My great grandfather's cousin was Col.John T.Coffee from Polk,County MO. .

In November 1864, Col.John Trousdale Coffee resigned his commission and the command of the 6th Missouri Cavalry. In the spring of 1865, Col.Coffee joined Gen.Jo Shelby's Confederate soldiers, generals staff officers, and former political leaders and began the retreat to Mexico. When Gen. Shelby's Confederates arrived in Austin Texas, Col.Coffee left the retreating Confederates and went to Brownsville Texas and Matamoros Mexico and became the agent for cotton sales for stockman, planter and his son-in-law, John Wesley Snyder from Georgetown Texas. As an agent for Snyder's cotton sales, he sold cotton to anyone, even federal cotton traders.

Brownsville Texas and Matamoros Mexico and that part of the border area was in a state of anarchy by 1865 and Col. Coffee returned to Georgetown Texas early 1866. In August 1866, Col. Coffee "swollowed the dog" and surrendered to Gen. George A. Custer at the Deaf and Dumb School on the University of Texas campus.