Nevertheless, a man named Brown appears to have died at the Alamo. He was Robert Brown, whom Travis mentioned in a letter to Sam Houston. Travis wrote: “Lieutenant Simmons of cavalry acting as infantry, Captains Carey, Dickinson and Blair of the artillery, rendered essential service, and Charles Despallier and Robert Brown gallantly sallied out and set fire to houses which afforded the enemy shelter, in the face of the enemy fire.”88
Williams acknowledged that Robert had been in the Alamo. She, however, believed, without any solid evidence, that he had departed the compound as a courier. She wrote: “The registers at the Land Office list but one Robert Brown in the Texan army in 1836. . . . he was a single man who came to Texas in October, 1835, and that he rendered service during the San Jacinto campaign by guarding baggage at Harrisburg.” This man’s army discharge, however, shows that he is not the Alamo Robert Brown. The document shows that the “San Jacinto” Robert B. joined the Texian army on March 5, 1836, and was discharged on June 5, 1836. Thus, it appears that the name “Browne” in the Muster Rolls book refers to Robert Brown.89
Just as Williams had ignored conclusive evidence about Robert Brown’s death at the Alamo, she turned away from the evidence that gave the location of Charles Clark’s demise. She reported that Clark was Charles H. Clark, a “private; native of Missouri, came to Texas about November, 1835, probably with the New Orleans Grays. He was a single man, and his heir, a nephew, John C. (Charles) Clark, applied for lands due to him in December, 1837.” She claimed her sources were: “Milam, 1425; Travis, 648; I Robertson, 1435; Court of Claims Vouchers, 891.”90
An examination of Williams’s Clark sources reveals a different picture than the one she presented. Court of Claims file 1549 (Court of Claims Vouchers, 891) reports that Clark had been a member of Captain Thomas H. Breece’s company of New Orleans Greys and was killed at Goliad with Fannin. The two bounty grants, Milam 1425 and Travis 648, were issued for Clark’s death at Goliad, not the Alamo. Robertson first class grant 1435 does not exist.91
James Robertson is another example of Williams’s egregious misrepresentation of sources. Williams claimed:
ROBERTSON, JAMES: Age, 32; rank, private; native of Tennessee, came to Texas from Louisiana. Sources: Goliad, 227; Bexar, 1917; Fannin, 1304; Lost Book of Harris, 96, 250. This last reference states that at the Storming of Bexar, December, 1835, James Robertson was a member of B. P. Despallier’s company. The Muster Rolls do not show that B. P. Despallier was in command of a company at Bexar, but several other similar statements have been found in which Despallier is called captain. See Muster Rolls, p. 24.92
Land grants Goliad 227 and Bexar 1917 were issued to J. B. Robertson, who was still living after the revolution. Fannin 1304 was issued to J. W. Robertson for military service from February 1, 1836, to May 1, 1836. Page 96 of the Lost Book of Harris County does not contain an entry that reports that a James Robertson died in the second battle for San Antonio. Also, this man was not a member of a unit commanded by Blas P. Despallier. Robertson served in Captain Peyton Splann’s company during the siege and storming of Bexar in 1835. In regard to “Captain” Blas P. Despallier, there is no page 250 in the Lost Book of Harris County. That book’s last page is 141. Page 24 of the Muster Rolls book, which Williams cited, shows Despallier was a private in Captain William G. Cooke’s company of New Orleans Greys.93
Biographical Data
Then, the biographical data for many of Williams’s correct names are wrong. Probably the best example of her flawed methodology is her evidence concerning Jonathan Lindley. Williams claimed Lindley was “Jonathan L. Lindley,” a thirty-one-year-old Englishman, a Gonzales resident, and member of the Gonzales Thirty-two. The age of thirty-one and birthplace of England appears to have been taken from a muster roll entry for Charles Linley, who died with Fannin at Goliad. Williams said that land grants identified Lindley as a Gonzales resident and a member of the Gonzales reinforcement group. Yet, none of the grants she cited for Lindley contain that data. Nor do any of Williams’s sources contain proof that Lindley’s middle initial was an “L.”94
As to Jonathan Lindley’s true identity, his Quaker family moved from England to Ireland in the late 1600s. The family came to America in 1713 as part of the Irish Quaker immigration of that period. Jonathan was a stock raiser who came to Texas in 1833 from either Illinois or Tennessee. He selected a Mexican land grant in the Vehlein colony in East Texas. He participated in the siege and storming of Bexar as a private in Captain John Crane’s company. Afterward, Lindley joined the Bexar garrison as an artilleryman on December 14, 1835.95
Lindley is not the only man for whom Williams’s biographical claims fail to hold up under a close inspection. However, the purpose of this chapter is not a total review and correction of every error, fabrication, and fallacious conclusion found in Williams’s dissertation. The goal has been the presentation of sufficient evidence to show that Williams’s methods were flawed and that her study is unreliable.
