Alamo Traces (39 page)

Then there is the problem of the current identification of Clark as an Alamo defender. Yes, the land board issued a certificate for Clark, and the name is on the official roster of Alamo defenders. Yet, the Nacogdoches headright testimony furnishes no clear proof that shows Clark died at the Alamo. The belief that Clark was at the fall of the Alamo is based on Blake's string of suppositions, which have no supporting evidence. Moreover, there is no other evidence that identifies M. B. Clark as an Alamo defender. No, this does not make Stephen Rose a liar, but it does raise suspicions.
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The next Alamo application for which Louis Rose gave a statement was: “254 The heirs of John Blair, decd. By I. [Isaac] Lee, administrator.” Blake's transcription of the application data identifies the witnesses as “Elisha Roberts & James Carter & Lewis Rose.” Blake claimed the men said: “1st [Roberts] knew him as a resident 8 or 11 years ago. 2nd [Carter] states he knew him 8 years – left him at San Antonio. 3rd [Rose] left him in the Alamo 3 March 1836.”
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The actual record, however, in imperfect language, reads: “Elisha Roberts Know him for 8 or 10 years before May 1835 Killed in the Alimo James Carter Known him for 8 years and allway Left him at San Antonio Knew him to reside Hear [Nacogdoches] Before May 1835 Lewis Rose Knew Mr. Blair Left him in the Alimo 3 March 1836 Single man.” While the core element of the Rose statement has not changed, the comparison shows that once again Blake's transcriptions cannot be trusted to be accurate.
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While Rose's statement about Blair is the most definitive one yet examined, it does not identify Rose as a member of the Alamo garrison. Blake and others have assumed that because Rose claimed he had left Blair in the Alamo on March 3 that Rose had to have been in the Alamo on March 3 to have preformed such an act. Nevertheless, Isaac Lee, Blair's estate administrator and cousin, was not so sure about Blair's death. In April 1837 Lee reported that Blair had “died while absent in the service of Texas on or about fifth of March 1836.” Then, in 1846, Lee reported that Blair had “departed this life sometime during the year A.D. 1835.”
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While Rose's February 7, 1838 statement about Blair appears to be more definitive than the statements given previously, the following day in his testimony for the Charles Haskell application, Rose was far from certain about Haskell. According to Blake's transcription, Rose said:
“Knew him 4 years supposes him killed in the Alamo.” Unfortunately, it appears the original record of the Haskell application has been lost. Nevertheless, Blake's transcription does not identify Rose as a member of the Alamo garrison or place him in the Alamo during the siege. Nor is Rose's testimony by itself conclusive proof that one Charles Haskell was an Alamo soldier or that he died with Travis.
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The next application containing a Louis Rose statement offers additional damage to Blake's thesis. The alleged defender was one David Wilson. Blake's transcription identifies the witnesses as “Wm. R. Luce, David Cook & Lewis Rose.” Blake reported that the men testified: “1st knew him before 2nd May 1835, lived in this county, went to the Army, knew him on his way to the Army. 3rd Knew him before 2nd May 1835, was in the Alamo when taken.”
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The actual holographic record reads somewhat different from Blake's typescript. The witnesses were David Luce, David Cook, Lewis Rose, and Juan Mousolla. Luce said: “Known him from [unclear] & living in this country think he died in the Alimo.” Cook reported: “Knew before heard he was killed in the Alamo.” Rose claimed: “knew him for 6 years 3 Day of March 1836 then he was in the Alimo.” Mousolla said: “known him before 3 May 1835.” Again, the actual record shows that Blake's transcriptions cannot be trusted.
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Also, it is important to understand that the witnesses did not furnish conclusive evidence that Wilson had been killed in the Alamo. Luce said he
thought
Wilson had been killed in the Alamo. Cook
heard
that Wilson had been killed in the Alamo. Nor did Rose claim he was a member of the Alamo garrison or that he was in the Alamo and departed on March 3, 1836. Luce and Cook only believed that Wilson had died at the Alamo, and they could have based their statements on a newspaper report. The
Telegraph and Texas Register
list of Alamo victims included “David Wilson, Nacogdoches.” The roll included three other men that Rose testified about: “_____Blair, _____ Day, and _____ Heiskill [Haskell].”
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Rose's testimony in the cases of Heiskill, Blair, and Day was critical evidence. For example, consider the Blair application. Elisha Roberts identified Blair as a resident of Texas previous to March 2, 1836. James Carter put Blair in San Antonio. Rose furnished the final piece. He said
John
Blair was in the Alamo on March 3, 1836. While Rose may or may not have been telling the truth about Blair, one conclusion is clear. Lee, Blair's cousin and administrator, could not have claimed that John Blair,
his cousin, was the Blair on the
Telegraph and Texas Register
list without the Louis Rose statement. The same can be said for the F. H. K. Day and Charles Haskell applications for headright certificates. Perhaps Rose's statement was necessary to prove that a “Nacogdoches” David Wilson died at the Alamo, even though he might not have been from that settlement. The newspaper list might have been wrong about Wilson's origin.

