Although voted 600 against to 580 for secession, began Confederate recruiting in June 1861. La Grange was headquarters for 22nd Brigade, Texas State Troops, Brig. Gen. Wm. G. Webb commanding, of which 18 companies (1,238 men ) and 72 officers were from Fayette.
Special county war taxes provided relief for soldiers' families. Funds were also raised by the famous "Cow Order" for seizure of strays. Censors here banned exchanges of mail with the U.S.
Confederate cotton gathered in and stored at La Grange and Round Top was freighted to Mexico by local men hauling 5 or more bales on each 3-months-long trip. In 1863 a dozen teamsters lost outfits and barely saved themselves when bandits struck near Roma, on the Mexican border.
Gen. Webb and Cols. John C. and Wm.F. Upton were Fayette County men. Local C.S.A. units were commanded by Capts. Ira G. Killough and Ben Shropshire, who fought in the Arizona-New Mexico campaign. Gen. Tom Green, first county surveyor, and Indian fighter and hero of San Jacinto and the Mexican war, had a part in such Confederate victories as the recapture of Galveston and the Battle of Mansfield, La.
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