Confederate Biography : ARTHUR T. WATTS - Polk Co, TX

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Submitted by Susie McFarland Lemin slemin@yahoo.com
Sept 21, 2001
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TEXANS WHO WORE THE GRAY by Sid S. Johnson, pg. 92

ARTHUR T. WATTS  

Arthur T. Watts, of Beaumont, was born in Covington county, Miss., 
Aug. 31 1837.  He was educated at Zion Seminary, Mississippi, read 
law under Judge John E. McNair in that state, and was admitted to 
the bar in Polk county, Texas in 1859.  Upon the outbreak of the war 
in 1861, he returned to Mississippi and volunteered in Company A. 16th 
Mississippi Infantry and served in the same as a private throughout the 
war in the army of northern Virginia, chiefly under Gen. R. E. Lee.  He 
was wounded at the second battle of Manassas, and again at Spottsylvania 
Court House, May 12, 1864.  He was under Gen. Stonewall Jackson 
throughout his famous valley campaign.  After the war he returned to 
Polk county, Texas, and began the practice of law.  He was a member of 
the memorable thirteenth legislature that did so much to relieve the 
people of Texas of the odious laws and restrictions imposed on them.  
From 1874 to 1878 he practiced law in Weatherford and then removed to 
Dallas, where, for twenty years he was one of the leaders of the bar.  
When the state created the new appellate court known as the 
Commissioners of Appeals, he was confirmed as one of the judges of same, 
making an envisble record.  For the past seven years he has resided in 
Beaumont, where he is the district judge.  In 1869, in Polk county, he
married Miss Mary Victry.  Their son, Arthur P. Watts, was an officer 
in the Fourth Texas U. S. Volunteers during the Spanish-American War.  
He is now a captain in the regular U. S. Army and has seen fighting in 
the Phillipines.