One thing, however, is certain. If a man named David Wilson died at the Alamo, he was not the husband of Ophelia P. Wilson, who received the bounty and donation land grants for her husband's death at the Alamo. David Wilson and Ophelia P. Morrell married in Vincennes, Indiana, in 1830. They arrived in Texas in 1835. David appeared before the Harris County land board on February 2, 1838, and received a league and labor headright certificate. He died sometime before July 3, 1847.
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The Harris County David Wilson is clearly not the Wilson who was killed at the Alamo. Who was the David Wilson reported to have been killed at the Alamo? A David Wilson signed the Goliad Declaration of Independence on December 20, 1835. At that time Captain Philip Dimmitt was in command at Goliad. Dimmitt's morning reports for the period show that Wilson was not in Dimmitt's unit. The name “D. Wilson” is on the February 1, 1836 Alamo voting list, but is not on Lt. Colonel James C. Neill's return of about December 30, 1835. If D. Wilson was David Wilson, he most likely entered the Alamo with James Bowie on January 18, 1836. Thus, if Louis Rose had been Moses Rose and had been a member of Bowie's company, one would think that Rose would have identified Wilson as one of Bowie's men and would have known more about him. As it is, it appears that Rose identified a man as having been at the Alamo who was not at the Alamo.
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The only sources that unequivocally identify one “David Wilson” as an Alamo defender are the
Telegraph and Texas Register
roster and the Rose statement that Wilson was in the Alamo. Wilson was not identified as a single man in the land grant application, but his estate was granted one third of a league, the allotment for a single man. The David Wilson that can be identified as being in Nacogdoches in 1835, however, was David Willson, a married man with family, who had arrived in Texas in 1829. Thus, it appears that the David Wilson, a single man, who was identified by Rose, David Luce, David Cook, and Juan Mousolla, was not the true Nacogdoches Wilson.
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The last headright application that Blake claimed Louis Rose had been a witness for was “579 The Heirs of Marcus Sewell by John McDonald Administrator.” Blake identified the witnesses as “John Dorset, Adolphus Sterne & L. Rose.” Blake reported that Dorset had said he “knew him 3 years ago [and] understood he fell in the battle of the Alamo.” Sterne reported: “knew him before the 2 May 1835 [and] understood he fell in the battle of the Alamo.” Lastly, Blake wrote that Rose said: “Knew him in the Alamo and left him there 3 days before it fell.”
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Dorset and Sterne only believed Sewell had died at the Alamo. Dorset and Sterne could have obtained that belief from the
Telegraph and Texas Register
list of Alamo victims, which also included the name “_____ Sewell.” Once again it appears Rose furnished the needed proof to put Marcus Sewell in the Alamo. In this case, however, that is not correct. The actual record of the testimony given for the Sewell application shows only two witnesses: Dorset and Sterne. Is this the same document Blake examined? Who knows? But it is the record he claimed he saw.
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The examination of the Sewell application concludes the critical analysis of the Louis Rose land grant testimony and Blake's presentation of that evidence. Thus, a number of conclusions can be drawn at this point.

Louis Rose appears to have testified for the estates of five alleged Alamo defenders: F. H. K. Day, Henry Teal, John Blair, Charles Haskell, and David Wilson. W. P. Zuber claimed that Moses Rose had been a member of the Alamo garrison. Yet, in no instance did Louis Rose, who Blake assumed was Moses Rose, testify that he had been a member of the Alamo garrison. In no instance did Louis Rose report that he had been inside the Alamo fortress during the thirteen-day siege. In no instance did Louis Rose claim that he had escaped the Alamo on March 3, 1836. The Rose statement in the John Blair application, “left him in the Alimo 3 March 1836,” and the Rose statement in regard to David Wilson (the wrong Wilson), “3 Day of March 1836 then he was in the Alimo” are the only reports that can be interpreted to claim that Rose was in the Alamo on March 3, 1836. The validity of the Rose statements, however, is compromised by Rose's claim that Henry Teal died at the Alamo, and the 1854 fraudulent bounty certificate in Rose's name. Isaac Lee's (Blair's cousin and estate administrator) confusion about when Blair died damages the credibility of Rose's statement about Blair. Lastly, in regard to
David Wilson, it appears that the man Rose identified did not die at the Alamo.

