Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 7, Number 2, May 1997 Page: 77
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Consider the Lily: The Ungilded History of Colorado County, Texas
Colorado Blues, under Captain John Mackey, paraded through Columbus. By May, when
a cavalry company, with Shropshire as captain, Upton, Timothy G. Wright, and Weston
B. Yates as lieutenants, and Samuel E. Goss as company surgeon, and a company of
Germans, with John W. Mathee as captain, was formed in Columbus, the county contained
at least nine companies. In addition to Mackey's, Shropshire's, and Mathee's companies,
there was a company under John T. Harcourt, a company at Harvey's Creek, two compa-
nies, one of Anglos and the other of Germans, on the Bernard Prairie, and a company at
Alleyton under John K. Hanks, who had just purchased the local livery stable. That
summer, the county boasted at least fourteen militia companies. Five, including Shrop-
shire's cavalry company, a company styled the Colorado Home Guard under Mathee, the
Columbus Greys under Mackey, and the Colorado Rovers under Captain Suffer B. Lamb,
were headquartered at Columbus. Two, John Duff Brown's Oakland Greys and John C.
Benthall's Oakland Guards, were headquartered at Oakland. Two others, Francis Marion
"Dick" Burford's Colorado Grays and David A. Hubbard's Harvey's Creek Mounted
Infantry, were headquartered at Harvey's Creek. There were three companies in the
German settlements; two, under Captains Mathias Malsch and Helmuth Kulow, with
headquarters at Frelsburg; and the third, the Alleyton and New Mainz German Home Guard
under Ernst Liermann, with headquarters at New Mainz. There was also one company
headquartered at Eagle Lake under Thomas Scott Anderson, and a company, the Crasco
Hickory Company, under Johann Zwiegel, in the southwestern part of the county. All the
companies were subject to be called to duty defending some part of the state for up to three
months, but only one, the Columbus Greys, is known to have been called. In October 1861,
they were sent to the mouth of the Brazos River.4
The same month that the Columbus Greys were called to the coast, a Columbus
blacksmith named Andrew Jackson Nave decided to make his own unique contribution to
the war effort. On October 14, 1861, he requested of and received from the commission-
ers court the sum of $250 to build a cannon. He got right to work. By October 23, he had
finished a breechloading, smooth-bore cannon that would fire a three-and-one-half-pound
ball and that had a rate of fire, he claimed, of twenty shots a minute. Nave hoped to build
more such weapons, but evidently never did. The cannon he had built reportedly was sent
to Fort Velasco and there used in combat under his direction.5
4 Colorado Citizen, May 11, 1861, May 18, 1861, May 25, 1861, October 26, 1861; Texas State
Militia Muster Rolls, RG 401, Files 4, 21, 55, 118, 131, 366, 421, 408, 409, 782, 837, 1353, 1354, Texas State
Archives, Austin; Colorado County Police [Commissioners] Court Minutes, Book 2, p. 406; Colorado County
Bond and Mortgage Records, Book E, p. 549. Malsch quickly resigned his commission and was replaced by
Friedrich Otell (see Texas State Militia Muster Rolls, RG 401, File 409, Texas State Archives, Austin).
5 Colorado Citizen, November 2, 1861; Weimar Mercury, March 12, 1904; Colorado County Police
[Commissioners] Court Minutes, Book 2, p. 404. Major Julius Kellersberg, in reporting on the batteries in place
at Fort Velasco on November 3, 1862, did not specifically refer to any of the artillery pieces as breechloaders,
but his report does not exclude the possibility that Nave's cannon was present (see Official Records, series 1,
77
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Nesbitt Memorial Library. Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 7, Number 2, May 1997, periodical, May 1997; Columbus, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth151400/m1/5/?q=nesbitt%20memorial%20library%20journal: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Nesbitt Memorial Library.