The 10th Texas Dismounted Cavalry suffered 85% losses from disease and military action during the war and less than 150 of the original 900 recruits mustered at Camp Tally returned to their homes. This created a severe economic hardship on the region and the veteran's families in particular. Many relatives of the soldiers left east Texas for the west Texas frontier to rid themselves of the excessive war repriation taxes imposed by the carpetbagger state government. Starting in 1879, many Confederate veteran's families obtained 160 acres of state school land under the "pay-as-you-go" tax reform policy during the administration of Gov. O.M.Roberts, an ex-Confederate officer.This was the beginning of the end of the "open-range" cattlemen.

Samuel Wyatt died in 1869 in Upshur County (now Camp County) and his son Elijah died in the measles epidemic in Arkansas in 1862. In 1873, Elijah's oldest son Samuel Columbus "Uncle Sam" Wyatt took the family, including my great grandparents, to Gatesville in Coryell County and finally settled in Brown County in 1875 after the Indian problem was over. "Uncle Sam" Wyatt died in Brown County Texas in 1961 at the age of 106.

Some of the descendants of Col. C.R. Earp also moved from Earpville (now Longview) to Brown County. One member of the Earp family married one of my great grandmother Parmelia (Wyatt) Gilmer's cousins, Nancy (Wyatt) Earp. No family connection to the famous lawman.

My great grandfather William E. Gilmer was a drummer boy in the 14th Georgia Infantry, C.S.A. He moved to Coffeeville, Texas in 1870 and married Parmelia Wyatt in 1874 in Gatesville, Texas. They settled in a cabin near Izoro, Texas (Higgin's Gap) and was hired as a teamster, cowboy and windmiller on Pink Higgin's ranch in Lampasas County until 1892 and then Frank Gholson's ranch until he died in 1914.