Sunday, May 5, 2024
A.J. Coffman
LEGACY COMES TO LIFE
EDITOR’S NOTE: The story of Andrew Jackson Coffman is told by his great-great-nephew Gerry Gieger. Gerry is a member of The Sons of the Republic of Texas and serves as president of the E.M. Daggett Chapter in Fort Worth.
My name is Andrew Jackson Coffman, the eighth child born to Lovell and Caty Coffman.
My parents migrated westward from Decatur, Alabama while my mother was pregnant and I was born somewhere en route. The 550-mile journey in a wagon pulled by a team of oxen and a lead horse was arduous and dangerous with highwaymen, renegade Indians, and predator animals.
The land borders between Arkansas, Indian Territory (aka Oklahoma), and Texas were not firmly defined, so my parents did not know exactly which jurisdiction they were in. They settled in what they thought was Miller County Arkansas, but actually, it was in “old” Red River District in Mexican Texas. That district encompassed present-day Bowie, Titus, Franklin, Delta, Fannin, Lamar, and Red River counties, plus parts of Hopkins and Marion counties. My birth date was recorded by my father in his family Bible as 1 January 1835.
I was named for General Andrew Jackson, a family friend in Tennessee, who lived on farmland neighboring my great-grandfather, David Coffman. Andrew Jackson became the seventh president of the United States. I was called Jackson by my family and friends.
My first 10 years coincided with The Republic of Texas, before she joined the United States. My father built a large house on property he acquired from early Texas pioneers John Robbins and Isham (Ice) Ferris. Each had received Mexican grants for a labor and a league of land. The land was near Ward’s Scatter Creek and densely wooded. The timber cut from around the house was used to create the structure, since we were about 10 miles from Clarksville, the largest Settlement and the county seat.
I attended school in the Bagwell community, where I learned to read. write, and count. Our teacher was Henry Drew Deberry, who later married my sister, Martha Jane. Books were scarce, therefore our principle textbook was the Holy Bible. My Grandfather Jacob was a Primitive Baptist preacher in Alabama, so we attended the Baptist Church that was not too far from home. My sister Eliza and her husband were closely associated with an early Methodist missionary to the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma, Dr. John Witherspoon Pettigrew McKenzie. He established McKenzie College, on their land, and later became co-founder and president of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.
One of my chores was tending the goats that provided our milk. My sisters and I gathered eggs, and picked beans and peas from our garden. We raised chickens, but my brothers and I would search out the nests of turkey, and geese or ducks, who nested on the large pond my father dug. We had beets and turnips, from which we saved the tops (called greens) to cook and eat. Potatoes and Onions were staples. We raised hogs and I learned how to scrape and salt hides for leather. I learned to use a hatchet thanks to another chore; chipping wood for kindling. By my 10th birthday, I was cutting firewood and helping to remove stumps from fields that my father and field-hands had cleared.
My older brothers were keen with the furnace in the blacksmith shop. When I was about 5 or 6, they made me a hawk ax. It was my protection in case of attack by wampus cats, red wolves or other predators that roamed our land. I was never allowed to go out and roam alone when I was young.
Early on, I learned the arts of woodwork and black-smithing from my father and older brothers who could make anything from wood, iron or steel. Guns were scarce but that helped our business. Many guns were made in my father’s blacksmith shop. My father kept his single shot long gun loaded behind the front door. I learned how to be a very good shot with my father’s rifle.
On 9 October 1861 at Clarksville, Texas, I enlisted in the 9th Texas Infantry, Confederate Army, under the command of Colonel (later Brig. General) Samuel Bell Maxey, CSA. He was from nearby Paris in Lamar County. Our unit was issued new uniforms and paraded out of town to Camp Rusk where we would get training. The residents were proud and clamoring for us on that bright sunny day. We soon learned that things would change for the worse and change quickly.
During basic training there was sickness of epic proportions, and many men died. Measles, typhoid, pneumonia, congestive fever (malaria) and scours were disastrous on our unit. That winter, we bivouacked at Corinth, Mississippi. I wrote to my family that they should not come here in the winter, as the climate was not suitable. I was never married, although I wrote to my mother to “tell that Pretty girl to wait.”
We faced the enemy on the morning of 6 April 1862 at Shiloh, Tennessee. We advanced in line of battle under a heavy fire of artillery and musketry from the enemy's first encampment. Being ordered to charge the battery with our bayonets, we made two successive attempts; but finding it almost impossible to withstand the heavy fire directed at our ranks, we were compelled to withdraw for a short time, with considerable loss.
Our Washington Artillery, with a well‑directed fire, soon silenced the enemies batteries, whereupon the 9th Texas immediately charged. We routed the enemy from their first encampment, and continued a forward, double‑quick march until we passed through two other Union encampments. We found our troops again heavily engaged with a second battery and its supports, to the galling fire of which my regiment was openly exposed. I was mortally wounded, while helping a wounded comrade. I am one of the 1,728 Confederate dead buried in the trenches at Shiloh National Military Park, Hardin County, Tennessee.
Andrew Jackson Coffman
1835 – 1862
WHO ARE THE SONS OF THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS? The Sons of the Republic of Texas (SRT) consists of members who are direct lineal descendants of those who settled the Republic of Texas from 1836 to February 19, 1846. The purpose of the SRT is to perpetuate the memory and spirit of the men and women who won Texas’ independence. They set the course for Texas to become a nation and eventually the 28th state. LEGACY COMES TO LIFE personifies our ancestors with true stories about real people who changed the course of history! For membership information please visit our website; srttexas.org or email; old300.srt@gmai.com.
