Dr. H. HENSON REMEMBERS WHEN THE STARS FELL AND OTHER EVENTS OF

EARLY DAYS

"I was born in Rabun County, Ga May 21, 1823, which would make me between 85 and

86 years old. My father moved to Gilmore [Gilmer] County, Ga. where we lived until the

spring of 1834

"On the night of Nov 13, 1833, I saw the comets fall from the heavens by hundreds of

thousands. The whole canopy of heaven was in a general commotion from midnight

until daylight. I was not excited at the strange movements of the stars, as I supposed

they did that every morning.

"Some movers, camped near our house, awoke and called out to my father that the

world was coming to an end. I then got a little excited over it, and stated to my father

that if that was anything to get excited over, I could have notified them two or three

hours before. That was about 4:30 o'clock. I was 10 years old at the time of the falling of

the stars.

"In the spring of 1834 my father emigrated to Arkansas territory and afterwards to [the]

Cherokee nation, where we remained one year. Later we lived in Benton County, Ark.

where we ground all our meal, our family, seven in number, used on a steel mill ...

"My father and family emigrated from Arkansas to Texas in 1841, stopping one year in

Fannin County, and then moving to Rusk County, Tex. where we lived 7 years ...

I have lived under the administration of 22 presidents of the United States and two

presidents of the republic of Texas, vis. Sam Houston and Anson Jones. The first vote I

ever cast was for Anson Jones. The second one was the annexation of the republic of

Texas to the United States in 1845 and I have never regretted casting that vote yet ... "

Dr. Henry H Henson married Mary Ann Hudman on February 4, 1848 in Rusk County,

Texas.

The family first appears in the census record in 1850 in Panola County, Texas. Henry

Henson's occupation is a farmer.

In 1860, the Henry H Henson family is found in Sabine, Van Zandt County Texas. Henry

Henson's occupation is physician.

Dr. Henry H Henson served in the Civil War as a member of Company G of the 15th

Texas Cavalry.

FIFTEENTH TEXAS CAVALRY. In January 1862 George H. Sweet, a newspaperman

from San Antonio, began organizing a cavalry regiment. Sweet, who had been born in

Ulster County, New York, had served earlier in the war as a private in Hood's Texas

Brigade in Virginia. Having secured a commission and authority to organize his own

regiment, Sweet returned to Texas and formed ten companies from Bexar, Wise, Dallas,

Johnson, Tarrant, Limestone, Denton, Red River, Van Zandt, and Johnson counties.

Sweet had little trouble raising his regiment, which was composed of "middle-aged men

and boys," according to one member, and each had to supply his own horse and

equipment. They practiced their cavalry drill on courthouse squares and prairies around

the Lone Star State and, armed with Bowie knives and armament of every kind,

presented a most unmilitary appearance. Finally, on March 10, 1862, the Fifteenth

Texas Cavalry was mustered into service at McKinney in Collin County.

Initially, the regiment marched through Clarksville and into Arkansas. On May 20, 1862,

the regiment was reorganized in response to the new Confederate Conscription Act.

Essentially, the act specified men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five must

serve in the military unless they held certain jobs or were responsible for twenty slaves.

In essence, the act eliminated men who had voluntarily enlisted and put men in the

ranks who did not want to fight. The act did not add any men to the regiment, but

around 100 were discharged due to being too young or too old. In addition, one of the

provisions of the act allowed the enlisted men to elect their own officers, and the

composition of the regiment changed dramatically. Colonel Sweet was reelected

colonel, while Maj. George B. Pickett of Wise County was promoted to lieutenant

colonel, and William Cathey of Company K was promoted to major.

On July 8, 1862, the regiment fought their first battle, near Batesville, Arkansas. The

regiment lost eight killed and seven wounded. In Colonel Sweet's report, he singled out

Capt. Valerius P. Sanders of Company A for "signal coolness and bravery." On July 24,

1862, the regiment was dismounted, and their horses were sent home. For the rest of

the war, the Fifteenth was to serve the Confederacy as infantry.

In the late fall of 1862, the regiment was sent to garrison the post of Arkansas, then an

unfinished fort being built by slave labor on the Arkansas River. The Fifteenth Texas

Cavalry was brigaded together with the Tenth Texas Infantry, and the Seventeenth, and

Eighteenth Texas Cavalry regiments, dismounted, and Colonel Sweet was assigned

temporarily to command the brigade.

