From 1856 to 1861, my great grandfather Peyton Green Whaley was a overseer on the James and Joseph Smith plantation which was located near Washington in Hempstead County Arkansas. His father-in-law John Anderson, was a man of considerable wealth with a real estate valued at $4,000 and a personal estate valued at $75,000, which included slaves. The location of the John Anderson plantation was in the Ozan Township of Hempstead County Arkansas.

Peyton Green Whaley (b.Feb.10,1833 - d.Aug. 23,1901) was born in Murray-Whitfield County Georgia in the former Cherokee Lands in Northern Georgia. His parents were Barney B. (1811-1832) and Frances unknown. Peyton G. Whaley first married Matilda Thorn in Georgia in 1855 at Fulton Arkansas. Second, married Lucinda Catherine Andersonon April 15, 1861 at Washington Arkansas, the daughter of John Anderson, a wealthy plantation owner. P.G.Whaley moved to Hempstead County Arkansas in 1860 and was hired as an overseer on James and Joseph Smith's Plantation.

On May 22, 1862, P.G.Whaley enlisted in Co.D, Col. James Code Monroe's 1st (6th) Arkansas Cavalry at Washington Arkansas.The regiment was placed in Col. Charles A. Carroll's Arkansas Brigade and participated in the following engagements:
March 6-7, 1862,Battle of Pea Ridge.
Nov. 4-29,1862,Battle of Cane Hill.
Dec. 7-8, 1862,Battle of Prairie Grove.
Present during Confederate Gen. John S. Marmaduke's raid into Missouri but Col. Monroe's regiment attacked the federals on January, 1863, at Van Buren Creek and did not go on the raid into Missouri.
Skirmished in Arkansas until October 1863.

On Nov. 15, 1863, Pvt.P.G.Whaley was detailed to Black's blacksmith and harness shop in Washington Arkansas.
In December 1864, Col.Monroe summoned his regiment and started for Mexico with Gen.Jo Shelby's Expedition. Col.Monroe and his regiment got as far as a plantation at Chatfield, Texas near the Taos Ferry on the Trinity River (NE of Corsicana Texas) where the regiment took a vote and the men decided to return to their homes in Arkansas. Col. Monroe continued to Mexico with the Shelby Expedition and never returned.

In 1870, P.G. Whaley, his wife and choildren along with a substantial inheritance from the sale of John Anderson's holdings, moved to Brown County Texas and bought a farm on the Texas frontier just before the Indian problem was finally dealt with in 1874. In 1887, P.G. Whaley established a grocery and wholesale produce warehouse on the new Santa Fe Railroad in Brownwood,Texas.

My grandfather, John Taylor Coffee (b.Feb. 24, 1870 - d. Apr. 30,1973) married P.G. Whaley's daughter, Nora Catherine. John T. and Nora C. Coffee eventually had five children; one was my father Peyton Joshua Coffee who married Virginia Estelle Gilmer on August 21, 1921.