My sister was an excellent family geneologist and researcher until the hobby became too burdensome. She told me that our great grandfather Bill Gilmer was in 14th Georgia Infantry through the seige of Petersburg. The Confederacy surrendered Petersburg Virginia on May 2,1865, two days before General Lee surrendered at Appomatox Virginia. According to my sister, our great grandfather was among the "deserters" who threw down ther weapons and walked home when the Confederate army surrendered at Petersburg Virginia. The starving soldiers at Petersburg during the winter of 1864-1865 knew the war was over and no one wanted to be the last man killed before the Confederate army surrendered.

My great grandfather's uncle, Alex Gilmer, was a shipbuilder, blockade runner and became a successful lumberman in southeast Texas after the war. He built his first vessel in 1855 at Columbus Georgia. It was a steam powered keelboat and it promptly sank that fall the Chattahoochie River and left him pennyless. He then operated a keelboat from Columbus Greorgia to the Gulf of Mexico until 1858. In 1858, Alex Gilmer moved to Orange Texas, got financing and built an ocean going vessel and became a shipper and blockade runner. His ship was involved in the Battle of Sabine Pass but it saw limited action because the ship only had one 24 lb. cannon. Alex Gilmer sold (or gave) the ship to the Confederacy before the war ended and it was interred at Havana Cuba. After the war, the ship was released by the Cubans and was used to take Confederate exiles and their families to a colony of "Confederados" at Americana near Sao Paulo Brazil.The ship was later sunk off the coast of Brazil to prevent it from being seized by the U.S. Navy.