CONFEDERATE BIOGRAPHY:  W. L. Waites - Smith County, TX

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Submitted by Mary Love Berryman - marylove@tyler.net
8 June 2002 
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TEXANS WHO WORE THE GRAY by Sid S. Johnson, pages 217-219 

W. L. WAITES.

Among the fifty young men enlisted by J. P. Douglas in Tyler, Texas, 
in early June, 1861, for the First Texas Bat­tery was W. L. Waites.  
He was chosen ensign, and on the 10th of June received their
beautiful flag and bore it at the head of the company from Tyler 
when they started on the march to Dallas.  W. L. Waites was born 
in Tennessee, in 1838, but having lost his father he spent his 
early childhood at the home of his grandfather, Maj Daniel. near 
Rusk, Cherokee  county,  Texas.   His father died when he was a 
child.  The most of the education he had he received from his mother 
in early years.  His other educational ad­vantages were limited.  When 
quite a small boy he entered the newspaper business as a printer, and 
for a num­ber of years worked in Rusk, Palestine and Tyler.  When the 
war commenced, June 1861, he was a publisher and one of the editors 
of the States Rights Sentinel, a newspaper then in Tyler conducted 
by Capt. W. H. Smith editor-in-chief. From June 1861 till April 1865 
the history of Douglas' First Texas Battery was the history of W. L. 
Waites, with the exception of a part of the Kentucky campaign.  He 
was left sick at Louden, Tenn. in August 1862, and joined his com­pany 
near Harrodsburg, Ky., in the September following. Aside from this 
time he was with the battery on its long march and hard fought 
battles suffering all the hardships, privations and dangers endured 
by his company till his death. At Elk Horn he was a gunner and was 
conspicuous for cour­age and the good judgment with which he handled 
his piece during that terrible three hours while the battery was under
the fire of five or six Yankee batteries.  At the close he received a 
serious wound in the head.  After the battle of Murfreesboro Capt. 
Douglas was asked to submit a name to be placed on "The Roll of Honor" 
for gallantry at that battle. The Captain referred the matter to the 
company and Waites was chosen by ballot, as the one whose name was to 
be thus honored.  At Dalton, GA, in January, 1864, he was one of the 
most active in urging his company to re-enlist for the war, for which 
he received a letter of congratulation from M. D. Graham, then the 
representative from the East Texas District in the Confederate 
Congress in session at Richmond. He was at his post, day and night, 
through the "Hundred Days Battle" from Dalton to Atlanta, Ga., passed 
through Franklin and Nashville and all the other hardships and dan­gers 
of Hood's Tennessee campaign, and was with his com­pany when it was 
in charge of Seige Guns at Fort Sidney Johnston, Mobile Bay, Alabama, 
till April 1865, when he was killed by the provost guard in the city 
of Mobile.  Mobile at that time was garrisoned or policed by a 
battallion of soldiers who had never seen active service in the field, 
and it was a sad fact that some of the officers and men had the same 
char­acteristics that many of the guards of Northern prisons had
-they were cruel and despotic to the weak and unarmed. "Hitchcocks 
Press," the city prison, was the emblem of tyr­anny, as much so as the 
"Bastile" in Paris was in the 18th century.  The details of Waites' 
death were hidden as much as possible at the time and have since been 
further obscured by the lapse of forty-two years. From the most I 
could learn at the time, and since, and from the best I can remember, 
I understand the sad circumstances to be as follows: Waites and some 
of the other boys went into the city to attend the theater.  He did 
not return with the boys, but visited W. D. Abbey, a friend in the 
city who was staying there on leave of absence.  Abbey urged him to 
remain all night. Waites said he had promised Lieut. Hardin who was 
in com­mand of the company, that he would return that night.  He 
started to his command at the fort and was arrested by four guardsmen, 
he submitted cheerfully and went with them to the office expecting to 
be released upon his making the proper explanation.  The officer 
treated him insultingly, and cruel­ly ordered him to prison to 
"Hitchcocks Press."  Waites re­fused to go and resisted the guard; a 
guard shot him in the head, killing him instantly.  We at the fort 
heard nothing of him for two days, when inquiry was made a meagre 
ac­count was given with the statement that the Provost guards avoided 
notoriety, that they did not want to incur the ill will of his 
company.  Some of the boys visited the soldiers cemetery and the 
sexton pointed out a grave and said it was the one they sought, as 
it was the grave of a soldier who was killed by a guard in the city.  
The boys put some boards to it with name and dates.  It was now a 
time of active mil­itary operations. Mobile was evacuated on the 11th 
of April. The surrender soon followed, the army disbanded and there 
was no investigation made.  Waites, like many unfortunates in 
Northern prisons, got too near the "dead line," was kill­ed by men 
who were invisible at Elk Horn, Murfreesboro, Franklin, Nashville, 
and the long marching and fighting through Georgia, Tennessee and 
other States, but who were invincible when they had a war worn 
soldier unarmed and helpless in their power. I never knew the name 
of the guard who shot him or the officer who gave the order.  
Socially Waites' character appeared to be contradictory.  At times 
he was silent, and almost forbidding, but under that cold ex­terior 
there was a spirit of kindness and congeniality scarce­ly ever equaled 
in anyone.  I have thought he was the most fluent and agreeable 
conversationalist I ever heard talk. Two striking characteristics of 
his were loyalty to his friends and a disposition to champion the 
weak against the strong.  He was cut down at the close of four years 
of hard and dangerous soldier life, but his military service was an 
honor to his com­pany and to his State.  As a true patriot with an 
under­standing of what patriotism meant, as one who conscien­ciously 
discharged every duty, as one who possessed both moral and physical 
courage.  W. L. Waites represented the highest type of the Confederate 
soldier.  Written by one of Douglas Battery.

JAMES B. LUNSFORD.
Rutherford College, N. C., July 19,1907.