The bimonthly muster rolls were the payroll... wherein each person signed for his salary (less deductions). Because of cash shortages and other administrative problems in the Trans-Mississippi Department, it appears that none of the soldiers were paid from October 1863 onward. No pay call equals no pay/muster roll, and thus no written records.

The actual company rosters existed mostly in the heads of the orderly sergeant for each company... Regulations required a full roll call 3 or more times daily, and this fellow had to be able to recite his roster from memory under nearly any condition... There were company books and forms issued for these reports to be recorded, but as Bryan mentioned above, paper was very short, and one of the more common complaints in the company records for the Trans-MS units was that they had never been issued the appropriate books or other materials required to keep the prescribed records.

Details and all the wherewith and whyfor are contained in an article from the Arkansas Historical Quarterly some years ago... if anyone's interested I can provide the cite once I get home this evening.

Another good resource for deciphering the service records is August V. Kautz's handbook, "The Company Clerk"... an 1860s training manual for the fellows who did the paper shuffling at company and regimental headquarters.

your pard,

Tom