As all you Texas researchers know, the Texas State Archives has extracted all the names from the Texas State Troops muster rolls and maintains a card file with these names. You can e-mail them, or write, and order a copy of your soldier's card. They will no longer make copies of the actual muster rolls, since the rolls are very fragile and are falling apart.

I will tell you, though, that not all the men who served in the home guard (otherwise known as the Texas State Troops) got listed on a muster roll. Muster rolls were turned in to the Adjutant General's office sporadically. As an example, the Danville Mounted Riflemen (Montgomery County) organized and incorporated in May of 1861, but there is no muster roll on file until September. The only other muster roll for them was taken in February, 1862, just before the men left en masse to join Carter's Brigade (cavalry) at Chappel Hill, in their attempt to avoid infantry conscription.

However, if you go to the Archives in Austin and actually read the Brigade Correspondence for the brigade into which your county falls, you will find many more lists of militia men whose name never made it onto the muster rolls. These lists were mostly lists of voters, by precinct, voting for their commissioned officers. Note that, once the able bodied men were mustered into CSA service, those left behind to defend the home front were the very young and the older men. There are boys as young as fourteen who appear in these muster rolls and lists.

I am including a link to the Texas Archives' online inventory of the Brigade Correspondence. This site will tell you the brigade into which your county falls; if you scroll down below, you will find the box number and folder numbers for your brigade.

Hillsboro has the microfilms of all CSA compiled service records, but few microfilms of State Troops; in fact, the only State Troops records they have are for those who were mustered into Confederate service for a short period of time; the ones I looked at never left Texas.

It is my understanding that the Clayton Friends of the Library organization is microfilming the Adjutant General's holdings, but I do not have any information as to a possible date of completion. Let us hope it is soon.