In regard to the application of alleged Alamo defender M. B. Clark, Stephen Rose was the witness, not Louis Rose. Blake furnished no evidence to prove Stephen was Louis or that Stephen was Moses Rose, who Zuber claimed had escaped on March 3, 1836. Nor does the Stephen Rose statement put Clark or Stephen in the Alamo, or prove that Clark died at the Alamo.

Blake's presentation of the Louis and Stephen Rose evidence shows that Blake's research and writing were dominated by his belief that Zuber's story of Moses Rose was true. Blake appears to have abandoned objectivity and perhaps honesty to achieve fame as the person who proved that Moses Rose's tale was true. Blake's Rose article lacks credibility for three reasons: (1) Blake's failure to include Louis Rose's Henry Teal testimony in his article, (2) Blake's incorrect transcriptions of the primary documents, (3) Blake's inclusion of a Louis Rose statement about Marcus Sewell that does not exist in the primary document.

In total, the Louis Rose statements do not appear to be very “amazing,” reliable, or creditable. Most certainly, the evidence is not corroboration of William P. Zuber's Moses Rose tale. Still, there are two nagging problems with the Rose land grant evidence that require additional examination.

First, there is the situation of the man Stephen Rose knew as “M. B. Clark,” who Rose had seen a few days before the fall of the Alamo. The Clark name does not appear on any of the early Alamo muster rolls or victim lists. The February 1, 1836 Alamo voting list does not include the Clark name or a similar name. The name “B. M. Clark,” however, does appear on the roll of Captain John Chenoweth's company of United States Invincibles, one of the units that reinforced the Alamo on March 4, 1836. Chenoweth's list shows Clark as being “killed.” Therefore, if Stephen Rose was lying, how did he know to lie about Clark? Or was Stephen telling the truth and simply got the initials reversed?
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B. M. Clark appears to have come to Texas as a member of Peyton S. Wyatt's Huntsville (Alabama) Volunteers in late December 1835. On January 27, 1836, Clark, while Wyatt's company was at Goliad, joined the U.S. Invincibles. Nacogdoches County probate records report that Clark “died while absent in the service of Texas on or about” March 5, 1836, a date estimate that includes the March 4 Alamo relief. It may be that Clark
was killed outside the Alamo while attempting to enter with the March 4 force, instead of in the final attack on March 6. The date of the fall of the Alamo was well known. The March 4 reinforcement was not that well known. So there may have been some confusion as to the exact date, thus the estimate of “on or about.” Therefore, it may be that Stephen Rose knew Clark because he (Rose) was a member of the combined force that reinforced the Alamo on March 4, 1836. Such a situation also explains the nature of Stephen Rose's testimony, which does not place Clark in the Alamo or claim that he was killed in the Alamo. Rose could have known that Clark rode to the Alamo with the group, but did not know for sure that he had entered the Alamo.
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Second, there is the Alamo victim list that appeared in the March 24, 1836
Telegraph and Texas Register
. That list, in addition to identifying a “_____ Blair and David Wilson” from Nacogdoches, identifies a “_____ Rose, of Nacogdoches.” Because the other Alamo Rose, James M. Rose, was from Tennessee, the
Register
listing might have been Louis Rose. Louis Rose, however, did not die at the Alamo. If the identification was for Louis Rose, it was a mistake.
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Furthermore, the three names are listed as _____ Rose, _____ Blair, and David Wilson, which might mean that whatever their role in the Alamo siege, they were together, or at least whoever identified them as Alamo victims may have based the identification on having seen Blair, Wilson, and Rose together. It may just be there was a second David Wilson in Nacogdoches, who was a single man. That possibility is supported by the fact that Louis Rose's most definitive statements were made about Blair and Wilson. Rose said he had left Blair in the Alamo on March 3. In regard to Wilson, Rose said: “knew him for 6 years 3 Day of March 1836 then he was in the Alimo.” The Wilson statement is not clear. It might mean: Knew him for six years and knew him March 3, 1836, when he was in the Alamo. Or it could mean: Knew him for six years and knew him on March 3, 1836, outside the Alamo and then he entered the Alamo. Still, it is clear that whatever Rose knew about the Alamo defenders, he knew the most about Blair and Wilson, whose names followed the name Rose on the
Register
victim list.
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