A Story of the Civil War Period: Heel-Fly Time in Texas - Paperback

by John Warren Hunter (Author)

John Warren Hunter was born in Rogersville, Alabama. When he was 10 years old, he and his family moved to Texas. Five years later, the Civil War broke out. Hunter was only 15 years old, so he was not old enough to enlist, and after a group of Confederate soldiers hung one of his friends, he decided he could not fight for the Confederacy. He also would not fight against the South - he would escape conscription (dodging the draft) by securing a job as a teamster with a wagon train hauling cotton to Brownsville, where he crossed to Matamoros, Tamaulipas (Mexico), but the trip would not be an easy one. Escaping to Mexico would be fraught with constant dodging and harassment by the Home Guards, or Heel-Flies as they were known then. This is his tale of that Heel-Fly Time in Texas.

Author Biography

John Warren Hunter was born in Rogersville, Alabama, on August 10, 1846. His father and stepmother brought him to Texas in 1856, settled in Hunt County, and then moved to Sulphur Bluff in Hopkins County, where he attended school for two months. When he was fifteen, the Civil War broke out. He was not old enough to enlist, and after a group of Confederate soldiers hung one of his friends, he decided he could not fight for the Confederacy. As he would not fight against the South, he escaped conscription by securing a job as a teamster with a wagon train hauling cotton to Brownsville, where he crossed to Matamoros, Tamaulipas (Mexico) and remained there until the end of the war. On a trip to Columbus, Texas in 1864, Hunter wrote his account of the harassment he endured by the Home Guards, or Heel-Flies as they were known then, in "A Story of the Civil War Period: Heel-Fly Time in Texas"; an autobiographical work first published by the Frontier Times in 1931.