This series consists of correspondence concerning the Army of the Republic of Texas, including letters, reports, orders, legislation, President's proclamations, and certifications. Dates covered are 1835-1846. The items were written to and from the Secretary of War, the Adjutant General, the Inspector General, the various captains and other officers of the Army of the Republic, the Presidents of the Republic, the Provisional Government, the Congress of the Republic, other Republic officials, and private citizens.

Some, but not all, of the items in this correspondence series have been calendared, in two separate locations. The accession file of the original accession of Army Papers (1904/003) contains a chronological list including date, author, recipient, subject matter, and a file number. A slightly fuller calendar, adding the place of each letter, was copied onto pre-printed index cards compiled in the first decade of the 20th century. This latter index file was augmented by items drawn from the Nacogdoches Archives and especially from the Diplomatic, Consular, and Domestic Correspondence of the Secretary of State, more accurately reflecting the present contents of the Army Correspondence. Both of these calendars are available upon request, but the researcher should remember several points: the Army Correspondence contains many items not in either list; many of the items in both lists are now located in the series corresponding to the appropriate department under the Secretary of War; and a large percentage of the items in the card index are not found anywhere in the Army Papers.

Housed separately are two additional types of oversized documents. Three of the items are Returns of Captain Andrew Neill's Company, 1st Regiment of Permanent Volunteers (February-April 1837), stationed at Colorado River, Texas; like most returns of personnel, these contain the following information: number of officers and enlisted men present and absent (by rank and by status--e.g., sick, extra duty, in arrest, etc.); name, rank, and remarks concerning commissioned officers; and name, rank, date, and remarks concerning all non-commissioned officers and soldiers required in explanation of alterations since the last return.

The other type of oversized document grouped separately consists of 14 recruiting accounts, which include the following information from the 1st Regiment Infantry and the 1st Regiment Cavalry at Galveston, Houston, and Velasco recruiting stations (1838-1839): number, names (in alphabetical order), age, size (height); enlistment data (when, where, by whom, and for what period); amount due and amount paid of $12 extra pay to re-enlisted soldiers; the letter of company first mustered into; remarks (transfers, discharges, desertions, apprehensions, etc.); and an account current on the verso.

There are also a considerable number of passes (1836-1837), signed by army captains, usually declaring Let the bearer(s) pass and return by the ferry. These are maintained separately and arranged roughly chronologically by month.

Also included are jacket covers to some of the correspondence, which were created at some unknown date after the fact, probably by the Secretary of State. These jacket covers have been separated from the correspondence to which they related. The Army Papers jackets follow the following format: Republic of Texas. Army [and Navy] Affairs. No._____. File Box_____. _____ to _____. Subject Matter:_____. [Date]. In addition, there are jackets to army-related Provisional Government records, Governor's Proclamations, and Secretary of State Diplomatic, Consular, and Domestic Correspondence.

Finally there are a sizable number of typed transcripts of unknown origin, mainly of Texas Revolutionary documents. These have been retained primarily because the originals of many of these documents are now missing from the Army Papers, although they are cited in that subgroup by William C. Binkley (ed.), Official Correspondence of the Texan Revolution (1936), and John H. Jenkins (ed.), The Papers of the Texas Revolution (1973). Of particular interest is a 27-page set of Army Regulations (undated).

Any surviving records created by the Adjutant General and the Inspector General have been absorbed into this series. Both positions were created by the Consultation on November 13, 1835, and again by Congress on December 20, 1836. They were combined into one position, that of Adjutant and Inspector General, on January 28, 1840; this office in turn was abolished on January 18, 1841, with the duties being assumed by the Secretary of War. However, the Adjutant General is mentioned as existing in legislation of February 5, 1842.

This series consists of quartermaster correspondence and other quartermaster records, 1835-1846. The correspondence includes letters, reports, orders, contracts, bonds, certifications, powers of attorney, letters of credit, etc. Of particular interest is a bound letter book, containing copies of letters and orders written by Quartermaster General Almazon Huston between March 5 and August 26, 1836; recipients of these letters included Secretary of War Thomas Rusk, Commander-in-Chief Sam Houston, President David G. Burnet, plus quartermasters and assistant quartermasters, Texian agents at New Orleans, captains and other army officers, and private citizens.

The other quartermaster records include receipts, requisitions, vouchers, IOUs, promissory notes, bills, abstracts (of expenditures, of issues, of requisitions, of bills, of disbursements), statements, accounts current, returns of public property, estimates of funds required, statements of appropriations, etc. Officials who most often figure in these documents include Quartermaster-General William G. Cooke, Acting Quartermaster R. S. Neighbors, Quartermaster and Commissary General William L. Cazneau, and Auditor Charles Mason.

In addition to records which clearly pertain to the office of the Quartermaster-General, this series also contains other records of goods and services which probably belong to the Commissary General of Subsistence, the Paymaster General, or some other official of the War Department, but which are not so designated. In addition, especially during 1839-1841, there are many records whose outside notations indicate that they were paid out of multiple accounts, e.g.:

Com'y Dept. -- $8,

QM -- $55,

Ordnance -- $39.

