CONFEDERATE BIOGRAPHY:  IRA ELLIS and HIS WIFE - Smith County, TX 

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Submitted by Peggy Brannon - peggybrannon@hotmail.com
23 October 2001
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TEXANS WHO WORE THE GRAY by Sid S. Johnson

IRA ELLIS and HIS WIFE

Ira Ellis, of Tyler, was a native of Kentucky, and removed to Texas 
in 1838, settleing in San Augustine County, and in 1849 he removed to 
Smith County, making Tyler a number one citizen up to his death on 
April 25, 1878. Mr. Ellis was a leading merchant in Tyler before the 
war between the States, and was noted for business ability and strict 
integrity. He was over the age for the Confederate service, but he 
was thoroughly in sympathy with the cause of the South and worked 
manfully at home for the struggling soldier boys at the front. The 
writer remembers, when a soldier boy in the army of Tennessee, that 
his Christian wife, Mrs. Ira Ellis sent him a suit of clothes, made by 
her own hands, as a present, and I must say that I was fonder of that 
suit than any I ever had in all my life. It was a gray jeans suit. The 
thread was spun and the weaving was done by her own hands. The suit 
was a good one and the angel hands of a Southern woman made them for 
a Confederate soldier that needed them, and appreciated them as coming 
from my Texas home, away over in the hills of Tennessee, when serving 
my country in a just cause, battling for local self government. Mrs. 
Ellis has long since passed "over the river and rests under the shades 
of the trees" in the blissful eternity, and in "the house not made 
with hands" in heaven. Oh, the Southern woman. The Christian mother 
who stood by the South in the gloomy days of the early sixties. The 
purity of her life, the devotion to her country - the love of the 
Southland - the patriotism of her soul, the love of right, makes 
the Southern woman rise higher in the scale of excellence, by her 
devotion to her country, and the virtues that makes the Southern 
woman superior in grace, more lovely in charity, more self-sacrificing 
in love and impulse, than other women in the world. What a heritage 
the South has in her lovely matrons of the war between the States. 
How thoughtful they were of us, how sacrificing for the country 
were our Christian mothers. God bless their memory. Nearly all have 
gone to their eternal home and enjoy the great blessings in the 
realms of joy promised to the faithful. Let us who linger on the 
border of the river, and soon will cross to the other side, worship 
while living, the ideal Southern woman. She was lovely in her home 
spun dress and straw bonnet than in the raiment of fine linen. They 
made sacrifices that charmed the world and their glory will go down 
in history for their Christian piety and love of country. The older 
I get the more charming the women of the South grow. Will their like 
ever be seen in the years to come.