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Mr Rose
Nov 5, 2011 19:54:14 GMT -5
Post by Hollowhorn on Nov 5, 2011 19:54:14 GMT -5
Did she or anyone else ever vouch for his having been there at all? Yes, both Enrique Esparza & Susanna Dickenson mentioned Rose's presence, albeit after the Zuber account was published. Susanna named him as 'Ross' though. 'The Alamo Reader' has a fair few pages on Rose: All Things 'Rose'
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Mr Rose
Nov 5, 2011 19:57:40 GMT -5
Post by Hollowhorn on Nov 5, 2011 19:57:40 GMT -5
The Rose account does have a lot of holes in it but keep in mind that is due to Zuber's account of the event and not Rose’s. We have no idea of what Rose told Zuber's family. We also don't have any idea of what Zuber's mother told her son. All we have is Zuber. Making a liar/fabricator out of Zuber doesn't disqualify Rose. George, I said much the same in an earlier post & agree entirely with what you are saying.
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Mr Rose
Nov 6, 2011 13:21:54 GMT -5
Post by loucapitano on Nov 6, 2011 13:21:54 GMT -5
Thanks guys. There seems enough of the Rose/Zuber story to continue our speculation as to what, if anything, really happened. I guess we'll all have to look at what shallow and shakey evidence exists and draw our own conclusions. Many of us have already made that conclusion pro or against. I agree with you George, the fun part is ferreting out that kernel of truth. But, like all things Alamo, peeling this artichoke requires real passion and patience.
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Mr Rose
Nov 17, 2011 8:31:26 GMT -5
Post by stuart on Nov 17, 2011 8:31:26 GMT -5
Missed this one through not being too well lately - much improved now so no condolences necessary.
As to Rose:
I'm still not convinced on the basis of the available evidence that he existed, or at least that a single individual called Moses Rose existed. I'm still open to the suggestion there may have been a man named Rose or Ross who may have escaped from the Alamo but suspect that two or more different individuals may have been confused.
For what its worth I'd say the balance of probability is that Rose/Ross did escape from the Alamo during the breakouts as Herb suggests - the detail of the bloodstained clothing is inexplicably unnecessary otherwise - and did stop off at the Zuber place. After all a surprising number of men got away from the Goliad massacre in even less favourable circumstances. Its Zuber's story that's the fiction, not Rose/Ross's - and admitted to be as discussed above.
As to the land grant business, that was pretty murky at the best of times and leaving aside the hash which R.B. Blake made of it (per Lindley), as I recall there's no actual testimony by Rose/Ross, just a citation or two. Given the attention paid to Dickenson I think that's significant. The claims may have been endorsed by someone who was reputed to have been in the Alamo, but that aint the same as producing him in front of a tribunal.
As to Warnell, whether he was a survivor or not, "his" claim was a posthumous one.
Just by way of complicating things slightly. Leaving aside the confusion as to whether the gentleman in question was called Louis, Moses, John or anything else, there is an assumption that he was French and possibly Jewish.
This aint necessarily so. In the various Alamo rolls there is some uncertainty as to whether he was called Ross or Rose. As it happens, the Scottish name Ross which is very common in the far north of Scotland, was traditionally spelled Rose in the Inverness area. Furthermore, although the christian name Louis sounds unambiguously French it also used to be common in the north east of Scotland, albeit usually spelled Lewis - but nevertheless pronounced Lewie.
Far from being a French veteran of Napoleon's army this possible Alamo survivor could in fact be a Scotsman called Lewie Ross!
