five hundred prisoners. We had two steamboats with about two hundred men on each boat. One of our boats was sunk, but it was in shallow water and no one was drowned. Captain Pryon remained on the Island until June and was sent to Lousiana. General Tom Green was now our commander and our brigade soon joined the Confederate army under General Taylor. General Banks' Union army was on its way to Texas, 35,000 strong. Our army numbered about 17,000 men, and was composed of Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana troops.

The two armies met about the 15th of June and fought a three days' battle in which Banks was defeated. We captured several thousand prisoners and many wagon loads of supplies.

After this I was in a number of desperate engagements and was captured and taken to City Point, Virginia. Later we were taken to Jackson, Miss., on parole. After we reached Jackson, Miss., four of us left there one night and walked from there to Beaumont, Texas, in sixteen days. My shoes had worn out and when I got to Houston I went to a store and bought a new pair and told the clerk to charge them to Jeff Davis.

My experience was hard on me and I endured many hardships and privations, sleeping on the bare ground nearly three months after I was captured. In 1864 our regiment was stationed on Galveston Island and remained there until the end of the war, and we had an easy time there. Our duty was to ride the beach five miles and back every two hours and watch on a signal station day and night. The enemy's warships would come around and shell us occasionally, but never any of us got covered up with sand except one time when one of the big shells weighing 164 pounds hit near us.

In the summer of 1864 yellow fever broke out in Galveston and fourteen members of our company were stricken. Captain C. D. McRae and James Cowley died. Our company was camped on the west end of the Island during the last year of the war.

In the fall of 1865 I went to school at Moulton, Lavaca county, and in 1866 I went to Live Oak county where I secured a wagon and ox team and hauled freight from Indianola to San Antonio. That fall I hired to a man named H. Williams who lived on Lagorta Creek, thirty miles from Oakville. Only a very few settlements were there at that time. One family named Weaver lived about a mile from the Williams place, and there were two grown girls in the Weaver family. These girls would assist their father in hunting cattle, and carried their pistols with them wherever they went. They had a pack of hounds and hunted with them. One day they found where a panther had killed a colt belonging to their father, ten miles from their home, so they came to the Williams ranch and got two of Mr. Williams' daughters to go with them to hunt the panther. About one o'clock in the morning two of the girls came back to get help to kill the panther as they had found it. Mr. Williams sent me to help them, giving me an old Enfield rifle to use. We reached the place where the other two girls were about daylight, and found they had the panther treed.

I dismounted and took a shot at him, the ball passing through his foot, and causing him to jump out and make for me. I could not run, for those four girls were all looking at me, and expecting me to do something. Luckily one of the dogs laid hold of the panther about that time and things got interesting. The other dogs took a hand in the fight and the panther whipped them all, fearfully mangling some of them. I rushed in and killed

it by beating it over the head with my gun. I have been a friend to dogs ever since.

In 1867 I made a crop in Gonzales county, and in the fall of the year I drove my first cattle, going to Houston for a man named Tumlinson with about fifty head. I made ten bales of cotton that year and collected $15 per bale for war taxes.

I made my first trip up the trail to Kansas in 1868, and other trips followed, accounts of which are given in Volume I of this book.

On January 2, 1872, I married Miss Mary Harrell. Her hair was black then, but it is not now, for time has changed it to a silvery grey. I often think of the many

changes that have occurred during the last forty-nine years. My wife's father was Milvern Harrell and he deserves worthy mention in the history of the Old Trail Drivers of Texas. He went to Kansas several times with cattle. During the Civil War he drove cattle to Louisiana for the Confederate army. Previous to the Civil War in 1846, he joined a company under Dawson, about fifty men in all and when they reached the Salado near San Antonio they were surrounded by a large force of Mexican cavalry and captured, only. three Americans making their escape. Mr. Harrell was wounded with sabre cuts and was taken to Mexico City and imprisoned for twelve months. He told me the Mexicans were very kind to him while he was in the hospital there. When he was released he went to Vera Cruz and sailed to New Orleans. Students of Texas History are familiar with the account of the massacre of Dawson's men.

DROVE HORSES TO MISSISSIPPI

F. G. Crawford, Oakville, Texas

I was born May 1, 1843, in the town of Gonzales, in the Republic of Texas. My mother died when I was an infant, and I was one of those who had to suck a bottle. My father bought a small tract of land near the Guadalupe River, two miles north of New Braunfels, and we moved there when I was four years old. Among other things we raised a great many watermelons on this place which were taken to San Antonio and sold to soldiers stationed there. Father owned a trusty negro slave who would take the melons there, and I often went with him in a wagon drawn by oxen. We would usually be away from home two nights, and of course I had to sleep on a pallet on the ground with the old negro man, but I was always glad to make the trip and see the sights in San Antonio, which at that early date was considered a large town. If the government buildings would have been re

moved it would only have been a small town after all. That was seventy-one years ago. Many changes have been wrought since then.

When I was seven years old father bought and settled on a larger tract of land seven miles north of New Braunfels, on what was called the Springtown Road, leading to San Marcos. I grew up here, and when the Civil War came on I enlisted in the Confederate army. I have papers to show that I served four years in the Confederate ranks. I also have my amnesty certificate, which restored my citizenship.

In May, 1868, Joe Burleson and myself formed a partnership and bought 250 head of horses, suitable to work on farms and drove them to Water Valley, Mississippi. As there were but few boats and bridges we had to swim many streams on account of high water. One time while we were camped in Arkansas a hurricane passed near us. The thunder and lightning was terrifying and we had to keep riding around our horses to prevent them from stampeding and running off.

Soon after I returned from this trip to Mississippi, Capt. E. B. Millett came to me and asked me to take charge of 1,000 beeves and drive them to California, and he would take another 1,000 to Dakota. But I had not fully recovered from a serious illness and had to decline his offer.

There are four counties, that corner with each other near York's Creek, about four miles from my father's old home, Comal, Guadalupe, Caldwell and Hays, and in my boyhood days I hunted cattle in all of those counties. Often we had some rough times, being exposed to hot and dry weather in the summer and cold and wet in the winter. There were no pastures then-strictly a free range country.

Joe Burleson, mentioned above, was a son of General Edward Burleson, who was with General Sam Houston at the battle of San Jacinto.