ONFEDERATE BIOGRAPHY: D. H. L. BONNER. -  Smith County, TX 

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Submitted by Doris Peirce - ginlu@home.com 
15 October 2001 
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TEXANS WHO WORE THE GRAY by Sid S. Johnson
 
D. H. L. BONNER.	

D. H. L. Bonner was born in the State of Alabama and removed to Texas 
with his father's family early in 1849, and settled near Omen, Smith 
county.  His father, Beckham Bonner, and his mother, Rebecca Bonner, 
(nee Wilson) were early settlers in East Texas.  Col. D. H. L. Bonner 
was reared upon a farm and his early education was limited.  Being a 
man of strong individuality he has become prominent among the 
agricultural people for his peculiar and fascinating eloquence as a 
public speaker, and seems to be at home when on the platform as a 
lecturer on his favorite subject, the farmer of today.  All listen to 
him, as he is entertaining and pleasing.  Still with a force and 
bluntness reaches the object aimed at in his speeches.  He can come 
nearer holding an audience, as well as entertaingin them, than any 
speaker known to the writer along the lines of agriculture.  He claims 
in one of his perorations that East Texas is the Garden of Eden and 
proves by his argument that he believes it, and with the driving force 
of logic makes it plausable to his hearers.  Besides all this, Col. 
Bonner has a fine military record and stands flat footed upon the 
principles that as a people we were right in taking up arms in defense 
of the cause for which the South fought.  Justice is not always with 
the strong that outnumber the weak, but that "justice crushed to the 
earth will rise again."  He served in the Confederate army in company 
E, 14th Texas Infantry, commanded by Col. Edward Clark and did valiant 
service in the army of the Trans Mississippi department, and stacked 
his musket when the South laid down her arms in 1865.  He has been 
married twice; his first marriage was with Miss Susie Neal, a 
granddaughter of E. T. Broughton, Sr.  She died in 1874.  The second 
marriage was with Miss Texas Talley of Alabama.  He has three living 
children; Claudia, the wife of J. H. Terry; Walter and Mary.  Col. 
Bonner is a progressive farmer and believes that the education of the 
children of the masses is the proper thing to do to make our Southland 
"bloom as the roses," in the waste places to be built up by a higher 
education and a better civilization.  Intense farming with proper 
methods is the theme of his lectures, and advocates with strong force, 
that educated intelligent farming is the only hope of the South's 
prosperity.