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Mr Rose
Nov 18, 2011 0:24:52 GMT -5
Post by sloanrodgers on Nov 18, 2011 0:24:52 GMT -5
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Mr Rose
Nov 19, 2011 17:22:03 GMT -5
Post by sloanrodgers on Nov 19, 2011 17:22:03 GMT -5
Louis (Lewis or Moses) Rose supposedly served in Capt. William S. Blount's Cavalry Company from June 22 to September 22, 1836. Apparently those cactus thorns in Rose didn't keep him from riding horses. This may have been the Capt. Blount that accompanied Jim Bowie from Nacogdoches to Goliad and certainly the same William S. Blount that testified with Louis Rose in various land claims in the late 1830s. Lewis Rose Republic Claim tslarc.tsl.state.tx.us/repclaims/183/18300265.pdf
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Mr Rose
Nov 19, 2011 22:58:37 GMT -5
Post by stuart on Nov 19, 2011 22:58:37 GMT -5
So he claimed for service under Blount from June 1836, but made no claim for any earlier service?
Interestingly I have a Stephen S Blount carrying Neill's letter of January 1 1836 from Bexar
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Mr Rose
Nov 20, 2011 22:48:48 GMT -5
Post by sloanrodgers on Nov 20, 2011 22:48:48 GMT -5
So he claimed for service under Blount from June 1836, but made no claim for any earlier service? Interestingly I have a Stephen S Blount carrying Neill's letter of January 1 1836 from Bexar We may never know what army service Louis Rose actually claimed to republic and state officials. As you know a terrible series of 19th Century arson and natural fires destroyed a few Austin, TX buildings (Treasury Dept.-1845, Adjutant General's Dept.-1855 and the State Capitol-1881) that housed irreplaceable revolutionary documents. The records we have are the ones that survived these awful fires or duplicate information from other agencies like the General Land Office. There appear to be shadows of some type of revolutionary military service for Louis Rose. William S. Blount wasn't really a captain when he possibly rode from Nacogdoches with Bowie and arrived in Goliad on Jan. 11, 36. During this time he was serving as a lieutenant in Captain Thomas Lewellyn's Infantry Company, which was stationed in San Antone. A few months earlier Lewellyn was a member of Capt John English's San Augustine Company or mounted gumen. Lt. Blount and Rose could have followed English or Lewellyn west in one of these companies. Perhaps Lt. Blount and Rose were present when Lewellyn's men heard and observed Milam's rousing speech before the Battle of Bexar, then crossed Old Ben's line in the dirt, instead of Travis' scratch. When Lewellyn's company helped capture the Veramendi Palace, maybe Lt. Blount and Rose even witnessed Milam's death. After the victory at Bexar, Lewellyn's unit joined Johnson, Fannin and Grant's Matamoros Expedition on which Capt. Lewellyn was killed. The death of their commanding officer might be one reason Lt. Blount and Rose's service records are so lacking in documentation. I'm new to the Rose controversy, so I'm just speculating on some information that I've found in the last couple days. Blount filed for a donation grant of 640 acres in Oct. 1856 for his combat service at Bexar, which then went to the Court of Claims. His application (file number 000729) was returned to his lawyers, withdrawn, approved on Feb. 23, 1857 on the basis of a single service voucher (#330) then left on the table incomplete. Shortly afterward another donation was approved with no review or trouble with the court. Wherever Rose served during the revolution (Bexar, Goliad, Alamo, etc.), lacking key records he may not have had the resources that a rich officer had and might have resorted to tall tales to explain his service or possible desertion in one of these engagements. PS. To answer your question above. None other than the ambiguous Rose from Nacogdoches in that 1836 newpaper list. I believe Stephen Blount was a representative that signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, but I don't think he was in the army in January 1836.
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Mr Rose
Nov 21, 2011 5:05:44 GMT -5
Post by stuart on Nov 21, 2011 5:05:44 GMT -5
I got it wrong somewhere along the line.
