Confederate Biography : Edwin M. PHELPS, Travis county, TX

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Submitted by Susie McFarland Lemin slemin46@yahoo.com
20 November 2001
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TEXANS WHO WORE THE GRAY by Sid S. Johnson, p. 163

Edwin M. Phelps, of Austin, was born in Vincennes, Ind., 
August 30, 1842, at the home of his maternal grandfather.  His father, 
Hon. Truman Phelps, was an able lawyer and colleague of Judah P. 
Benjamin in the Louisiana legislature.  He was later a member, too, 
of the Texas legislature.  The subject of this sketch at ten years of 
age came with his parents to Texas and grew to manhood here.  He was
educated in Aranama College.  When war was declared in 1861 he 
promptly volunteered as a member of the Eighth Texas Cavalry, better 
known as Terry's Texas Rangers.  He was promoted to a lieutenantcy in 
Co. G, in 1863, and was acting adjutant of the regimant at the close 
of the war.  After the surrender he returned to his Texas plantation.  
He was a member of the county commissioners' court of Victoria county,
from 1874 to 1882, inclusive; and was a repersentative in the 
eighteenth Texas legislature, where he achieved an enviable reputation 
as a law maker; being especially strong in committee work.  He was in 
1885 appointed United States collector of customs at Del Rio, serving 
four and a half years.  For many years he has been the assistant 
adjutant-general of Texas, and his services in this important post 
have been of the greatest valure to the state.  Col. Phelps is a 
devoted member of the Masonic fraternity.  He was united in marriage 
Oct. 1, 1868 to Miss Mary Bickford, of Refugio county.