The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 48, July 1944 - April, 1945 Page: 403
617 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 24 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Texas Collection 403
reasonably certain that Upham did not die at the Alamo; but it
is possible that he may have been with F. W. Johnson or Dr. James
Grant and have been killed with their companions. Miss Harriet Smither
has found nothing on military service of Robert Harris Upham; and Miss
Amelia Williams, in a search of the Land Office records, found no grant
of land to him or his heirs. Miss Smither looked in Burlage and Hollings-
worth without success. There was, however, a Robert Harris, member of
the Mier Expedition, who drew a black bean and was killed at the Hacienda
Salado in Mexico, March 25, 1843. For a time I thought that perhaps
Upham had abbreviated or otherwise changed his name (as so many
Texans did, in those days).
Harbert Davenport, to whose judgment I defer, thinks otherwise:
"There is a distinct possibility that Upham did not serve in Texas under his
own name. However, my own investigations for the period from October 1,
1835, to June 1, 1836, indicate that enlistments in Texas, under false names,
did not often occur. . . . There were many who 'left their country for their
country's good' during the period of Colonial Texas, who came to Texas
under aliases; and there were others who so disguised their identities
among those who drifted into the Texan army after San Jacinto; but those
who volunteered for Texas service for the active period of the Revolution
(from October 1, 1835, to June 1, 1836) were usually from the best young
Americans of that day; who lacked both the desire and the occasion for
serving under other than their own names." Thomas Green, in his Journal
of the Texian Expedition against Mier . . . (1845), 439, states that Harris,
a resident of Travis County, was a native of Mississippi.
Davenport, after a carefully reasoned argument as to the possibilities
of Upham's having died for Texas freedom, has the following to say: "It
is reasonably certain that Robert Harris Upham did not die at the Alamo;
but there is a distinct possibility that he may have been killed with John-
son or Grant. Although I have given their rolls much careful study, I have
been unable to identify two or three of the men who died with Johnson,
and an equal number killed with Grant .... In the case of the Grant and
Johnson parties, with the exception of a pencil muster roll of Lewellen's
company preserved by Hutchins M. Pitman, its first sergeant; and pub-
lished lists of those 'Prisoners of Matamoros' captured at San Patricio
or Agua Dulce, no rosters of any kind were ever returned. From the sources
mentioned, and other facts clearly proved of record, I was able to repro-
duce the Johnson and Grant rolls within five or six names. Identifying
those five or six is not impossible, but is really tough. Robert Harris
Upham was quite likely one of these."
In Otis F. R. Waite's History of the Town of Claremont, New Hamp-
shire . . . (1895), 245-246, it is stated that Robert H. Upham "enlisted in a
company raised by Captain [John M.] Allen, at Cincinnati." If Dixon and
Kemp (The Heroes of San Jacinto [1932], 90) are correct, Captain Allen
did his recruiting service in the United States after San Jacinto, when he
enrolled some 230 men for the Texas Army. There is a possibility, of
course, that Upham may have accompanied Allen (a Kentuckian) on Al-
len's return to Texas in 1835. The numerous demonstrable errors of fact
in, the Waite account do not inspire great confidence in the accuracy of
details on which I lack corroboration.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 48, July 1944 - April, 1945, periodical, 1945; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth146055/m1/447/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.