Pvt.Thomas Lisenbee, age 22, enlisted in Capt. James Webb Throckmorton's Company, Col. William Cocke Young's 3rd Regiment, Collin-Grayson County 15th Brigade District, Texas State Troops. Capt.Throckmorton raised a full compliment of 110 recruits for his company who were later placed in the 22nd Texas Cavalry, C.S.A.

Col. Young's regiment was marched to Fort Wishita, Fort Cobb and Fort Arbuckle on a foraging and patrol expedition after the posts were abandoned by federal troops. The regiment found that the supplies were not destroyed when the fedeal troops hastily departed the posts. A detachment of 60 men were left to occupy Fort Wishita and 80 men at Fort Arbuckle in order to protect the captured supplies from wild Indians. The regimental officers may have lost track of the detachments when the Texas State Troops were s mustered into Confederate service, as was my great grandfather's 25 man detachment at Colbert's Ferry, I.T. in August 1863.

After returning from I.T. and to a rendezvous near McKinney, Texas, most of the men in Col.Young's Regiment and a number of new recruits were to be placed in the Confederate army, Col. Robert H. Taylor's 22nd Texas Cavalry Regiment. The T.S.T. regiment became disorganized before all troops could be placed into Confederate service. As was noted, all 110 men of Capt. Throckmorton's Company of Texas State Troops were mustered into Col. Taylor's 22nd Texas Cavalry Regiment, C.S.A.

The disorganization was a result after men of the various Texas State Troop brigades deserted when they realized they were to be placed in the Confederate army and would likely leave the state. These deserters from T.S.T. companies took to the brush in the "Corners" area of Collin, Fannin, Hunt and Grayson counties and were to be hunted down by detachments on loan to local authorities from various Confederate army regiments. Brig. Gen. Henry E.McCulloch at Bonham, Texas, was in temporary command of Col. Leonidas Martin's 5th Texas Partisan Cavalry Regiment for arresting these deserters. McCulloch offered the deserters amnesty if they would turn themselves in to the proper authority. A hodge-podge of deserters, various militia troops and unassigned Confederate army recruits were placed in Major James Roberson Diamond's Brush Battalion and were camped at Oxford Lake in Collin County, 3 miles northwest of Farmersville, Texas. The Brush Battalion was placed in Col.James G.Bourland's Border Regiment, C.S.A. In June, 1863, my great grandfather, Pvt.Joshua D. Coffee, enlisted in Capt.John Henry Damrons Company (Co.C),Lt. Col.Peter C.Hardeman's 1st Texas Cavalry Regiment. He was placed in Maj. Diamond's Brush Battalion after he missed roll call in August, 1863 at the Warren Supply Depot in Fannin County. The 1st Texas Cavalry was preparing to move into I.T. and rendezvous on November 1, 1863 at Fort Towson with Col. Richard Montgomery Gano's Squadron and then proceed to Arkansas.

After the war, many of the deserters at Oxford Lake became "Lickskillet Men" led by deserter from Col. Martin's 5th Partsian Rangers, Henry Boren, and members of Lewis Peacock's Union League took revenge on ex-Confederates living in the area. There were also many of Senator Jim Lane's Kansas Redlegs with Lewis Peacock's Lickskillet Men. Lickskillet was the name of Pilot Grove Texas before it received a post office in 1850. Before and after the war, my great grandfather Joshua Coffee worked as a teamster at Jack Dixon's Freight Company at Pilot Grove. By 1871, every able bodied man in the Dixon household had been killed in the Lee-Pecock Feud. On June 25, 1869, Bob Lee was ambushed and killed by a group of Federal troops led by Henry Boren. In the spring of 1879, my great grandfather and his young family left the strife in the Corners for the west Texas frontier in Coleman County.

Many thanks to Patricia Rochette and her book, "Bourland in North Texas & Indian Territory"