My friend, Rick Larsen, received this advertisement and thankfully, remembered my connection to the Hill brothers. I have ordered the book and will post some relevant information as I find it.

Texas Civil War Letters, Limited Edition Sale

In 1861 the Hill boys of Hill's Plantation (near Bastrop ) rode off to war. They had signed on with Col. B. F. Terry's 8th Texas Cavalry, better knows as Terry's Texas Rangers, one of the most celebrated Confederate regiments.

They left behind their widowed mother who, too sick to run their large plantation, handed those duties to her seventeen year old daughter Mary Scott Hill (called "Scott" by her brothers.) Mary Hill was not completely unprepared for the task. She was unusually well-educated for a young lady of her day. Her brothers placed their full trust in her, and took her into their confidence. Their letters home to her are filled with detail and candor. 'Scott' didn't need things sugar-coated. And there were lots of of letters. The Hill boys spent four long years away from the home and family they loved. Sister Scott cherished and preserved every letter until her days came to an end in 1930, nearly seventy years after the first of them was written.

"As an entirety, no family of boys ever reached greater perfection as useful men and good citizens."

-General John M. Claiborne on the Hill boys

These letters touch on every aspect of the War. You get the details of combat, the misery of camp life, being captured by the Yankees (more than once,) views on politics, concern for how slaves were treated by the Yankees, and myriad other subjects. The Hills had opinions about everything under the sun and wrote home about them.

If it's battles that interest you, there are plenty here. The Hills took part in the battles of Shiloh, Murfreesboro , Fort Pillow , Chattanooga , and Chickamauga , as well as the Knoxville and Atlanta Campaigns. You can read about them in the words of these young Texans who fought them.

At a time when many families have husbands and sons away at war, these letters will strike a timely chord of patriotism and the American tradition of noble sacrifice in times of national crisis.

Nothing we can say about what is in these letters can do a better job of convincing you they are worth your time than some quotes from the letters themselves. Please read the quotes below and consider adding it to your library, or making it a gift to someone who will cherish and preserve it the way Mary Scott Hill preserved the original letters.


The Hill letters are being offered as a slipcased limited edition hardcover book. As has become a tradition for Copano Bay Press, the edition is 254 hand-numbered copies, one for each county in Texas . Also, as with all our limited edition books, there is a lifetime return policy. We will alway buy it back at the issue price if you ever decide you don't want it anymore.


Some quotes from the letters:

"Well, sister, the war is ended and we are. The future is in the hands of God who has extended his kindness and protecting power over us during the last four years that Death has held its high carnival over our land. Let us not distrust him."

"It would be very much [better] for Texas to fight her battles in Georgia than to have to fight them upon the soil of Texas ...the farther we fight them from our homes the better."

"If the women in the whole South would know the fate that awaits them should we be subjugated, let them learn from those that have fallen in the Yankee lines."

" Sherman commenced his advance through Georgia . The first place we had any fighting with him was at Macon . We took about eighty prisoners and killed twenty or thirty. I got two prisoners, a good overcoat and one hundred dollars in green-back."

"My love to all. Kiss the children for me."

"Pray for us and for an early peace...give my love to all inquiring friends and tell all the negroes howdy."

"I am told that nearly half the Texas Brigade are barefooted, yet the Texas troops are the most cheerful and most hopeful of any troops in the field."

"Say to Cousin Alice ten thousand thanks for her tobacco pouch and that I have put it to a more nobler use than holding tobacco. I have put my four years labor and the relic of a ruined country in it. My one dollar in specie."


"Old Abe is calling frantically for 100,000 more men to defend the state from invasion and becomes perfectly furious when he does not get them. May the Lord of Hosts grant Genrl Lee success, then we will carry this war which has been waged with such hatred home to those miserable deluded wretches and make them feel the hardships of modern warfare."

"The Texas Rangers feel proud of the Women of Texas and we live in hopes that it will not be long before we get back to share your smiles and affections."



Yours in Texas ,