There were 500 men raised in Colorado County for Col.P.C. Hardeman's 1st Cavalry Regiment and most were veterans of Brig. Gen. Henry H. Sibley's disasterous New Mexico Campaign. About 50 men were sent to La Grange and Belleville to arrest deserters and 50 men were to seek out and arrest leaders of the draft revolt and turn them over to civilian authorities. There were charges of cruelty during the arrests of certain Germans.

In May, 1863, the entire regiment was becoming difficult to control so they were sent by companies to Fannin County to raise troops strength by enlistments from the local Home Guard companies. Total troop strength to rendezvous at the Warren Supply Depot in Fannin County were 350 effectives. In August 1863, troop strength was only eight companies and were suffering desertions.

On August 10, 1863, Capt. John H. Damron's Company (Co.C) mustered 100 men from local Home Guard companies for enlistment the 1st Texas Cavalry at the Warren Supply Depot. Damron's Spy Company is immediately sent north on the Texas Road to Boggy Depot, I.T. leaving a 25 man picket detachment at Colbert's Ferry. Acting Brig. General Smith P. Bankhead's request for a transfer out of the T.S.T. is approved by his uncle, General Magruder, and Col. S.P. Bankhead moves out with Col. P.C. Hardeman and the 1st Texas Cavalry on August 23, 1863. Lt.Col. Samuel A. Roberts is replaced Bankhead until Brig.Gen. Henry E. McCulloch could take command of the 14th Brigade T.S.T. a week later.

In September 1863, my great grandfather Pvt.Joshua D. Coffee, Lt. Achols C. Kerr, Sgt.James R. Wilmeth, two mounted corporals, my great grandfather, Pvt.Joshua D. Coffee and 20 dismounted privates were in a bivouac at Colbert's Plantaion, 1/2 mile north of Colbert's Ferry on the Red River. The pickets secured chickens from slave quarters and hogs from Colbert's hog pens. Frank Colbert complained to Lt.Kerr about the thefts and was reimbursed.

The Colbert's Plantation bivouac was a tent camp and the men slept on the bare ground during the harsh winter of 1862 until April 1864. About 10 men deserted during the winter and in May 1864 and the remaining pickets were moved back to the Warren Supply Depot and were placed in Major James Roberson Diamond's Brush Battalion at Oxford Lake in northern Collin County, three miles northwest of Farmersville, Texas. By 1864, the Confederate command realized that a federal invasion of north Texas from Fort Scott Kansas or Fort Smith Arkansas was not going to take place and the forts were abandoned and the pickets removed along the upper Red River.