Fayette County, Texas
and The Civil War

The Confederate Hero of Waldeck

William Guehrs was born January 1841 in Brandenburg Prussia. Guehrs was a young German immigrant who arrived in Texas shortly before the Civil War and made his home at Waldeck (then known as Long Prairie) in Fayette County.

On October 12, 1861 Guehrs, along with his friend, Conrad Frosch, enlisted in Creuzbauer's Battery of the Confederate Army. The battery was made up of German Texans from Fayette County.

Edmund Creuzbauer, a former Prussian artillery officer, organized Creuzbauer's Battery. It was composed of around 150 men, 4 cannons, 72 horses, and 39 mules.

After serving a short tour of duty on the Rio Grande near Brownsville they were transferred to Fort Griffin, Sabine Pass.

On May 4th, 1864, the battery, along with an attachment of infantry and cavalry, received orders to move to Calcasieu Pass, Louisiana, and two miles inland from the Gulf and south of Lake Charles. After 25 miles of difficult travel through marsh and sand grassland they made contact with the enemy on the 6th of May 1864. The enemy consisted of two Union gunboats, the Granite City and the Wave. The mission of the gunboats was to impress food and supplies from the residents.

By dawn of May 6th, the guns were in position some 1200 yards from the Granite City; farther up to the left was the Wave.

At Gun #1, Sergeant Alex von Rosenburg prepared his small crew for action, at his side stood his brother, Walter, as gunner. Cannoneers were John Winn, William Guehrs, Will Peters and the Kneip brothers, Henry and William, from Round Top.

With the horses and mules safely in the rear, the crew positioned the gun, sighting the barrel towards the Granite City. Private Guehrs "wormed" the barrel of grit and sand, then loaded the first round. The crew of four waited for their signal to fire in the gray light of the May morning.

The order came and the guns roared their surprise. Six or eight times they fired across the water before the enemy returned with deadly fire in the midst of Gun # 1. William Kneip was killed outright and William Guehrs was severely wounded in the leg. The crew frantically moved the gun into another position and continued to fire. Henry Kneip continued in spite of the loss of his brother, because he felt desperately needed. William Guehrs, fighting pain and blood loss, refused to be taken to a field hospital and continued to "worm" load and fire his cannon in a kneeling position in the sand and muck of the swamp.

The battle lasted 75 minutes until both the Granite City and the Wave surrendered. One ship was hit 65 times. Both captured ships were returned to service for the Confederate cause.

The battle won, Guehrs let his friends assist him to the field hospital. His wounds were treated, but the surgeons quickly realized that he needed extensive care for rehabilitation.

With a medical furlough in his pocket and accompanied by his friend, Frosch, Guehrs left Creuzbauer's Battery to recuperate at Frosch's home in Waldeck.

He lingered all summer suffering from complications and infections. The injuries finally proved too much and on September 3, 1864 he passed away.

Today, Private Guehrs lies buried in the Waldeck Cemetery yet, those who seek his last bivouac search in vain for the stone that marks his grave. There are many buried in the northern part of the cemetery and wooden crosses only marked many graves during earlier years. Grass fires and time has contributed to the loss of these locations, but somewhere in this open area lies this Confederate hero, only one of four Confederate Medal of Honor recipients in all of Texas.

The memory of Private William Guehrs is not forgotten as the C.S.A. Medal of Honor was posthumously awarded and dedicated in 1996 at the Imperial Calcasieu Museum of Lake Charles.

It is the hope, desire, and goal of the community of Waldeck to be able, with the help of interested Veterans organizations and others, to erect a fitting monument in his honor, commemoration the valor of this immigrant cannoneer who ignored a mortal wound to fight for his adopted country in the hour of peril.

Draft Resistance in Fayette County

1861, the secession of the Southern states of America begins. Texas was the seventh state to leave the Union and the last to leave before the firing on Fort Sumter.

