CONFEDERATE BIOGRAPHY: A PUNCTILLIOUS OFFICER - Smith County, TX 

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Submitted by Doris Peirce - ginlu@home.com
29 October 2001 
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TEXANS WHO WORE THE GRAY by Sid S. Johnson

A PUNCTILLIOUS OFFICER - (H. P. MABRY)

Col. H. P. Mabry, of the 3rd Texas Cavalry, was wounded at the battle 
of Iuka, Miss., and as the Confederate troops, after the battle, fell 
back, he was left in the hands of the enemy.  The printed parole 
handed him to sign read the "so called Confederate states."  He 
refused to attach his name to the instrument, as the Confederate 
States was in fact an established government, and he only agreed to 
sign it after the words "so called," so obnoxious to him, had been 
erased froom the parole.  Ever afterwards a different phraseology 
was given Southern prisoners with the straight "Confederate States."  
Gen. Mabry was a man of high sense of honor, as firm as the rock 
Gibralta, and would have remained a prisoner to the end of the war 
before he would have. under any circumstances, subscribed to any 
obligation not in accordance with his convictions of honor and 
Southern manhood.