The area was terribly unhealthy, and at least 100 men in the regiment died. Many others

had to be discharged from the service. One officer, Robert M. Collins of Company B,

stated he came close to "cashing in his checks" and was quartered near the graveyard,

which he stated was being used regularly and services held around the clock in order to

inter the large number of young men who had died. Many soldiers in the Fifteenth died

before ever seeing or even firing at a Yankee.

On January 10, 1863, about 40,000 Federal troops under the command of Maj. Gen.

John McClernand attacked the fort. Two days of furious fighting ensued, until the

Confederates capitulated on January 11. The garrison of 4,791 officers and men

surrendered, mostly Texans, and were sent on transports up the Mississippi River to

prison. In the Fifteenth Texas Cavalry, twenty-seven officers and 436 enlisted men were

captured. Exact casualties are unknown, but the regimental assistant surgeon, Nathan

Wyncoope, was mortally wounded while tending to the sick and wounded in his charge.

Officers were sent to Camp Chase, Ohio, and the enlisted men were sent to Camp

Douglas in Chicago. Arriving with few amenities and fewer blankets, many soldiers who

had become sick from exposure on the way upriver, died from pneumonia and other

causes. In about two months' time, over 700 of the Texans died, about 100 from the

Fifteenth Texas Cavalry.

Finally, on April 3, 1863, the enlisted men were sent for exchange to City Point, Virginia,

and received on April 10. Officers were sent to Fort Delaware on April 29 and received

on May 4. Due to their various ailments, many men had to be discharged, and some

died in various hospitals around Richmond, Williamsburg, and Petersburg. The enlisted

men suffered worse than the officers, and upon their exchange, many officers found

themselves to be supernumeraries. About two-thirds of the officers of the regiment were

sent back to the Trans-Mississippi Department. The Sixth and Tenth Texas Infantry and

the Fifteenth Texas Cavalry were combined into one regiment. Maj. Valerius P. Sanders

of the Fifteenth was one of the field officers in this new consolidated regiment. The

Seventeenth, Eighteenth, Twenty-fourth, and Twenty-fifth Texas Cavalry regiments, also

captured at Arkansas Post, were also consolidated into one regiment, and both new

regiments were placed in a new brigade under the command of Brig. Gen. James

Deshler.

It was rumored that no officers in Lee's army wanted the Texans, so they were sent to

Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee. Pat Cleburne, a divisional commander in that

army, needed replacements and decided the Texans were "a fine body of men out of

which good soldiers are made" and welcomed the Texans. He was rewarded for his

trust, as the Texans proved to be one of the best brigades in the army. The Texans were

sent initially to Wartrace, where they were retrained as infantry, all under the watchful

eye of the Irish major-general.

On the evening of September 18, 1863, Deshler's brigade splashed across Crawfish

Springs, and the bloody battle of Chickamauga began. For two days, the battle raged,

and Deshler's men were assigned to hold a position. Hold it they did, even though

Deshler was killed, and the Texans suffered severely under artillery and small-arms fire.

The next day, the Texans advanced, and assisted in driving the blue-clad army into

siege at Chattanooga. The Fifteenth fought well in their initial battle after their exchange.

Five men were killed, sixteen were wounded, and fourteen were captured or missing.

On November 24-25, 1863, the regiment won new glory at Missionary Ridge and

Tunnel Hill, where the regiment lost one man killed, seven wounded, and two missing at

Missionary Ridge, including Maj. V. P. Sanders, whose right arm was wounded severely

and had to be amputated. The regiment was also acknowledged on November 27,

1863, at Ringgold Gap, where the Texans threw back the victorious Federals. The

Fifteenth lost four wounded and one man captured in that action. The Texans, then

under the command of Hiram B. Granbury, won the thanks of the Confederate

Congress. Granbury won his general's star and command of the brigade that would

thereafter bear his name.

Beginning in May 1864 the Fifteenth Texas Cavalry served in Granbury's Brigade,

Cleburne's Division, Hardee's Corps, Army of Tennessee, and opposed Sherman's three

armies converging on Atlanta. Fighting daily at places such as Resaca, Pickett's Mill,

Dallas, Kennesaw Mountain, Peachtree Creek, Leggett's Hill, and the siege works

around Atlanta, the Fifteenth lost four killed, nine mortally wounded, fifty-eight less

seriously wounded, and three captured.

After the fall of Atlanta, the Confederates fell back to Palmetto, Georgia, before

commencing a move into Tennessee. On November 30, 1864, the Army of Tennessee,

including Granbury's Texas Brigade, charged the Federal works at Franklin, Tennessee.

