell's pension claim file, which paints the clearest picture, because it was not filed in the General Land Office, where she did most of her research, but she must have seen the land office document entitled Republic Donation Voucher 290, which summarizes Sowell's 1835 and 1836 army service without ever mentioning the Alamo. She also would have noticed the absence of Sowell's name on any muster rolls or other documents from the revolution. These are the same lists Williams checked hundreds of other names for. For Williams to rely on a book full of dubious and obviously false stories, to the exclusion of the available documentary evidence, and then state that her research "seems to show pretty conclusively" that Sowell was an Alamo messenger is but one of hundreds examples of how her "critical study" of the Alamo is a sham.

A. J. Sowell did not cite any evidence for his stories, but sometimes he did cite other stories. In the case of his uncle, he provided this quotation from an article written in 1881 by Bella French Swisher and published in the American Sketch Book:

Mr. A. J. Sowell is perhaps the only man living that lived to see a monument erected to his memory, by his country for his self-sacrifice, and for his country's freedom. His name is said to appear among the fallen at the Alamo. Mr. Sowell was born in Tennessee, came to Texas in 1829, and soon after his arrival, entered the Texas army; was with Bowie in the battle at the Mission, near San Antonio. He was in the Alamo, but a short time before the fort was surrounded by the Mexican forces, Mr. Sowell, and one other, was detailed and sent out after beef to supply the fort, but before they had time to procure the beef, the fort had been surrounded; and no country has ever lost a grander, and nobler, and braver set of men, than Texas lost at the fall of the Alamo.

In tandem with the above story, A. J. Sowell writes:

And, although Andrew Sowell escaped the massacre at the Alamo, by being on detached service, yet he left such a short time before the fall, his name was engraved on the monument erected to the memory of those brave and gallant few who fell.

Note that Swisher and Sowell tell the story a little differently. In Swisher's version, Sowell left the Alamo "a short time before the fort was surrounded by the Mexican forces." In A. J. Sowell's version, he left "a short time before the fall." Swisher, then, seems to have Sowell leaving on or before February 23, while A. J. Sowell has him leaving well after the siege had begun, almost before the battle, perhaps as late as March 5. Neither way makes any sense. Until the Mexican army was spotted outside Bexar at about 3:00 p.m. on February 23, Colonel Travis was not expecting the Mexicans to arrive until mid-March. There was plenty of time to prepare, and no need to go all the way to Gonzales to get beef cattle. Once the Mexican army was spotted, the Texians switched into high gear, bringing everything they would need, including cattle, into the Alamo. In Travis's famous letter of February 24, he wrote that they "got into the walls twenty or thirty head of beeves."⁵ In all the letters Travis wrote during the siege, he requested men above all else, and also ammunition and gunpowder, but he did not express that there was insufficient food. Susanna Dickinson stated that there was enough food inside the Alamo to last for thirty days.⁶ And if the men at the Alamo had needed cattle, there were plenty at the Seguin and Flores ranches south of Bexar. Going to Gonzales for cattle would have been ridiculous. Williams must have noticed how Swisher and Sowell's claim that Sowell was sent to procure beef cattle made no sense, for in "A Critical Study," she edited it to read that he was sent "to try to hurry reinforcements and to bring in supplies for the soldiers." Swisher and Sowell did not mention hurrying reinforcements or procuring "supplies"; they both mentioned beef cattle. Williams did not mention beef cattle.

An even larger problem with Swisher and Sowell's story is their claim that Andrew J. Sowell's name was included on a monument to the fallen Alamo soldiers. The monument they are both referring to was constructed in 1841. According to historian Reuben M. Potter, who participated in its construction, the list of names was provided by George Sutherland, who was a member of the Republic Congress at the time.⁷ It was relocated to various cities until 1858, when it was purchased by the state and permanently placed in the vestibule of the old capitol building in Austin. It was ruined in the capitol fire of 1881 and was subsequently dismantled. At least two transcriptions of the names were made and published. One was made by D. W. C Baker and published in A Texas Scrap-Book in 1875. It was reprinted in the Texas Historical Association Quarterly, April 1903 edition. The other transcription was made by former Governor Elisha M. Pease and was published in the Galveston Daily News on July 19, 1876. Andrew J. Sowell's name is not on either list. There is a "Sewall" on the Baker list. Pease reproduced this name as "Sewel, M L" in his list. The person referred to is Alamo defender Marcus L. Sewell. Swisher and A. J. Sowell may not have known that there was a Marcus L. Sewell at the Alamo and simply assumed that "Sewall" was Andrew J. Sowell. Williams, however, should not have made that assumption, for she knew about Marcus L. Sewell and included him in her list of fallen Alamo defenders.

