These records consist of letters, telegrams, and postal cards, plus attachments, received by the Texas Adjutant General's office, plus some copies (mostly for the 20th century) of outgoing letters, dating 1846-1943 (bulk 1861-1933).

Most of the incoming letters and telegrams were addressed either to the Adjutant General, or to a subordinate (e.g., the Assistant Adjutant General, the Quartermaster General, the Quartermaster of the Frontier Battalion); a significant amount of the correspondence, however, was addressed to another party--most notably, the Governor--and then referred to the Adjutant General. Incoming letters for the 1870s and part of the 1880s have been registered and for the most part indexed (see subseries Registers of letters received and Indexes to letters received, described elsewhere). Copies of outgoing letters were only rarely included during the 19th century; within the first five years of the 20th century, however, the filing of carbon copies of outgoing letters became routine. The letterpress books of the Letter books and letterpress books subseries (described elsewhere) represent a fairly complete record of letters sent by the Adjutant General from 1871 through 1905, and are also indexed. Using the registers, the filing system for some of the incoming correspondence can be reconstructed intellectually for the 1870s and 1880s; an alphanumeric code was registered in a ledger and written onto the reverse side of the letter itself, using the first letter of the last name of the correspondent plus a number related to the order in which the letter was registered.

The original order has been replaced by a roughly chronological one, usually in increments of seven to nine days; according to the biennial report of the Texas State Library, this chronologizing of the Adjutant General's correspondence began in 1942-1944. (In 1994, two clumps of letters from 1883-1884 and 1888 were discovered misfiled with Comptroller correspondence; they have been included below in that same original order.) No attempt has been made to place documents in exact date order. Where possible, enclosures have been kept with cover letters, but related items may be widely separated. Incoming and outgoing correspondence are interfiled chronologically.

The correspondence documents the day-to-day details of office operation, including the recruiting, paying, provisioning, arming, transporting, and training of the various military organizations of Texas throughout its history. In addition many significant developments in Texas history are reflected here. To cite a few examples: reports of depredations by Indians and bandits; petitions for exemption from service, discharges, and furloughs, especially during the Civil War; reports on Civil War hospital conditions; scouting reports; proclamations of martial law; petitions to form militia units, or to provision them; complaints of citizens against Rangers and militia units exceeding their authority; reports on the fence cutting wars of the 1880s; correspondence concerning violations of the civil rights of blacks; reports of arrests; requests for proof of service, especially in connection with applications for federal pensions for service during the War with Mexico, the Indian Wars, and the Spanish-American War; correspondence relating to cattle rustling; proceedings of courts of inquiry and courts martial; applications to become Rangers, and letters of recommendation accompanying those applications; correspondence concerning the nationalization of the Texas Volunteer Guard in 1898; requests for information concerning the fate of victims of the Galveston flood of 1900; reports of border troubles during the early 20th century; requests for, and reports of, enforcement of prohibition and anti-vice laws; correspondence concerning the use of the Texas National Guard and Rangers for strikebreaking; reports of disloyalty, delivered by specially-appointed Loyalty Rangers during 1917-1918. Preliminary use of the printed biennial reports of the Adjutant General is highly recommended, as a guide to the subjects likely to be treated in the correspondence of a given time period.

Correspondence from 1900 to 1925 was thinned by a sampling conducted in 1973. The criteria for the sampling is not known, however.

This finding aid has been split into two parts due to electronic file size limitations imposed by TARO. Click here on ( Texas Adjutant General's Department, Departmental correspondence: Correspondence, 1906-1943) for the second part of the container listing. If you are reading this in paper, that finding aid is found at a separate divider within the binder.

These records consist of two volumes of letter books (1861-1863) and 90 volumes of letterpress books (1871-1905). Both were maintained by the Texas Adjutant General's Department as a record of letters sent by that office.

The Civil War letter books are two volumes, totalling 1,245 pages, which contain copies of letters sent out by J. Y. Dashiell, Adjutant and Inspector General of Texas, between November 15, 1861 and September 16, 1863. Recipients of these letters include brigade officers, Ranger officers, county officials, and private citizens. The margins contain cross references to other letters, in red ink. Only the second volume (November 26, 1862 through September 16, 1863) contains an index.

The post-Civil War letterpress books date from August 14, 1871 through December 20, 1905. The following gaps exist, totalling approximately 20 months, where four volumes are apparently missing:

August 28, 1877-February 26, 1878; January 28-May 22, 1893; February 24-October 17, 1904; August 5-October 19, 1905.