Multiple-account records of this type are placed, for consistency, among the Quartermaster-General records.

There is also one volume, which is an alphabetical index of names, followed by numbers up to approximately 1,980, labelled on its flyleaf Index to Payments made by William G. Cook, Quartermaster General, 1839.

This series consists of subsistence correspondence, including letters, reports, orders, contracts, certifications, letters of credit, etc.; and other records of the Subsistence Department, including requisitions, receipts, vouchers, invoices, bills, abstracts of purchases, abstracts of expenditures, abstracts of issues, abstracts of rejected vouchers, statements, accounts current, returns of commissary stores, estimates of funds required, etc. Dates covered are 1836-1842. Officials who most often figure in these documents include Commissary General of Subsistence William L. Cazneau, and Commissary of Subsistence H. Landers.

This series consists of letters, reports, orders, contracts, letters of credit, and other certifications; plus other records of the Ordnance Department, including requisitions, receipts, vouchers, invoices, inventories of stores and munitions, accounts current, abstracts of disbursements, returns of ordnance, receipt rolls for employees of the Houston and Austin Arsenals, etc. Dates covered are 1835-1846. Officials who most often figure in these documents include George W. Hockley, Colonel of Ordnance; David Ross, Chief Clerk of the Ordnance Department; and Captain James Goodall, commander of the Austin Arsenal.

This series consists of letters, orders, contracts, bonds, letters of credit and other certifications, written to and from Commissaries General of Purchases A. S. Thurston (1837-1838) and William Henry Daingerfield (1838-1840). Dates covered are 1835-1842. The bulk of the material pertains to Daingerfield; some of his letters are personal in nature, and almost all pertain to his activities in New York and Philadelphia. In addition, there are other records of the Commissary of Purchases, including requisitions, receipts, vouchers, bills of lading, invoices, statements, accounts current, abstracts of disbursements, lists of notes and monies due, bank drafts, etc. Of unusual interest is a series of memo and account books, and bank passbooks, mainly for the branches of the Bank of the United States in Philadelphia and in New York.

This series consists of records of the Medical Department of the Office of Secretary of War, including requisitions, receipts, vouchers, invoices, bills, orders, certifications, etc., relating to medicines, hospital stores, and medical services. Dates covered are 1835, 1837, 1839-1842.

This series consists of correspondence to and from the Paymaster General, including letters, orders, estimates of funds required for pay of soldiers, letters of credit (auditor's certificates), bonds, powers of attorney, and other certifications; plus other records of the Pay Department, including requisitions for payment of troops, receipts of money (for pay, horses, tobacco, fuel, quarters, expenses, etc.), travel vouchers, accounts current, statements, abstracts of vouchers, abstracts of expenditures, lists of stoppages, etc. Dates covered are 1835-1845. Officials who most often figure in these documents include Paymasters George W. Poe and J. W. Scott, Paymaster General Jacob Snively, and Acting Paymaster General B. B. Sturges.

Maintained separately are pay vouchers, 1837-(1840) 1841, which are arranged alphabetically by the last name of the staff or field officer, and therein chronologically. Information on these documents (which are folded once and labelled on the outside) include the following: pay (for the officer and for private servants who are not soldiers), clothing (for private servant), forage (for horses), subsistence (for the officer and for his private servant); commencement and expiration dates, term of service, pay per month, amount, number of days, number of rations per day, post where due, price of rations; and remarks.

Also maintained separately are two types of specialized oversized document. One includes abstracts of payments made by the Paymaster of the Texas Army (1838-1841), which include the following information: number of vouchers, dates of payment, to whom paid, rank, commencement and expiration dates; amount of pay, subsistence, forage, bounty; officers' servants pay, subsistence, and clothing; total amount; and remarks. (There is also one volume, with an index, which contains abstracts of payments made by the various paymasters and paymasters general of the Texas Army between August 1838 and September 1841.)

The other type of specialized oversized document includes receipt roll extracts (1838-1841), most of which are multi-company. Those receipt rolls which correspond to specific companies are to be found in the Military rolls series of Adjutant General's records.

This series consists of records of the three-man Commission for the Defense [Fortification] of Galveston Island, which was composed of Gail Borden, James H. Cocke, and Oscar Farish. Dates covered are 1843-1846. These records, which pertain to the various appropriations for protection of the sea coast, include vouchers, accounts current, statements, abstracts of vouchers, returns and abstracts of provisions purchased, reports of provisions issued, auditor's certificates, receipts, requests for the survey of public stores, an oversized return of public property purchased for and consumed at Post Galveston in erecting fortifications (1843-1844), an oversized general abstract of disbursements made by the Commissioners for defense of Galveston Island under the provisions of an Act for the protection of the sea coast, etc.

This series consists of the paper wrappers used to enclose folded documents or bundles of documents in the original files of the Army Papers, labelled on the outside. Dates covered are 1835-1846. These wrappers pertain to records now found in the records of all of the various departments under the Secretary of War.