Still, one important question remains. Just how did Williams’s Alamo study become so flawed? Her methods and her post-publication attitude suggest that she did not pursue her graduate work with a single goal of searching for the truth and new knowledge. After obtaining her doctoral degree at a public institution and having her study published in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly, she saw her Alamo defender list as her personal property, instead of a scholarly contribution to Texas and United States history. Also, with the Daughters of the Republic of Texas’s acceptance of the roster, Williams’s actions indicate that she seems to have appointed herself as the gatekeeper of the Alamo honor roll.96
In 1939 George P. Carrel asked the DRT’s Alamo Committee to add the name of Nathaniel Massie Kerr to the Alamo list. Nathaniel was the brother of defender Joseph Kerr. Nathaniel died of some unknown illness on or about February 19, 1836, four days before Santa Anna’s centralist army stormed into San Antonio. Joseph Kerr died in the final assault on March 6. Initially, the Alamo Committee was going to add Nathaniel Kerr to their defender list.97
Williams quickly killed the idea. She wrote: “. . . I think Nathaniel Kerr was as true a hero as his brother; he paid the same supreme price – His life. But according to my historical training, I am compelled to exclude his name from my roll. . . . Moreover, if we here in Texas begin to distort our historical judgment to appease our sentiment, we should have to enroll hundreds of names on battle muster rolls without having any actual data for so doing.”98
Williams’s words of rejection for Nathaniel Kerr are highly hypocritical, given that when she submitted her dissertation to the University of Texas, she knew that she had identified at least ten men as having died at the Alamo without any valid “data” and had excluded a number of individuals from the roll when the evidence for their inclusion was sufficient. A 1941 Williams letter suggests that she knew exactly what she was doing; that her Alamo list was a ticking time bomb she had to retain control over.
In 1941 Stuart McGregor, editor of the Texas Almanac, wrote Williams requesting permission to publish her list in the next edition of the almanac.99 Williams’s answer to McGregor is enlightening. She observed:
. . . Then, what is my point of view? Your letter indicates that you do not understand it. It is simply this. For a hundred years, first one and then anther [person] has mulled around trying to reconstruct a correct list of the men who died at the Alamo, March 6, 1836. After more than three years of hard work, eight months of which time I was constantly at work on the list, I was able to make a list of some 187-189 names. Houston and other contemporaries claim that was the number of men who were killed at the Alamo. My own opinion is that there possibly were others, but I failed to find sufficient proof of the fact. After the publication of this reconstructed list that I had made, I have had many, many letters disputing this or that name. Most of these contentions I have been able to prove erroneous; others I have either not had time to work on sufficiently to prove or disprove. There are some five or six names that
should be added to the main list or probably to the list of couriers. In fact, it is my opinion that the entire list should be carefully and painstakingly worked through. Such a job will require a very great deal of work, a thorough knowledge of the problem, a complete verification of all former lists, or disproving certain names as belonging on the list. This I have done, and I have all the evidence of this. Who ever “brings my list down to date,” will have to do the same thing, not only for all other former lists, but for mine also – that is if his list is historically correct. Because I cannot vouch for all the names on my list being accurate [italics added], until I have had the time to do the work that I have indicated as necessary, I have thought, and I still think it a pity for it to be published in the Texas Almanac.100
Some historians might defend Williams by arguing that the graduate work standards of the 1930s were different from today, that her study is no better or worse than others of the period. Perhaps misrepresentation, alteration, and fabrication of data were routine and acceptable behaviors at the University of Texas in the 1930s. That possibility, however, is extremely doubtful. Williams’s own words and actions work against her. In the end, she claimed that her list was “an annotated and documented roll of the Alamo victims” when she clearly knew that with many of her defender names that was not the case.101
On the other hand, as Walter Lord wrote: “Miss Williams did amass a mountain of material.” And to Williams’s credit, her study does contain correct information about the Texian Alamo and its defenders. For that she deserves recognition. The Alamo historian must start with her study. Therefore, historians and writers should understand that if they are going to rely on Williams’s work, they best verify her sources and conclusions before going to press. Otherwise, depending on what is used from the work, the users will fall into the group described by historian Paul Hutton: “Those who have written on the battle, for the most part, have simply repeated false stories told before in books, articles, and newspaper accounts.”102
More importantly, because of Williams’s methods, the official Alamo honor roll of defenders is flawed. In 1905 the Texas government placed “custody and care” of the Alamo in the hands of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas to “be maintained . . . as a sacred memorial to the heroes who immolated themselves upon that hollowed ground.”103 Are the Daughters of the Republic of Texas really operating the Alamo as a “sacred memorial” when their official roll honors men who did not die at the Alamo and does not honor men who did die “upon that hallowed ground”?
