James Byrd Foote enlisted as a private in Company A of the First Regiment, Georgia Regulars, just thirteen days after the surrender of Fort Sumter; transferred to Company C of the Seventh Georgia Infantry Regiment some four months later; and participated in engagements against the Yankees at Yorktown, Seven Pines, Oak Grove, Mechanicsville, Gainess Mill, Garnetts and Goldings Farms, Savages Station, Malvern Hill, Kellys Ford, Rappahannock Station, Thoroughfare Gap, Second Manassas, Ox Hill, Boonsborough, Sharpsburg, Suffolk, Gettysburg, Funkstown, Charleston, Chattanooga, Campbells Station, and Knoxville, where he was captured on November 28, 1863. After spending more than three months as a prisoner of war in several jails and military prison camps, he was forwarded from the Union Military Prison at Louisville, Kentucky, to Fort Delaware and was imprisoned there for 366 days before being delivered for exchange to the Confederate authorities at Boulwares and Coxs Wharves in Virginia during the three-day period of March 1012, 1865. He returned home to Dallas, Georgia, as a paroled prisoner of war to find that the land throughout Paulding County had been laid to waste by the Union and Confederate armies and that his family had been impoverished by the war. He endured the hardships of Reconstruction in Northern Georgia but was determined to prosper, and he did, becoming a successful merchant farmer and a leading citizen of Dallas who was favorably known throughout Paulding and surrounding counties.

Riding With the 19th Texas Cavalry in the War West of the Mississippi 1862-1865 is the story of William Hardy Bennett’s Confederate military service as a Private in Co. B of the 19th Texas Cavalry Regiment during the War for Southern Independence and his experiences during Reconstruction that followed the war. He enlisted with the Mesquite Light Horse Militia in Dallas County, Texas on 8 January 1861 some one and a half months before the citizens of Texas ratified the State’s Ordinance of Secession. Some fourteen months later on 21 March 1862, he enlisted with Captain Allen Beard’s Company, Burford’s Texas Cavalry in Dallas, Texas to defend his family, Dallas County, and the State of Texas against a Yankee army determined to invade and destroy the State. Beard’s Company became Co. B of the 19th Texas Cavalry Regiment and was an important part of Colonel William Henry Parsons’ Texas Brigade that fought with distinction in the Trans-Mississippi Department. Hardy fought in some fifty engagements and was often in harm’s way, but he survived and returned to Dallas County, Texas after the war and prospered despite the economic and political problems that plagued the county during Reconstruction.