USA > Texas > Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. 2 > Part 3
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already a matter of historic record, and needs not to be here recounted. Mr. Zimpelman, with bis ·regiment, participated in many of the hardest, fought battles of the conflict, and in the battles of Murfreesboro, Shelbyville, Corinth, Shilo, and Chickamauga, was six times wounded, and was three times wounded in the siege of Atlanta.
After the war he returned to his farm near Aus- tin and resumed the peaceful avocation of stock raising. In 1866 he was elected Sheriff of Travis County, but the Radical reconstruction policy of the United States Government precluded his serving as such. This state of affairs soon, however, came to an end and, he was again elected to the office in 1869 and re-clected in 1873, serving until 1876. Upon retirement from office he engaged in banking in the city of Anstin as a member of the banking firm of Foster, Ludlow & Co., and continued in this connection until 1877 when the partnership was dissolved.
No citizen of Austin has been more active in the upbuilding of the city and loyal to her business interests. Mr. Zimpelman promptly identified him- self with and labored for its development. Hc took active part in the establishment of the ice factory, street car lines, bridge across the Colorado river and was the first man to bring to public notice the possibility of a dam across the Colorado river for water power. He spent a considerable amount of money in making surveys and demonstrated its practicability. Mr. Zimpelman next spent about three years in mining in Chihuahua, Mexico, and at the same time executed a contract with the Mexican Government for the surveying of public lands. Ile returned to Austin in 1888 and the following year he engaged in mining projects in Lower California.
In 1893 he was appointed Postmaster of the city of Austin under Postmaster-General Bissell and has ably performed the duties of the office, which he still holds. There are few men in Austin (if indeed there are any) who have been more active in business and more faithful in fulfilling the duties of office (which Mr. Zimpelman holds to be a sacred trust ) than the subject of this brief sketch. Mr. Zimpelman was married in Travis County to Miss Sarah C., daughter of Thos. Matthews, a farmer and a pioneer of 1850. Mrs. Zimpelman died in 1886, leaving three sons and two daughters, Mary Louise, who became the wife of Hon. Chas
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H. Howard, both now deceased; Thos. M., of Austin : Joseph L., George W., of Utah, and a Miss Waldin, now assistant money order clerk in the Austin post ofliee.
Mr. Zimpelman is a member of long and high standing in the order of Free and Accepted Masons, and enjoys the full confidence and esteem.of a wide circle of loyal friends.
THOMAS MOORE, M. D.,
WACO.
Dr. Thomas Moore was born in Mercer County, Ky., August 6th, 1815. His parents were John and Phoebe ( Westerfield) Moore.
Jolin Moore, also a native of Kentucky, was born in 1789 and was the son of Thomas Moore (born in 1755), who was the son of Simon Moore, who, when a young man, emigrated to Kentucky with Daniel Boone's colony ; his ancestor was Thomas Moore, who emigrated to America from England.
Dr. Moore was the eldest of the children born to John and Phoebe ( Westerfield) Moore, and the only one now living of a large family. His father served in the volunteer force in the Northwest under Gen. William Henry Harrison in the War of 1812. He was a farmer and school teacher by occupation, and died in Lawrence County, Ala., in 1863. His widow survived him until 1875, when she departed this life at Waco, Texas. They were active mem- bers of the Church of Christ. In 1836 young Moore began the study of medicine in Glasgow, Ky., in the office of Dr. W. D. Jourdan. In the fall of 1837 he commenced the practice of his profes- sion in Allen County ; later practiced in Warren and Simpson Counties, Ky., until 1845 ; and then moved to Limestone County, Ala., where he remained until 1853, in which year he moved to Bur- net County, Texas, where he continued actively engaged in practice. As a physician he was skill- full and his professional labors became so extensive and arduous as to result in such serious impairment of his health that he abandoned the practice of medicine. Ife then began the study of law, was admitted to the bar and was soon earnestly and successfully engaged in the pursuit of his new
profession, practicing in the various courts of Texas.