It was "Mr W.S. Blount" who was sent from Bexar on January 1, carrying a pretty bland letter of recommendation to Houston, with a footnote added by Jameson referring to him as Lieut. Blount and advising that he can tell Houston everything he needed to know about what Grant was up to. (Hansen: 647)
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Mr Rose
Nov 22, 2011 13:47:45 GMT -5
Post by sloanrodgers on Nov 22, 2011 13:47:45 GMT -5
I got it wrong somewhere along the line. It was "Mr W.S. Blount" who was sent from Bexar on January 1, carrying a pretty bland letter of recommendation to Houston, with a footnote added by Jameson referring to him as Lieut. Blount and advising that he can tell Houston everything he needed to know about what Grant was up to. (Hansen: 647) That's an interesting note that places Willian S. Bount in San Antonio. Incidentally, Zuber claimed that Louis Rose and Bowie were best buds, but I've found no contemporary connection between them other than their both knowing Bill Blount. This officer is possibly Rose's connection to Bowie and the Alamo. Their mild association may lead to research that they went to San Antonio with Bowie, Captains Lewellyn or English, then fought at the battle of Bexar. Sometimes connecting roots turn up.
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Mr Rose
Dec 14, 2011 18:00:40 GMT -5
Post by Hollowhorn on Dec 14, 2011 18:00:40 GMT -5
I'm still open to the suggestion there may have been a man named Rose or Ross who may have escaped from the Alamo but suspect that two or more different individuals may have been confused. In the various Alamo rolls there is some uncertainty as to whether he was called Ross or Rose. Interesting that Susanna Dickinson mentions the name Ross, she obviously knew the difference between Ross & Rose. From ‘The Alamo Reader’:Susanna Belles, formerly Dickinson, deposition, July 16th 1857 on behalf of the heirs of James M. Rose. Though she does state that James M. Rose was around the 35-45 age range when he was actually 31, Louis Rose on the other hand was 50 years of old at the time. No conclusion, just an observation. As an aside, when she talks of the Mexican’s first attack, I take it she means the early action at La Villita? James M. would appear to have been ‘up close and personal’ during that particular affray.
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Mr Rose
Jan 29, 2012 15:00:04 GMT -5
Post by Kevin Young on Jan 29, 2012 15:00:04 GMT -5
I was contacted by Gerard Dole, a French researcher who has just published a book called Dôle, Texas 1836, Musical Echoes from the Alamo, followed by San Antonio Roze, Dinan: Terre de Brume.
In his work, he dismantles Steven Kellamn's 1982 article "The Yellow Rose of Texas”, published in the Virginia: Journal of American Culture 5, no. 2. Kellman, using documents obtained in Services Historiques de la Défense in Vincennes, France had claimed that Rose was a lieutenant in the Napoleonic Army during the Spainish Campaign and won the Legion of Honor.
Dole, back traced those documents, and discovered that Kellman had misreaded Roze as Rose. Forgive the cut and past, but this is a summary of what Dole put on line in the Wiki bio of Rose(I know-Wiki? but this is where Dole sent me to look at the summary of his work on this):
“For the first thirty-eight years of the twentieth century,” wrote Thomas Ricks Lindley [9], “William P. Zuber’s story of Moses Rose’s alleged escape from the Alamo was an unsubstantiated tale accepted by few historians.” Then in 1939 came a thunderbolt: Texas archivist Robert B. Blake had uncovered land grant statements from the Nacogdoches County Courthouse containing elements that seemed to verify Zuber’s story. Because Blake appears to have believed him, he assumed that a Stephen and a Lewis or Louis Rose who, in their day, had signed testimony about Alamo defenders to the Board of Land Commissioners, were but one and same old Frenchman whose real name was Louis Rose. According to Blake, it was the very Rose described in the Texas Almanac for 1873, “Moses” becoming a nickname given to him by the Alamo defenders for his great age, 50 (Gordon C. Jenning, 56, was the oldest Alamo fighter at the time.)
In 1982, Steven G. Kellman, professor of comparative literature at the University of Texas at San Antonio, brought fresh grist to the mill by publishing a short study, “The Yellow Rose of Texas,”[10] Kellman believed that the xeroxes of military documents he had obtained from the Services Historiques de la Défense in Vincennes, France, showed that “Moses, né Louis” was Lieutenant Louis Roze (haphazardly misspelled "Rose" on one of the copies he got), born in Laferée, Ardennes, on May 11, 1785.
