Hi I would like to get in on the discussion. My grandparents lived thru the Civil war and Reconstruction, Grandfather Fuller was 18 in 1863 and lived in Claiborne county ,Louisiana on his fathers plantation, They were well off and had four slaves. Grandfather James Fuller joined the Confederate Army. In 1865 he came home but life was different. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the Union's Army had made things different. The majority of people in Claiborne now were free blacks.The county was rife with KKK murdering blacks, carpetbaggers avd scalawags. My grandfather married and had four children.His father had moved to Arkansas where he had a church. Grandpa decided to move to Van Zandt County, Texas. However in 1868 when he arrived Texas was close to anarchy. Armed bands roam the country murdering freed blacks and white teachers same as in Claibrne County. My grandmother, Mary McClellan, ,lived during the civil war in Tuscloosa, Alabama. The Union Calvary caught her older brother who was a guerrala lined him up against the wall and shot him, Then they burned the farm house down. She was 11 yearsat the time. Henr y McClellan, her father,moved the family to Van Zandt County Texas,When my grandfather first wife died he and my grandmother were married in 1883. My mothers family, the Shannons came to Texas in the 1820's and were in the Austin colony. They voted for succesion and my great grandfather William Shannon served in the Montgomery County militia during the Civil War, Those southerner who gave sympathies to the Union were courageous.Those German Texans who tried to flee Texas and go thru Mexico to Join the Union Army and were ambushed and killed by those wanted the war. They were killed for the Union, Those southerners who today want to still wave the Confederate flag are wrong in my opinion. The civil war has been over a long time. Frank `