He has never been a politician in the striet sense of the term. He has never sought office, and has never accepted office, save when called upon to do so by the voice of the people. He was a member of the Seeession Convention of Texas. In that body he served as a member of the Committee on Federal Relations and aided the chairman of that committee in preparing the address to people of Texas advocating secession. During the war he was appointed, by Judge T. J. Devine, one of the Confederate States receivers for the court at Austin, which position he held until the close of the war. In 1866, while A. J. Hamilton was Provisional Governor, Dr. Moore was, with his son, John Moore, and some others, arrested by the military authorities on the charge that they were opponents of and inimical to the policy of reconstruction that was being pursued. He was taken to Austin and held in prison there seventy-eight days, when he, his son and their companions, were released, after being brought before a magistrate and giving bond. In 1867 Dr. Moore moved to Waco, where he has since resided and devoted himself to the practice of law. He was united in marriage in Glasgow, Ky., March 9, 1837, to Miss Eliza J. Dodd. They have had eight children, five sons and three daughters, born to them, viz. : John, Thomas P., Luke, James I., Bart, Emily A., now Mrs. Frazier, of Bosque County ; Ida, now Mrs. Hays, and Jennie, now Mrs. Muenenhall.
March 9, 1887, they celebrated their golden wed- ding, which was made a great event in Waco.
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INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
M. L. OPPENHEIMER,
EAGLE PASS.
The history of the later material growth of Eagle Pass is as phenomenal as its Indian and pioneer history is thrilling and instructive.
The bustling, ambitious and tireless men of business soon followed in the wake of the pioneers and pushed the work of permanent development in agriculture and commerce to its present stage of growth and advancement and for this reason the brief facts touching the leading men and financiers of this latter historieal epoch should find a becom- ing place in this history.
Mr. Oppenheimer belongs to and is identified with the history of Eagle Pass and his rise in the business and financial world is a fair illustration of what push, perseverance and well-directed industry will accomplish in a new and growing country.
Mr. Oppenheimer is a native of Bavaria and was born November 16th, 1852. He left his native home and came to America alone, and went direct to San Antonio about the year 1867, when a youth of about fifteen years. He secured a clerkship in the store of a relative, B. Oppenheimer (now de- ceased), then a leading merchant of that city, and later represented the house as travelling salesman in the Rio Grande valley. He thereafter worked for the mercantile house of Goldfrank, Frank & Company, of San Antonio, as accountant, for about six years. For the following three years he repre- sented bis former employer, B. Oppenheimer, on the Rio Grande and for one year the firm of Leon
& H. Blum, of Galveston, in the same region. Mr. Oppenheimer, having ever an eye to the best chance, became impressed with the advantages afforded by the existing business situation and future prospects of Eagle Pass, resigned his position, purchased a stock of general merchandise and in 1881 embarked in business at that place. The venture proved a financial success and he made money. He con- tinued in trade until 1892 and then purchased an interest in the banking business of S. P. Simpson & Company, the oldest banking house west of San Antonio, and in 1895 became sole owner of the institution. 'He transacts a large volume of busi- ness annually on a safe and conservative business basis and his bank is one of the strong financial institutions of Southwest Texas. Mr. Oppen- heimer's rise in the world, from an humble begin- ning as a poor boy from a foreign land, has been steady and honorable. He is a good man for his city, takes a just pride in its institutions, and aids liberally with his influence and ample means all movements tending to its advancement and well- being. Ile is president of the Texas-Mexican Electric Light & Power Company and connected with other leading enterprises. Mr. Oppenheimer married an estimable San Antonio lady in 1883 and they have three children : Leonidas, Alexander and Ella. They have a spacious and attractive home and are esteemed for their excellent social accom- plishments.
WILLIAM P. HARDEMAN,
SUPERINTENDENT CONFEDERATE HOME.
Gen. William P. Hardeman is one of the very few men now living who has served Texas in every military struggle from her first permanent colonial settlement. Thongh now eighty years of age, he retains his mental faculties unimpaired and to a singular degree his physical activity.
Ile was born in Williamson County, Tenn., the 4th day of November, 1816. His family has been distinguished in the early history of the Southern
States. His grandfather, Thomas Hardeman, was a member of the first Constitutional Convention of Tennessee. Ilis father, Thomas J. Hardeman, served several terms with marked distinction as a member of the Congress of the Republic of Texas. Ile was the author of the resolution of the Texas Congress which gave the name of Austin to the capital of the State. The mother of Gen. Harde- man was the daughter of Ezekiel Polk, of Irish
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descent, who was a signer of the Mecklenberg Declaration of Independence in North Carolina. The Hardemans were of Welsh origin. The blood of Wales and Ireland thus mingling in the veins of William P. Hardeman, it is not strange that an ardent love for independence and a hatred of oppression, in every form, should have marked his career.