Two different first names – Stephen and Lewis or Louis – plus a nickname, Moses – for the same man now explicitly identified by Professor Kellman as an officer in Napoleon’s army brought questions to historian Gerard Dôle's mind. His personal curiosity was all the keener because a Napoleonic veteran in his family, Capitaine Charles Gouget, had saved the life of a Lieutenant Louis Roze (note the different spelling) during the disastrous campaign of Spain. It is also important to note that his father René, Émile, Moïse (“Moses” in French) Dôle, was baptized “Moïse” in accordance with the wishes of his uncle Charles Dôle, whose godfather was Capitaine Gouget. Could Lieutenant Louis ROZE be the same ROSE who had been branded the “coward,” the “traitor of the Alamo,” or the “Yellow Rose” by some Texas historians? Dôle's quest for the truth soon began.
Gerard Dôle was determined to find out exactly who this good friend of Capitaine Charles Gouget actually was. In order to retrace the life of Louis Roze, he consulted Louis Roze's complete military records at the French Archives Historiques de la Défense in Vincennes, as well as the complete dossier on his Légion d’Honneur at the Archives Nationales in Paris. At the same time, his assistant Stéphane Vielle went to work collecting and studying various official documents concerning Lieutenant Louis Roze, born in Laferée, Ardennes, on May 11, 1785.
Upon completing their research, Dôle and Vielle understood that there had been a case of mistaken identity. There was no way Louis Roze, born in La Ferré, could have been the Louis Moses Rose of Nacogdoches and the Alamo, for a simple and obvious reason: the Louis Roze born in the Ardennes had never crossed the Atlantic.
Let us examine the irrefutable proof that Louis Roze could not have been physically present in Texas on the date of the battle.
Sifting through and scrutinizing the official records and documents of the various towns where Louis Roze resided, Stéphane Vielle finally did discover two documents mentioning his name as a witness to various events in civilian life which occurred during the period that interests us. On June 5, 1833, Louis Roze acted as a witness to the christening of the daughter of Paul Masure, notary in the town of Braine (Aisne). A few years later, on August 30, 1837, he was one of the witnesses on the death certificate of the wife of Paul Masure, then named as a former notary.
Louis Roze died on May 25, 1851 in Braine, and the certificate was signed and witnessed by his friend Paul Masure. The document again mentions that Roze was a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur and native of Laferrée.
In light of this evidence, how could anyone believe that this exemplary officer, whose military career was spotless, whose beautiful penmanship and flourished signature can still be admired, might have donned the ragged clothing of a loner and a rambler, been branded as a cowardly deserter from a besieged fort ?
We shall therefore conclude with the formal assertion that Louis Roze (misspelled “Rose” by Dr. Kellman,) son of Pierre Roze and Marie Magdeleine Henaux, born May 11, 1785 à La Férée, never set foot in Texas or at the Alamo.[11]
Now, if I have not seen the expanded documentation in Dole's book, but it would appear that he may indeed have found some mis-identification.
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Mr Rose
Jan 29, 2012 17:02:58 GMT -5
Post by sloanrodgers on Jan 29, 2012 17:02:58 GMT -5
Good news and research. Thanks for posting. I never saw the stem that connected those two Rose's anyway.
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Mr Rose
Jan 29, 2012 17:39:15 GMT -5
Post by Allen Wiener on Jan 29, 2012 17:39:15 GMT -5
Excellent and interesting work! What does this portend for the Rose story now? Did a Rose of any sort exist outside the mind of Mr. Zuber?
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Mr Rose
Jan 29, 2012 18:16:11 GMT -5
Post by loucapitano on Jan 29, 2012 18:16:11 GMT -5
It just seems so coincidental that Zuber's story of Louis Moses Rose would include that he had seen enough of battle under Napoleon, and was not willing to die at the Alamo. Why the French connection? Maybe the Alamo deserter knew the real Rose and stole his identity, figuring the real one would remain in Europe. Do you think he may have suffered an 1836 version of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome? I still think the Rose/Zuber story is an artichoke, yet to be fully peeled. Congratulations, this research is most welcome and does reach closer to the artichoke's heart. Go GIANTS
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