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ANDERSON COUNTY IN THE CIVIL WAR
On April 29, 1861, Jefferson Davis spoke before a
special meeting of the Confederate Congress in response to
Lincoln's call for troops two weeks earlier. This excerpt
is from his speech: "The Declaration of War made against
this Confederacy by Abraham Lincoln, President of the United
States, in his proclaimation issued on the 15th day of the
present month, renders it necessary, in my 4udgement, that
you should convene at the earliest practicable moment to
devise the measures necessary for the defense of the Country."
Every southern state was hastily making preparations
for war. Even distant Texas, which had seceded on March 2,
1861, had immediately acted and had secured the surrender of
all Union troops in Texas and their supplies without a single
shot being fired.
In Anderson County, the fever of war was high. The
county had voted 1,500 to 7 in favor of secession and had
been represented in Austin at the state Secession Convention
by the capable John H. Reagan, A. T. Rainey, and S. G. Stewert.
T. J. Word represented us in the adjourned convention.
John H. Reagan was chosen by the Texas convention to
attend the general convention in Montgomery, Alabama. Upon
arriving, Reagan was called upon by Jefferson Davis and was
persuaded to accept the cabinet post of Postmaster General.
Reagan kept this office until the last few days of the war
when Davis, clinging to a lost dream of saving the Confederacy,
appointed him to the post of Secretary of the Treasury.
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