His father reached Texas with his family in 1835, just at the time when the colonists were preparing for unequal war with Mexico. Burleson Milam, Frank Johnson, and others, had determined to capture the garrison at San Antonio. Their fol- lowers were the frontier hunters and almost their
sponded with alacrity by volunteering, and started for San Antonio with twenty-one men. His father demanded that his name should be entered in the muster roll as a volunteer and it was so written. Houston, who had heard from the servant of Travis of the massacre at the Alamo, fell back from Gonzales. Hardeman, with the little band of twenty-one men, was not so fortunate, for, know- ing neither the fate of Travis nor the retreat of Houston, they rode in upon the Mexican pickets and narrowly escaped capture. The horses were exhausted by forced marches to reach the Alamo and Capt. Dimmit, who was in command, ordered them to abandon their horses, which they did, and
GEN. WM. P. HARDEMAN.
only weapons were the hunter's rifle. Artillery was especially needed, and W. P. Hardeman, then but nineteen years oldl, accompanied his uncle, Bailey Hardeman, and a few neighbors to Dimmit's landing, below the mouth of the Lavaca river, and procured an eighteen pound cannon, which had been brought on a schooner from Matagorda Pass. On the march the force was increased to seventy- five inen, among whom were twenty men known as the Mobile Grays. Marching rapidly with this piece of artillery to San Antonio, the news of the approaching reinforcement reached Gen. Cos in advance and precipitated his surrender, which occurred before the artillery arrived.
In the spring of 1836, when Travis, hemmed in with his men, appealed from the Alamo for help, young Hardeman, then not twenty years old, re-
retreated on foot down the Guadalupe, marching four days without food. On their return, Bailey Hardeman, who was a member of President Burnet's cabinet, ordered W. P. Hardeman baek from Harrisburg to Matagorda County, with a commis- sion for John Bowman to raise a company, and to remain in the county. On his arrival he found but four men in that county, among whom was one who had just escaped the Fannin massacre. The trip was one of exposure and hardship; no shelter, no food, except such as he carried in his saddlebags. Swimming the San Bernard river and sleeping, wet and uncovered on the prairie at night, he at last reached Harrisburg, but sick, exhausted and unable to accompany his brother, Munroe Hardeman, with the army. In 1837 he ranged the frontier with Deaf Smith four months. On the 22d of February,
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INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
1839, he was with Col. John H. Moore in the fight with the Comanche Indians at Wallace's Greek, seven miles above San Saba. In April, 1839, he was in the Cordova fight, under Burleson, four miles east of Seguin. He served as a member of the celebrated mounted company commanded by Ben McCulloch, during the Mexican War of 1846. He has been married three times and farmed on the San Marcos river until sent by his county to the State Secession Convention of 1861. In politics Gen. Hardeman is a Democrat of the strict con- struction school and, believing that secession alone .. could preserve the institutions of the South from Federal aggression, he voted for secession and on many a bloody field he sought to establish it with arms. Hle joined the command destined for Arizona and New Mexico with a full company of young men, the very flower of the Guadalupe valley, and became senior Captain in the regiment commanded by Col. Riley, in which the lamented William R. Scurry was Lieutenant-Colonel, and Henry Raguet was Major .. At the battle of Val Verde, he was promoted for distinguished gallantry on the field and became the Major of the regimeut. The charge on McRae's battery, made by the Con- federatcs at Val Verde, is one of the most re- markable in the annals of war. In this battle Hardeman was wounded. During that expedition Hardeman was sent to Albuquerque with Capts. Walker and Copewood, to hold the plain with 150 men. In that town all the ammunition, re- serve supplies, and medicines for the army, were storcd. Fifteen hundred Federal soldiers attacked the position. Hardeman was advised of their ap- proach and could have retreated, but his retreat meant the surrender of the army, for behind it was a desert, destitute of supplies. For five days and nights, his men never leaving their guns, he sus- tained the attack and held the position until rein- forcements arrived from Santa Fe. This defense saved the army. A council of war was held the night before the army began to retreat from Albn- querque. The situation was fully discussed, but no officer proposed any definite action, until Maj. Jackson called on Hardeman, who was present, to express his views on the situation. Gen. Sibley then invited Hardeman to speak. He remarked that it was manifest that the enemy could reinforce quicker than the Confederates, and the sooner the army got away the better. He was the only man who had the moral courage to advise a retreat, which all knew was inevitable, and his advice was promptly adopted by Gen. Sibley.
