Jess McLean of Dallas, author of the only compendium of the troops of the 13th Mississippi Infantry Regiment (of whose unit I am finishing the first regimental history), is trying to preserve this old grave in Lyons, southeastwest of College Station.
The lieutenant named on the tombstone, William H. Davis, began the war as a private in the 13th’s Spartan Band (later Company H) and had the doubtful distinction of being in command of the remnant of the regiment that surrendered at Appomattox in 1865.
Somehow 1LT Davis, who was from Chickasaw County, Mississippi, wound up buried on private property in Lyons, Texas. Jess still is trying to figure how that happened as well as trying to interest the SCV in protecting the grave with a fence. It needs one because the new landowner’s seasonal mowing has periodically scarred the stone and knocked it down
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 