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Civil War Veterans OF TEXAS COUNTY
[As told by: Step-Grandson, Oliver G. Vance, retired pharmacist, Jackson
MS, 1987]
Submitted 2006 by Wm. W. Forester of Ashland OR,
Grandson of James Rayburn Cooksey
James Rayburn Cooksey, 1845-1926, is buried in Goodwell Cemetery.
My Grandfather, James Rayburn Cooksey [JR] was born in 1845. His birth was
15 years after his family had migrated there from GA To MS. Born/raised
in NW Newton County MS, his parents' farm was about midway between
Conehatta an Union. Erin Presbyterian Church, a Scots-Irish congregation,
was just a couple of miles distant.
JR eventually married a young Scots-Irish widow, Sarah Dowdle. Her family
had emigrated from Ulster to Newton County just about when JR was born.
As a gangling youth of 17 yr. JR became a Confederate Soldier. He was
mustered-in by a kinsman, Captain Rayburn, in Oct 1863. The Confederate
draft took those aged 17-50 yrs.
-------------
CONTEXT:
Per Douglas Harper:
The Civil War was the last war that Americans tried to fight with
volunteer minuteman patriotism. By the end of it, both sides had armies
built up largely through conscription, threat of conscription, and (in the
case of the North) offering a small fortune in bonuses to enlistees...
.... Not surprisingly, the Rebel soldiers hated the Conscript Law. It was
unfair, and they knew it. It took the glory out of the war, and the war
was never the same for them. Sam R. Watkins, my second-favorite rebel,
serving in the First Tennessee regiment under Braxton Bragg, had this to
say about it:
"[S]oldiers had enlisted for twelve months only, and had faithfully
complied with their volunteer obligations; the terms for which they had
enlisted had expired, and they naturally looked upon it that they had a
right to go home. They had done their duty faithfully and well. They
wanted to see their families; in fact, wanted to go home anyhow. War had
become a reality; they were tired of it. A law had been passed by the
Confederate States Congress: the conscript act. From this time on till
the end of the war, a soldier was simply a machine, a conscript. It was
mighty rough on rebels. We cursed the war, we cursed Bragg, we cursed the
Southern Confederacy. All our pride and valor had gone, and we were sick
of war and the Southern Confederacy."
--------------
JR, as a conscript, served with the 11th MS Cavalry Regiment. He never was
paid during the seven months before he was captured, May 30, 1864 at
Dallas GA.
----------------
CONTEXT
-Sherman's advance on Atlanta: Joe Johnston's defense:
Johnston, while outnumbered and outgunned, was one of the South's best
generals. While the bulk of his army entrenched at Allatoona Pass, he
guessed that Sherman would send a column around to the west, towards
Dallas. Johnston led forces to meet and maul the Union column at New Hope
Church on May 25 and 26. Sherman sent more forces to the battle. They
were repulsed by the Confederates at the Battle of Pickett's Mill on
May 27. But now Sherman knew where to find Johnston's forces. The
Confederates took heavy casualties at Dallas on May 28, while the rest of
the Union army moved into Allatoona Pass. Once again, Johnston had to
retreat.
------------
JR's personal experience:
Detailed on 30 May 1864 to go at first light- to fetch the hobbled/grazing
cavalry mounts; JR was easily captured. Yankee pickets, having observed
horses grazing by night, simply waited in brush for the wrangler to fetch
the horses. A captive, JR was processed through Louisville KY. He was
confined on 9 June at Rock Island IL POW camp, where he starved until Feb.
15, 1864, a period of 8 months.
-----------
CONTEXT:
Per Kay Reyes of Huntsville AL: "Beginning in late 1864 Rock Island Prison
in Illinois was likened to Andersonville. Stories of the atrocities of
Rock Island appeared even in The New York Daily News, which described the
rations as '1/3 lb. of bread and 2" square of meat supplemented when
possible by dogs, rats and mice. Many are nearly naked, bare-footed,
bareheaded and without bedclothes. They are thus exposed to the ceaseless
torture from the chill and the pitiless winds of the Upper Mississippi
River.

------------
J.R met and starved with William Jackson, a fellow Mississipian, at Rock
Island. Naturally a spare fellow, JR's prison diet enabled him to
encircle his biceps, as with a bracelet, by closing his thumb and middle
finger; then he slid his finger-bracelet over his scrawny elbow and down
his bony forearm to the wrist; all this without opening his closed thumb
and finger!

In February 1865 both J.R and William were transferred to Point Lookout MD
for Exchange.
----------- CONTEXT:
Reyes wrote: "Point Lookout in Maryland, the largest prison in the North,
housed nearly 20,000 by war's end. POWs there lived in leaky, U.S. Army-
reject tents. The often poorly clad Confederates had to huddle together
all day or run to prevent actually freezing to death. At one time, fully
one-third of the prisoners lacked a single blanket. The Southern captives
slept on the bare ground and on every cold night from four to seven
prisoners froze to death. Emaciated POWs were tormented by their guards.
They forced prisoners to kneel, to pray to Abraham Lincoln, to run, to
dance or to stand on one foot for more than a half-hour. "
--------------
After exchange, J.R., at age 19, and William Jackson may have gotten home
a month or so before Appomatox. One can presume JR got home and resumed
helping with farm chores, possibly carpentry. Always a gregarious fellow,
JR must have known most local folks; Jacksons, Vances, Dowdles, and
Baileys among other.