Each of the letterpress books includes an alphabetical index, which lists persons to whom the letters are addressed; in addition, the indexes for the 19th century indicate the subjects of the letters, in red ink. One stray index may pertain to one of the last two missing letterpress books listed above, most likely the last. Virtually all of the letters are signed by the Adjutant General, or by someone specifically designated as acting in the absence of the Adjutant General: e.g., the Assistant Adjutant General, or the Chief Clerk. The copies are mostly handwritten until May 1896, after which date the majority are typescript; Adjutant General Wozencraft's letters, however, are nearly all handwritten (May-December 1898). Most of the letters from 1874 through 1883 are coded with the numbers of the incoming letters to which they are replies; these codes correspond to the Registers of letters received subseries, described elsewhere. The volumes for 1903-1905 are incomplete through mutilation; the bulk of the pages have been razored out. However, copies of outgoing correspondence began to be included in the Departmental correspondence files at about this same time.

In addition to these general letterpress books, the Adjutant General's office maintained specialized volumes for specific military organizations and/or for specific staff members. Outgoing letters were copied into separate letterpress books for the Reserve Militia (June 22, 1870-December 18, 1871) and for the State Police (July 1, 1870-August 15, 1871). One volume was maintained by the Paymaster (March 14, 1871-March 14, 1872). Letters sent by the Quartermaster of the Frontier Battalion form a sizable group, with no gaps from August 22, 1883 through September 4, 1902. Four letterpress books were kept by the Quartermaster of the Ranger force and/or the Texas National Guard between August 1, 1902 and October 18, 1906. Finally, eleven letterpress books contain receipts for final payment of payroll checks to members of the Texas Volunteers for the Spanish-American War. These specialized letterpress books are described in several appropriate subseries of Adjutant General's Organization records.

These records consist of five large volumes that register the letters received by the Texas Adjutant General between November 1870 and January 1883. The format is standardized into the following columns:

date received, and (in red ink) a sequential number; the numbers begin again at 1 with each letter of the alphabet; name of the sender, and (in red ink) the disposition of the letter (e.g., filed, or commission issued [date], or l[etter] s[ent] [date]); place, date written, and purport (a short description of the subject of the letter).

Each of these five volumes are indexed separately; the indexes are described in the Indexes to letters received subseries.

The Adjutant General's office maintained four additional registers of letters received, which are described under the appropriate series. One of these registered incoming correspondence concerning the Texas State Troops (January 1862 through November 1863). Another of these registered incoming correspondence concerning the State Police (May 14, 1870 through January 7, 1871). Still another abstracted incoming correspondence concerning the Militia (July 28, 1870 through January 10, 1871). And finally, there is a register of letters received for the 1st Infantry, Texas National Guard (January 16, 1906 through July 21, 1907).

These records consist of thirteen alphabetical indexes to letters received by the Texas Adjutant General, dating 1870-1899. The first six indexes cover the period November 1870 through January 1883, and are actually indexes to volumes 1 through 5 of the Registers of letters received subseries, described elsewhere). A typical entry in volume 4 (401-709), for example, would be Horton 132, which refers to volume 4, item number 132 under the letter H (which normally stands for the first letter of the last name of the person sending the letter). The actual piece of correspondence would bear the code H4132. Persons who sent letters are indexed in black ink; subjects of letters (both persons and topics) are indexed in red ink.

The remaining indexes either refer to registers which are not extant, or else do not refer to any registers at all, but rather directly to the correspondence itself. At any rate, they are useful as a partial guide to the Departmental correspondence. These cover the years 1883 through 1885 ( Volumes 1-12), 1886 through 1888 ( Volumes 13-27), 1889 through 1890 ( File Cases A-F), 1891-1892, 1893-1894, 1895-1898, and at least part of 1899.

A comparison of the actual Departmental correspondence for 1883 through 1899 indicates several different filing systems. Beginning with January 1883, most incoming letters are marked as in the following examples:

1.D.1 (a letter sent by a Mr. Davis dated January 11, 1883, apparently the first item under the Ds in the first volume of a vanished series of registers beginning with 1883); 12.V.2 (a letter from a Captain Van Zandt dated December 30, 1885, the second item under the Vs in volume 12); 18.D.6 (a letter from the Captain of Company D, dated January 6, 1886, the sixth item under the Ds in volume 18).

Beginning with January 1889, a new system began. The index of 1889-1890 is indexed for correspondents with names from A through Z, for file cases A through F; thus a letter dated February 19, 1889 from J. D. Morrow is marked A101, signifying item 101 under (or in) File Case A. It is uncertain what the file cases represented, except that they do not correspond to the names of either senders or subjects.

With January 1891, and at least for the rest of the 19th century, the codes reverted back to a recognizable system:

L-2-91 (a letter from a person named Levy, dated January 3, 1891, the second item under the Ls in 1891); H-1512-98 (a letter from a person named Houston, dated December 22, 1898, item number 1512 under the Hs in 1898). In 1899 only letters whose senders' names began with the letters A through J are indexed.