When the retreat began. Gen. Green's regiment was attacked at Peralto. It was saved by the
timely return of Hardeman, who was then in com- mand of liis regiment and who had started to cap- ture Fort Craig, then garrisoned by Federal troops under Kit Carson. His men waded the river, which was full of floating ice, during the night. The line of retreat was across the mountains to a point on the river below Fort Craig. To Hardeman is due the credit of saving the artillery on that retreat. On the arrival of the army at El Paso he was ordered by Col. Riley to go to the interior of Texas and recruit. Here was exemplified Harde- man's unselfish devotion to duty. His first im- pulse was that of joy at the prospect of soon seeing again his wife and children, but he knew that his long experience as a frontiersman better qualified him to take the regiment safely across the plains, than any other one in the command, and he asked Gen. Sibley to countermand the order. He was in the battle of Galveston, with the land forces, on January 1, 1863, when the Federal boats were either captured or driven from the harbor and a Massachusetts regiment captured.
After the battle of Galveston, Gen. Magruder requested Hardeman, then Lieutenant-Colonel of the Fourth Regiment, to resign, and accept com- mand of Peter Hardeman's regiment, for the pur- pose of organizing a new force to return to Arizona. Afterward, when Col. Riley fell at Iberia, Louisiana, Gen. E. Kirby Smith ordered Hardeman back to command his own regiment, with which he remained until the close of the war. After his return to his old regiment he participated in the disastrous night attack on Fort Butler. Lieut. Wilkins was present when Gen. Geeen requested Hardeman's opinion about making the attack. Hardeman said that many good men would fall and nothing could be gained, for the river was full of gunboats and, if the night attack should be successful, the enemy would recapture the fort next day. Ile added: " If the attack is made I will lead my regiment in the fight." Green's orders to attack were imperative and the result was more disastrous to the command than any other battle of the war In this attack Hardeman was again wounded. With 250 men he met the advance of the army, under Gen. Banks, near Pleasant Hill. With his small force he stubbornly resisted the march of the Federal army, retreating and fighting at every step, uutil night. At night the enemy camped on the south side of a creek near the old mill and Hardeman, with his little force, rested for a time in the woods on the other side. In the night, at ten o'clock, he put his men in motion and fiercely charged the whole Federal army. The strength of the attacking force was not known and
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the enemy moved back two miles and camped. This enabled the Confederate troops to fall back next morning and take position at Mansfield, where the decisive battle of the campaign was fought. In that battle Gen. Hardman commanded Green's brigade and to the fact that under his leadership it struck the Federal line in flank and rear, at the moment that the infantry of Mouton's Division had been brought up standing in front of the 13th Corps of the Union army, unable to advance further in the face of a deadly fire delivered from behind a breastwork of rails, was chiefly due the victory that the Confederates won in that engagement. To this fact Lieut. Dudley Avery, of Gen. Mouton's staff, bore eloquent testimony in a letter written to Gen. H. II. Boone a few years ago, in which he de- scribed the magnificent charge made by Mouton's infantry and spoke of the part Gen. Hardeman played upon that bloody and hard fought field.
In that desperate battle nearly every company offieer of Hardeman's regiment was killed or wounded. The following day he participated in the battle of Pleasant Hill. Banks was now in full retreat, but with au army far stronger than his pursuers. The eventful campaign which resulted in driving him back to Lower Louisiana, lasted forty- three days, thirty-nine of which were days of fight- ing, with Hardeman nearly always at the front. The retreat terminated in the battle of Yellow Bayou, in which Hardeman commanded the division. Among the many compliments received by Harde- man's regiment from superior officers, should be mentioned that of Gen. Dick Taylor, who wrote that their charge at Franklin saved the army. Here Col. Riley was killed and Hardeman then be- came the Colonel of the regiment and was subse- quently commissioned Brigadier-General by the War Department.
