NATIONAL ORIGINS PROVISION OF IMMIGRATION LAW 115
Senator Coreraxp. He does emphasize the number in the Revolu-Honary
 War, does he not; in the Army
Mr. MaruEwsoN. Yes; he speaks about the number that he claims
were in the American Army in the Revolution; and in so doing he
lays great emphasis upon the muster rolls of the Revolutionary
Army. In connection with that, he says, page 134 [reading]:
“IT have not examined all of the muster rolls, but have selected a
number indiscriminately from each of the original 13 colonies. On
the basis before explained, I have made a careful calculation, (1) by
counting the total number of soldiers in each unit, and (2) by a separate
 count of those of undoubted Irish birth or descent.”
Mr. O’Brien, of course, did not examine all the muster rolls; if
he had tried to have done so, it would have been a prohibitive task,
just from a physical standpoint; it would have taken too long. But
he arrived at his conclusions, if you call them conclusions, since he
vives no estimates of the Irish here in 1790, by comparing the numbers
 he claims that he finds in the muster rolls that he says were of
Irish origin with the number given in the census of 1790, and finds
and compares all those with the names in the muster rolls of 1890,
showing, he claims, so many more in the muster rolls, and therefore
there must have been more in the country of Irish blood than show
in the 1790 census.
Senator Coreraxp. He takes some specific names to illustrate how
they do appear in the census compared with on the muster rolls.
Mr. Marmrewson. Some of them appear in the census, but not as
many, according to his statement, as should be in the census. since
there are so many in the muster rolls.
Now, these muster rolls—I stated my conclusions in the beginning,
rather than my reasons—are very plainly unreliable data upon which
to hase any conclusion.
The muster rolls are composed of various data, not only including
the rolls themselves but the data taken from the pay rolls, bounty
warrants, and what not.
And TI think that possibly most people have a pretty good idea
about the number of times that the names of the same individual
occurs in the muster rolls, not as regards the times it is represented
in the muster rolls but that the muster rolls contain countless revetitions
 of the same names.
The reasons for those repetitions are very apparent, after even a
few hours looking over the rolls. In the first place, a man would
anlist on an alarm. He would march off to some place on the coast.
The alarm was found to be a false alarm, or would be over in a short
time, and we would be marched back again and go home. Then he
would be enlisted on another alarm. The same thing would happen.
The countless ways of spelling the same name. So a man could
ve listed under two names, which to a modern view of the subject are
totally different, yet exactly the same name.
Men used to desert from the Army in large numbers, and by desertion
 I do not mean that a man would leave the American Army
and go over and join the British Army; but he would find that his
crops needed taking in, or that his family needed attention; and he
would just leave the Army and go home. Then he would come back,
join the Army again; and that was taking place all the time.