JR, before turning 24, first married a younger widow, Sarah Dowdle. Vance.
He was surrogate/step father to Sarah’s infant son, TJA Vance. Sarah bore
seven more children by JR. 1870-1883. [Three died in early infancy], The
1880 Census shows as residents of JR’s home both an old female house
servant and a young cousin surnamed Gill; probably a farm hand. Sarah
herself died 9 May 1884. Her youngest child, Alvin Rayburn Cooksey, was
but fifteen months old.
Obviously, JR, as a widower, needed motherly care for his four children
ages 15 months to twelve years. [His stepson, TJA Vance was ready to
leave the nest in his late teens.] A neighboring widow, Ellen Jackson had
three children of her own, age twelve to sixteen yr.
JR married Ellen on 19 July 1884, two months and ten days after his wife
Sarah's death. The two families merged. Eventually, at age 23 in TX.
JR's son Reuben married Ellen's daughter, Lula.
MAKING A LIVING
JR was a farmer who had a flair for public life and ancillary trades and
enterprises. He was a Newton County Supervisor and postmaster (Cooksey
MS), storekeeper, carpenter and, in the 20th C. on the High Plains, a
peddler. [A Rawleigh Man, selling the Rawleigh line of home and farm
products. His large, closed , wagon of Rawleigh merchandise was drawn by
a team of horses.]
TO TEXAS
About 1895, JR, Ellen and their children [excepting the two eldest, who
were out-of-the- nest: John E. Jackson and TJA Vance] joined other
cousins [Brantleys and Huskersons] in emigration from MS to Coryell Co. TX
where they farmed for some nine years. This was in central Texas, still
in the Cotton Belt. For the move he chartered a RR emigrant car.
TO TEXAS COUNTY
Next, in 1904/5. JR & Ellen, moved, again by chartered emigrant car, from
Coryell County TX to Texas County OK. They filed homestead act land
claims on the South Flats of Texas County, (S) of Goodwell OK. Moving
with JR & Ellen from Coryell County, to the prairies. were the family of
Steven and Minnie Brantley. A competent carpenter, JR built a small house
on his claim and proved up his claim. JR farmed some; and then turned to
establishing his peddling route, serving remote farms.
Some of J.R.'s grown Cooksey and [two of Ellen's] Jackson children
accompanied the parents; adult kids also claimed land on the South Flats:
Reuben (& Lula Jackson), Sam, Minnie, Alvin and Rose.
A few of the older children [TJA Vance, John and Gene Jackson] were
married/settled elsewhere in MS and TX.
Some years later, JR moved his house from the homestead to a lot in town.
JR built a mirror-image addition to make the home more ample. He lived
therein for fourteen-fifteen years..
JR died in Goodwell OK, at age 80 in 1926. His widow used the home he had
built an additional 14 years, until she died in 1940.
The house now belongs to JR’s G-G-sons. One of these, James Cooksey, while
rehabilitating the house in 2000 entered the sub-floor crawl space. There
he found two empty "Rawleigh" medicine bottles where JR had tossed them
some 85 years earlier.
Regarding his Rawleigh peddling business out on the prairies: In a
letter, Sun. June 1-1913, JR's wife wrote to S.B. Morrow, her sister, "...
I will not stay at home much--- only when Mr. C comes in--- he has so much
writing to do that it keeps him busy the most of the time making out
reports & making orders...."
CHURCHMAN
JR, not a zealot, was a coolly orthodox churchman. One mark is: he
helped build the Methodist Church in Goodwell with a cash donation. His
children and grandchildren likewise donated [at least] their labor to the
project. Reuben Cooksey loaned the use of a span of mules [and a Fresno
grader] to excavate the basement. His son Otis drove the team.
VETERAN
JR was a member of the Confederate Veteran's association, and attended old
soldier reunions/conventions. Among his effects were Convention badges
from the 1905 Dallas TX association. They burned in the writer’s home in a
1991 CA firestorm. Both the name of JR and his widow are found in the
index for Oklahoma Confederate Veterans Pension Applications.
JR told the following [humorous] story, while visiting MS kin, early in the
20th C. His auditors were: his step son TJA Vance, and his Vance step
grandsons. In the tale he makes himself the butt of the joke:
“One evening I was driving my Rawleigh wagon in sparsely settled region.
As the sun was low in the sky, and the prairie sunset near, I realized I
had no shelter for the night. I ordinarily sleep as a welcome guest in
farmhouse, or if there is no room, in their barn. Isolated country folk
were usually glad to have a talkative visitor to swap news until bed time.
“Well, just before dusk I spied a wisp of smoke, surely from a kitchen
stove, rising above a roof, low-lying down in a draw. Sure enough, within
a few minutes I pulled into the farm-yard where a child was playing in the
dirt. I called cheerily to him, “Sonny, run into the house and ask your
Mother if Mr. Cooksey can spend the night here.”
“The boy ran indoor, and quickly returned. He approached and said, “Mama
is busy cooking. She says she has no time to monkey with you.”
“I replied, “Go back and tell her that Mr. Cooksey don’t want to monkey
with her! He only needs a place to camp for the night!”
[As told by: Step-Grandson, Oliver G. Vance, retired pharmacist, Jackson
MS, 1987]
Submitted 2006 by Wm. W. Forester of Ashland OR,
Grandson of James Rayburn Cooksey