When peace was restored Gen. Hardeman went to Mexico, where he was employed to survey lands in Durango and Metlakauka. He returned home in 1866 and engaged in cattle speeulation to restore his fortunes, but this resulted unfortunately. Hc entered the army in 1861 wealthy ; at the close of the war be found himself poor.
When Coke was inaugurated as Governor in 1874, armed resistance was threatened by ex-Governor E. J. Davis, who refused to recognize the election. Gen. Il. E. McCulloch, who had been placed in command of the capitol grounds and buildings,
became sick, and Guy M. Bryan, Speaker of the House, appointed Gen. Hardeman, Col. Ford and Col. William N. Hardeman as assistant Sergeant- at-Arms, to protect the Legislature and public buildings, and to keep the peace. In open session of the House he said to them: "You love Texas ; you have seen much service in her behalf during three wars; you are experienced and aceustomed to command men. A great crisis is upon Texas ; she never needed your services more than now." The crisis was manifest. Davis was relying upon Grant, who was then President, to sustain him in his usurpation, but in this he was deceived. The capitol grounds swarmed with armed negroes, who were influenced by corrupt whites, greedy to retain power. For eight days and nights the Hardemans and Ford were at their posts, and the Speaker of the House, writing of their services, said: "They showed tact, fidelity and effieieney. Twice they prevented bloodshed." When the crisis had passed, in open session of the House, he addressed them as follows : " Faithful servants of Texas, I have asked you to come here, that in the presence of the House of Representatives of the people of Texas, in their name, as the Speaker, and in the name of every man, woman and child of Texas, to thank you for the invaluable serviees you have rendered them. But for you, Texas might have been drenehed in in blood and remanded baek to military rule, which, in my humble judgment, you largely contributed to avert by your consummate taet, true conrage and patriotism. You are discharged."
By Governor Coke he was appointed Public Weigher at Galveston; by Governor Roberts, In- spector of Railroads ; by Governor Ross, Superin- tendent of Public Buildings and Grounds, and by Governor Culberson, Superintendent of the Con- federate Home, at Austin, which position he now holds.
His early life was spent in camp and field with the pioneer hunters and rangers of the Republic and, yet, it would be difficult to find in any social circle a man more gentle in his bearing and refined in his manners. He acts now with another genera- tion which knows nothing of the hardships and perils which created Texas and, yet, the death of no living man would be more sincerely deplored, not only by her old soldiers, but by the citizenship of Texas at large, than would that of Gen. William P. Hardeman.
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ANDREW H. EVANS, M. D.,
EAGLE PASS.
Andrew H. Evans, a well-known citizen and snc- cessful physician of Eagle Pass, is a native of Ken- tucky and was born at High Grove, in Nelson County, March 12, 1856. His father, Walter M. Evans, was a successful farmer and a native of the same State, and married Miss Sarah E. Oliphant, a member of an old Kentucky family and a descend- ant of the Oliphants of Virginia.
Dr. Evans spent his boyhood and youth on the farm and received an academic education at Bards- town, Ky. His tastes did not incline him to agri- cultural pursuits and he entered upon the study of medicine, and took a course of study at the Medi- cal University at Louisville, Ky., graduating there- from in the class of 1880, and returned to his native town of High Grove, where he commenced the practice of his profession. He, in 1883, attended lectures at Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York, and in 1884 received his diplomas from the institution, and almost immediately thereafter located at Eagle Pass, Texas, where an uncle, A. M. Oliphant, an able lawyer, of ten years' residence in that city, then resided.
Dr. Evans' profession abilities, great energy and excellent social qualities soon drew about him a circle of warm personal friends and brought to him a large medical practice, and since his coming, little of im- portance in the line of material growth and social advancement has transpired that Dr. Evans has not promoted and fostered with his moral support and ample means. He has served his people for eight consecutive years as a member of the Board of
Trustees of the city free schools, where his influence has had a salutary effect in elevating the grade and standard of scholarship and the general develop- ment of the local free school system.
Dr. Evans has for ten years past held the office of city or county physician at Eagle Pass, and now holds the respectable position of State quarantine officer. He is one of the directors of the First National Bank of Eagle Pass, is a director of the Eagle Pass Board of Trade, and a director and vice-president of the Mesquite Club, a close organi- zation of the business men of the city, with luxuri- ously equipped club-rooms. The club was organ- ized for the promotion of business fellowship and rational enjoyment. He is also one of the vestry- men of the local Episcopal church.
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