This misinterpretation of the name on the monument seems to be where the mistaken idea that Andrew J. Sowell was an Alamo courier originated. Someone, or some people, saw the name, thought it referred to Sowell, and then assumed that meant he was at the Alamo. He obviously did not die there, however, so he must have been away at the time of the attack. Someone else then remembered that he was in Gonzales in late February and early March procuring beef cattle for the army. People took a few isolated data points and drew a jagged line between them to come up with the story: Sowell was at the Alamo, Travis sent him to procure beef cattle, he went to Gonzales, and he was there when the Alamo fell. It made sense to someone who did not know that the Alamo had plenty of beef already and did not think about the unreasonable distance and time involved in bring cattle in from Gonzales. But, this theory was actually a chain of suppositions that began with an incorrect belief that Sowell's name was on the Alamo monument. It was not.

Williams took the story passed along by Bella Swisher and A. J. Sowell and ran with it. She realized that the "sent out after beef to supply the fort" aspect of the story did not make any sense, so she changed that part to "to hurry up reinforcements and to bring in supplies." But Williams did not stop there with her alterations of the story. She added this:

A. J. Sowell furthermore states that Andrew Sowell left the Alamo so short a time before the fall that all his friends thought that he was a victim of the massacre, and this became so generally believed that his name was placed on the first Alamo monument.

There are so many dishonest statements in Williams' "A Critical Study" that it is hard to keep track of which one is the worst, but this one probably at least makes the top ten. A. J. Sowell never wrote this. Here, again, is what Sowell wrote:

... he left such a short time before the fall, his name was engraved on the monument ...

Williams added a full twenty words of nonsense of her own and attributed it to Sowell. Why is it nonsense? Remember Andrew Sowell's biography. He was in Gonzales with his family when the Alamo fell, went on the Runaway Scrape with hundreds of other families, served in the army three months, returned to Gonzales, and served in two Texas Ranger companies, all before the Alamo monument was constructed. So, who were these "friends" who thought he was killed in the Alamo? Certainly not any of the members of his large family, the people he traveled with after the fall of the Alamo, or any of his Ranger captains or companions. Certainly not George Sutherland, who was his company commander for three months after the Revolution. Williams pretends that the list of names on the monument was compiled from "general belief," when, according to Potter, it was compiled by the same man who Sowell served under in late 1836.

Conclusion

Andrew J. Sowell was a soldier from Gonzales who fought in the Texas Revolution campaign of 1835, including the Battle of Gonzales, the Battle of Concepcion, and the Grass Fight. He went home to Gonzales after the Grass Fight and did not return to Bexar during the revolution. When Travis's messengers arrived at Gonzales to announce that the Alamo was besieged by the Mexican army, Sowell enlisted in Captain Randolph Foster's company and was tasked with procuring beef cattle for the Texian army that was rallying at Gonzales. After the Alamo fell, he went east with his family during the Runaway Scrape. He served under Captain George Sutherland in the second half of 1836. He moved back to Gonzales with his family in 1838 and then moved to his father's grant at present-day Seguin. He served in Captain Matthew Caldwell and Captain James H. Callahan's companies of Texas Rangers and fought at the Battle of Plum Creek. After his retirement from the military, he settled in Seguin, married Lucinda Taylor, and had nine children. He played a notable role in the founding of the town of Seguin and of Guadalupe County. He died in 1883. Claims made by writers and historians that he was an Alamo courier or messenger are false; he was in Gonzales before, during, and after the siege and Battle of the Alamo.

By David Carson
Page last updated: May 2, 2024