There is no record of a Collin Coffee in my family tree starting in 1700 in Prince Edward County Virginia. Lori may be referring to a member of the Coffey family which I know very little about besides the fact that they are not related to my Coffee line, at least from 1700 in America. The original name of my Coffee family was indeed Coffey (Scots-Irish) but that was prior to 1700 in Ulster, Northern Ireland. The Coffees were Ulstermen who migrated to America in the early 1700s and settled along the eastern slope of the Applichian Mountains and Shenandoah Valley fron Northern Virginia to Georgia. The Coffey family settled in the Carolinas.

Lori Okel is the member of the Coffey clan who recently completed a DNA study of all Coffey/Coffee family members who were willing to participate. My brother participated in the study and verified our ancestry back to Peter Coffee in 1700.

Col.John T. Coffee was in the Newtonia Missouri area in September 1864. I don't know where West Plains Missouri is located but his men certainly could have killed Collins Coffee(y).That is because Col. Coffee and his regiment of cavalry was executing Union sympathsizers, deserters, red-legs, and slackers and were foraging and recruiting throughout southwest Missouri after the Battle of Lone Jack Missouri through Septermber 1864.

By Novermber 1864, Col. Coffee was charged in a courts martial for drunkenness and insubornation after the Battle of Newtonia in September 1864. By December 1864, Coffee was aquitted in the courts martial. He did not resign his commission and joined Gen. Jo Shelby's Confederates in their withdrawal to Texas and Mexico. Coffee was with Gen. Shelby as far as Georgetown Texas where he married his fourth wife on October 26,1865. He diverted his withdrawal to Brownsville and was in Matamoros Mexico by December 1865. He was planning to be the cotton sales agent for his son-in-law John Wesley Snyder who owned a cattle ranch and cotton plantation near Georgetown,Texas.

When Coffee arrived in Brownsville, he found the border area to be in a state of anarchy. In the early summer of 1866, Coffee returned to Austin, took the loyalty oath and surrendered to Brevet Gen. George A. Custer at the Deaf and Dumb School on the University of Texas campus. He then retired to his home in Georgetown, Texas and raised goats on Snyder's land holdings.