I’m always very ambivalent reading articles like this because my great grandfather, his brother and his brother’s son met at my Grandpa’s house after Sunday lunch in Spicewood, Texas in 1861 and rode off to join the Texas 6th which Lee himself admitted that he came to depend on.
4 years later, only my great grandpa came back. If he had not, I would not be typing this email.
My great grandpa wrote letters that said....”I never came even close to affording a slave”, but...”I’m not going to let these “damn yankees” push Texas around” (I’m paraphrasing).
One of my great grandfathers was fresh off the boat from Europe in Illinois, his family having escaped to dodge the draft into one of Europe's endless wars.
Soon enough, he and his brother volunteered, he for a Quincy, Ill. regiment and served until the end -- when he was wounded near Mobile, the wound not so serious but the infection nearly killed him.
When it was all over the two brothers married two pretty young Texas girls... and moved to Kansas.