Chapter Two Notes
1 Thomas B. Brewer, “The ‘Old Department’ of History at the University of Texas, 1910-1951,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, LXX: 240-241. This article reveals that the teaching of history during Williams’s time at UT was a man’s game. Despite Williams’s Alamo study and her work with Dr. Eugene C. Barker on The Writings of Sam Houston, there is no mention of her in the article. A true mistake on the part of Brewer.
2 Dr. Eugene C. Barker statement, September 20, 1931, Amelia Worthington Williams Papers, CAH; hereafter cited as the Williams Papers.
3 L. W. Kemp to Amelia W. Williams, December 4, 1937, Houston, Williams Papers.
4 “Amelia Williams Note,” on back and front of A. W. Grant to Amelia Williams, San Antonio, March 12, 1936, Williams Papers.
5 The Dallas Morning News, January 12, 1936.
6 San Antonio Express Evening News, June 16, 1939.
7 Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XCVI: 419, Bill Groneman, Alamo Defenders: A Genealogy, The People and Their Words (Austin: Eakin Press, 1990), 4-125; Ron Tyler, Douglas E. Barnett, Roy R. Barkley, Penelope C. Anderson, Mark F. Odintz, eds., The New Handbook of Texas (6 vols.; Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1996); Susan Prendergast Schoelwer, “The Artist’s Alamo: A Reappraisal of Pictorial Evidence, 1836-1850,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, LCI: 403-456; Tim J. and Terry S. Todish, Alamo Sourcebook 1836: A Comprehensive Guide to the Alamo and the Texas Revolution (Austin: Eakin Press, 1998), 76-91.
8 A. Waldo Jones to Frank H. Wardlaw, August 13, 1956, Atlanta, William I. Lewis file, Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library, San Antonio; hereafter cited as DRTL.
9 Miss Jan Smoot to Kent Biffle, of The Dallas Morning News, July 18, 1995, Austin, author’s copy.
10 Walter Lord, “Myths and Realities of the Alamo,” in Stephen B. Oates, ed., The Republic of Texas, by the editors of the American West and the Texas State Historical Association (Palo Alto, California: American West Publishing Company, 1968), 19.
11 Thomas Lloyd Miller, “Mexican-Texans at the Alamo,” The Journal of Mexican American History, II: 33. Miller also had praise for Williams: “In spite of the few corrections which have been made to the Williams roll, she made a tremendous historical contribution and all scholars studying the subject must begin with her work.”
12 Richard G. Santos, Santa Anna’s Campaign Against Texas, 1835-1836 (Waco: Texian Press, 1968), 84, n. 88.
13 Harbart Davenport, “Notes on ‘Siege and Fall of the Alamo’ by Amelia Williams,” Williams Papers.
14 Paul Hutton, “Introduction” in Susan Prendergast Schoelwer, with Tom W. Glaser, Alamo Images (Dallas: DeGolyer Library and Southern Methodist University Press, 1985), 4.
