About this list. . .

Summary of Abstracts for the Goliad Campaign
from
BOUNTY AND DONATION LAND GRANTS OF TEXAS 1835-1888
Thomas Lloyd Miller 1967 (see Bibliography)
(Book example and notes)
 

The fledgling Republic of Texas was critically short of money, but potentially rich in land, if only the war of independence could be won. As many governments have done before, the Republic attracted soldiers by promising Bounty land grants for enlistment in the Texas Army. In the years after Independence the Texas Legislature rewarded those who served, and the heirs of those who lost their lives, by offering Donation land grants upon application and evidence of service. Not all the survivors or the heirs applied.

In 1967, Dr. Thomas Lloyd Miller published abstracts of the military bounty and donation land grants issued by the Republic of Texas and the State of Texas. His three-year study in the archives of the Texas General Land Office yielded abstracts for over 8500 names. This list summarizes the abstracts that show service in Fannin's Goliad campaign, with indication if an abstract mentions a man died or was killed (coded here as "-d") or survived (coded here as "-s"). If the land was patented to the soldier or his heirs, or assigned to someone else of the same surname, the county of patent is given in the last column of the list. It may be fruitful for a family researcher to look in the records of these counties for the soldier's family.

In an earlier paper in 1958 (online, this Appendix B) Miller listed twenty-seven names he believed should be added or changed in the Davenport 1939 paper (online, this Appendix A.) His 1967 book added four more names. See Editor's note to the 1958 paper for a discussion of matching Miller's names to the Davenport works.

Matching up the names in this Bounty and Donation list with the names in the two Davenport works is a challenge. Most of the names match with good confidence that it is the same person. Some of the remaining names are likely matches, considering the variations in spelling that occur in the early handwritten records. Most of the military rolls of the Goliad Campaign were reconstructed by memory after the battle of San Jacinto so variations in spelling and given names is expected. Then there are names for which scant evidence is presented in the Davenport papers. Davenport 1939 adds some names without reference to supporting evidence, which may be in the twenty-odd shelf feet of Davenport papers at the Texas State Archives and the University of Texas at Austin. The conclusion is some of these names need more research, encompassing all surviving records, before biographical sketches can be written.

A "reverse match", matching the remainder of the names in Davenport's study to Miller's abstracts is less reliable as the records on which the abstracts are based often lack information on campaign or service period. For men in more than one campaign, e.g., Bexar, Goliad, and San Jacinto, only one Donation was granted, but multiple Bounties. For this reason a Donation for one of these remaining Goliad men may show service in another campaign. The full land office records may be necessary for a reliable match. A full name index to Miller 1967 is available online.

Because of Land Office activity at the time of his study, Miller was granted only limited access to the 14,736-file GLO Bounty and Donation Files, which would have been the best source for his study. Instead, he relied mainly on meticulously correlating information from several Land Office and Court of Claims registers, logs, and indexes, which were based on information in the GLO Bounty and Donation Files. Miller was, however, able to obtain service statements, shown within quotes in his abstracts, from the men's warrants in the GLO Bounty and Donation Files. [Miller 1967, pp. 3-23]