In five hours of furious fighting, the Confederates lost over 6,000 men. Granbury was

killed, and his brigade decimated. Of the 1,100 men who went into the fight, only about

450 answered roll call the next morning. In the Fifteenth Texas Cavalry, 7 were killed,

including Capt. Matthew M. Houston, commanding the regiment; 10 wounded; and 13

were missing.

The brigade was all but finished at the battle of Nashville on December 14-15, 1864.

The Texans defended their assigned position well but had to retreat on the. The last

major Confederate offensive of the war was over.

On April 28, 1865, the Confederate Army under the command of Gen. Joseph E.

Johnston surrendered at Greensboro, North Carolina. The Fifteenth Texas Cavalry

numbered only forty-three: three officers, eight non-commissioned officers, two

teamsters, and thirty enlisted men. Out of the 1,200 men who had served in the

regiment at one time or another, only forty-three, or 3.5 percent, were at the surrender.

Of course, many of the men were not at the surrender at Arkansas Post, as they were

on detached duty, escaped capture, or were on sick leave. Among this number was Col.

George H. Sweet, who commanded Camp Ford, a prisoner of war camp near Tyler,

Texas. Following the war, Sweet traveled in Mexico and operated several different

publications, including the Texas New Yorker, designed to promote northern investment

and immigration to Texas. Sweet moved to Galveston in 1878 and published the

Galveston Journal. He later returned back to New York. His widow, Lizzie, obtained a

pension from the state of Texas in 1899 and stated, "[I] have not heard from him for 12

years."

Sweet's disappearance occurred many years before the last of his old soldiers passed

away. With the passing of Alonzo L. Steele, formerly of Company F, on December 6,

1936, in Baytown, Harris County, it is believed the last of the old veterans of the

Fifteenth Texas Cavalry had "crossed the river, to rest 'neath the shade of the trees."1

In 1870, the Henry H Henson family is still in Van Zandt County, Texas. His occupation

is listed as physician, but he is in possession of a large amount of cash and his farm is

highly valued.

Mary Ann Hudman Henson died in 1880. She is not enumerated with the family in the

1880 census.

Sometime after the death of Mary Ann, Henry H Henson married her sister, Susan

Hudman. They are found in the 1900 census in Milam County, Texas.

In 1910, Henry and Susan Henson are back in Kaufman County, Texas, living next door

to James Washington Henson.

On February 24, 1911, Dr. Henry Henson died of old age. He is buried in the Union

Grove Cemetery in Wills Point, Van Zandt County, Texas.

children of Dr. Henry H Henson and Mary Ann Hudman were:

James Washington Henson - 1849

William Henson - 1851

Martha Henson - 1853

Louisa Henson - 1854

Joseph Henson - 1856

Susan Henson - 1858

Queen Victoria Henson - 1860

Henrietta Henson - 1862

Mattie Henson - 1862

Leann Henson - 1864

Ida Henson - 1870

James Washington Henson was born on July 12, 1849 in Panola County, Texas to

Henry H Henson and Mary Ann Hudman. He married L Clementine Murrey on May 17,

1876 in Van Zandt County, Texas.

In 1880 the James Washington Henson family is found in the Van Zandt County, Texas

census records. Living with the Henson family is an orphan, Robert Farris.

The next appearance in census records is in 1910. James W Henson and family are

living in Elmo, Kaufman County, Texas.

In 1920, James W Henson and family are found in Hiram, Kaufman County, Texas.

In 1930, the James W Henson family is located in Kaufman County, Texas. James W

Henson has three boarders living in the household.

On July 6, 1936 James Washington Henson died of heart disease.

He is buried in the Locust Grove Cemetery in Hiram, Kaufman County, Texas.

William Slone Henson was born on December 22, 1882 in Hiram, Kaufman County,

Texas.

His first census appearance is in 1910 living as a hired hand in the household of James

M Watson.

In 1920, William Slone Henson is living with his wife and children in the household of his

father-in-law, Robert L Anderson. They are located in Gladwater, Gregg County, Texas.

In 1930, William Henson and his family are living in Kaufman County.

Finally, in 1940 the family is still in Kaufman County.

William Slone Henson died on November 10, 1957 of heart disease. He is buried in the

Locust Grove Cemetery, Hiram, Kaufman County, Texas.

children of William Slone and Nora Georgia Anderson Henson were:

Edgar L Henson - 1913

William Henson - 1915

Lavon Henry Henson - 1919

Lloyd Henson - 1925

Ollie King Henson - 1927

R L Henson - 1930

J W Henson - 1930

Rex Wayne Henson - 1935