15 Amelia W. Williams to Morris Sheppard, March 6, 1928, Austin, Williams Papers.
16 Amelia W. Williams, “A Critical Study of the Siege of the Alamo and of the Personnel of Its Defenders,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XXXVII: 41-42.
17 Examination of Andrew Barsena and Anselmo Bergara, March 11, 1836, Gonzales, Jenkins, ed., Papers, V: 45-46; E. N. Gray letter, March 11, 1836, Gonzales, Jenkins, ed., Papers, V: 48-49; C. B. Stewart to Ira R. Lewis, March 16, 1836, Washington-on-the-Brazos, Jenkins, ed., Papers, V: 93; Delores Beeson affidavit, November 3, 1853, Colorado County, Anselmo Bergara file, M & P-TSL; Alexander Horton, “The Life of A. Horton and Early Settlement of San Augustine County,” The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, XIV: 311.
At the time, Houston reported that Ben, Colonel Juan N. Almonte’s black cook, brought the pardon proclamation to Gonzales. In his 1858 memoir, Juan N. Seguin said that Bergara and Barcena were members of his company that he had “left for purposes of observation in the vicinity of San Antonio.” In this case Seguin’s veracity is doubtful as it is not supported by the other evidence. In regard to his role in the defense of the Alamo, Seguin’s self-serving book is often contradicted by his later statements about the Alamo. See Chapters Three and Four for this writer’s interpretation of Seguin’s role in the defense of the Alamo.
18 Williams, “A Critical Study,” 41-42.
19 A. Briscoe to editor, March 16, 1836, Red River Herald, date unknown; B. B. Goodrich to Edmund Goodrich, March 15, 1836, Washington-on-the-Brazos, Jenkins, ed., Papers, V: 81; Houston to Raguet, March 13, 1836. Goodrich, a member of the convention and brother of Alamo defender John C. Goodrich, reported: “Col. Travis, the commander of the fortress, sooner than fall into the hands of the enemy, stabbed himself to the heart and instantly died.”
20 Alamo account, Telegraph and Texas Register, San Felipe, March 24, 1836; Gray, From Virginia, 137. The informant who described the death struggle to Joe is unknown. Susanna Dickinson may have told Joe of the incident. The death struggle report first appeared in the T&T Register, and she was the paper’s source for the description. Dickinson was in the Alamo chapel and did not view much of the battle. Thus she would have had to obtain the information from a Mexican soldier, most likely Colonel Juan N. Almonte. On the other hand, Joe may have told the story to Dickinson. Joe’s informant may have been Captain Manuel Barragan, of the Rio Grande Presidial company of cavalry, who captured and saved Joe from being killed.
21 Telegraph and Texas Register, March 24, 1836.
22 Francisco Ruiz, “Fall of the Alamo and Massacre of Travis and His Brave Associates,” The Texas Almanac (Galveston: The Galveston News, 1860), 80-81. See Chapter Eight for additional analysis of the
Ruiz account. The evidence indicates that Ruiz was not in San Antonio on March 6. Therefore, the report is not an eyewitness account and cannot be trusted.
23 Doctor Greg Dimmick interview, October 19, 1998, Nixon, Texas. Dimmick is a member of the Houston Archaeological Society. This group has been excavating the route of the Mexican army’s April and May 1836 withdrawal in Wharton County for the last four years. Dimmick reported that they have found numerous English Brown Bess musket cartridges comprised of a single musket ball and a number of buckshot pellets, which proves the Mexican soldiers were shooting “buck and ball” loads in their muskets.
24 Ramon Martinez Caro, “Verdadera Idea De La Primera Campana De Texas Y Sucesos Ocurridos Despues De La Accion De San Jacinto” in Carlos E. Castaneda, trans. and ed., The Mexican Side of the Texan Revolution (1928; reprint: Austin and Dallas: Graphic Ideas Incorporated, 1970), 105; Republica de Tejas Commandencia militar de Galveston Lista de los oficioles mejicanos muertos en la accion de San Jacinto, el 21 ded abril de 1836, Jenkins, ed., Papers, VI: 84.
25 El Mosquito Mexicano, Mexico City, April 5, 1836. The missive from the unknown soldier was dated “Bexar, March 7, 1836.”
Alamo Traces Page 10