Fayette County was the home to a large amount of newly arrived European immigrants, who had left their homeland for a number of reasons including continuous civil wars and forced military service for the young men. These new Americans were actively trying to scratch out a living for their families on their small farms. When the statewide vote for secession was held February 23, 1861, the voters rejected leaving the Union by a margin of twenty, out of 1180 votes cast. In 1859, there was 250 German voters in the County. While they probably voted pro-Union, this number indicated an equal number of "American" voters.

In April of 1862, the Confederate Conscript Law was enacted requiring all men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five to serve in a branch of the military for three years. The men of Fayette County reacted in several ways: some joined up and served heroically on battlefields such as Glorietta Pass, Vicksburg and Shiloh; a large number joined local Texas State Troops, which were formed to protect Texas from invasion, and several men disappeared into the deep woods to wait out the war.

In 1862, local Confederate General William G. Webb received information that local citizens, of mostly German ancestry, were holding meetings to oppose the draft. In January of 1863, a delegation of Germans visited General Webb and presented a written declaration. This brave letter of defiance is an excellent test of democracy in time of war, but also gives a great snapshot of life during this time:

January 4, 1863

Brig. Gen. William G. Webb, La Grange

At a public meeting held by the citizens in Biegel Settlement, Fayette County, Texas, on January 4, 1863 the following declaration was adopted as an expression of the sentiments of said meeting:

The measures taken by the Government to protect this State against invasion are so far-reaching and serious in their consequences that they fill our minds with dread and apprehension.

The past has already taught us how regardlessly the Government and the county authorities have treated the families of those who have taken the field. We have been told that they would be cared for, and what put of this time has been done? They were furnished with small sums of paper money, which is almost worthless, and which has been refused by men for whose sake this war and its calamities were originated.

Last year we made tolerably good crops; the prospect for the next is not very encouraging, and we cannot look forward with indifference upon starvation, which we apprehend for our wives and children.

Although it has been said that we will not be needed for more than three months, the time for planting will then be over and our children may go begging for the small pay which we are to receive for our services is insufficient to purchase bread for our families and pay for it. We and our families are almost destitute of clothing, and have no means of getting enough to protect us even imperfectly against the cold, from which cause sickness and epidemics result, as has been experienced in the Army, where more men have fallen victims of disease than by the sword of the enemy.

Last autumn we applied to procure cloth from the penitentiary, but up to this time we have not been able to obtain any, whereas Negro holders, whom we could name, can get such things and fetch them home. For these reasons we sympathize with all the unfortunate who have to provide for their own maintenance, and hope that our authorities will look upon us as men and not as chattels. With what spirit and what courage can we so situated fight, and that, moreover, for principles so far removed from us?

Besides the duty of defending one's country there is a higher and more sacred one—the duty of maintaining the families. What benefit is there in preserving the country while the families and inhabitants of the same, nay, even the Army, are bound to perish in misery and starvation?

In view of the foregoing we take the liberty hereby jointly to declare that unless we obtain a guarantee that our families will be protected, not only against misery and starvation, but also against vexations from itinerant bands, we shall not be able to answer the call, and the consequences must be attributed to those who caused them.

Furthermore, we decline taking the army oath (as prescribed) to the Confederate States, as we know of no law, which compels Texas troops, — to take the same.

It is the unanimous wish of those assembled in this meeting to apply to Brig. Gen. W. G. Webb to use all of his influence to the effect that the men now drafted for militia service be permitted to stay at home until they have finished planting.

By authorization and in the name of about one hundred and twenty citizens.

C. AMBERG, H. BAUCH, R. HILDEBRAND

H.KRALE, H. HASSE.

I do hereby certify the above and foregoing to be a true and correct copy of the original (translation).

JAMES PAUL,
Private Secretary

 

This letter prompted General J. B. Magruder to declare martial law in Fayette, Austin and Colorado counties. General Webb notified Texas Governor, Francis Lubbock, who immediately visited La Grange for several days and gave the German delegation a very plain, positive talk. Cavalry troops from Arizona were brought in to patrol and enforce the draft. By the time the troops arrived, most of the Germans had gone into the militia, which enabled them to stay in the area and tend to their crops and families.