It may seem surprising that the two states that sent the most veterans to the Last Reunion of the Blue and Gray at Gettysburg in 1938 were California (150) and Texas (130), whose representatives had to travel particularly long distances. Pennsylvania, the “home state,” so to speak, of the reunion, was third, with 115 veterans. Of those from the Lone Star State, all but thirteen were former Confederates. So, almost a quarter of the 486 Confederate veterans present were Texans.
At 1:30 pm, on June 24th, a Santa Fe Railroad train pulled out of Lubbock, Texas, carrying nine West Texas veterans and their chosen assistants. They were bound for Gettysburg, via Amarillo, Omaha, and Chicago. Many other veterans would join them en route. Prominent among those first nine was Will Dorsey Crump (commonly called “W.D.” or “Judge Crump”).
Will Dorsey Crump was a native of Louisville, Ky., born on August 24, 1844. Early in March, 1863, at the age of 18, he had enlisted in Co. C, 3rd Kentucky Cavalry (CSA), in the command of John Hunt Morgan. That Summer, Morgan led a force of 2,500 hand-picked men on his famous rad into Federal territory. Assigned scouting duties, Crump was frequently involved in skirmishes. Once he was reported killed. But, on August 21st, his and about 60 of his comrades' luck ran out:
We were scattered and were going east. We were looking for a favorable place to ford the Ohio river. We knew it was fordable near Buffington Island. We started down toward the river. There was a rail fence there and we knew we had to take down a part of the fence to get over. We planned to swim across. Just about the time some of the boys started to take down some of the rails, federal soldiers came along and we were captured.”(1)
Young Crump and other enlisted men were taken to Camp Douglas, near Chicago, where they spent 19 months as prisoners of war. Until, on March 1, 1865, a group of 500 men, including Crump, were taken from Camp Douglas to Washington, to be sent to Virginia for exchange
We were never exchanged. The war ended shortly after that, so we started homeward. We walked mostly, riding part of the way.(1)
In Western Virginia, Crump with a few companions stopped a while, seeking work to get some travelling funds.
We didn’t do much work. The man owned a sawmill and a gristmill. My father had once owned a sawmill, and I thought I knew how. I ran it and sawed some lumber for a fence we built around the garden. The woman of the house had a trucking comb, which was broken. I found a piece of horn and made her a new one, which she prized highly. She fed us well.(1)
Moving on, the men hopped a freight train which took them 18 miles in 10 hours. They decided walking was faster. Later still, Crump met a railroad man he knew, and borrowed enough from him to ride the rest of the way home.
But, the war had left Will Crump a restless young man. In 1867 he started west. Fist by boat to Omaha. From there he moved on to Cheyenne and Denver, stopping for a time at each place, living the life of the cowboy. Finally, in 1874, he settled in Dallas. There he married, and stayed until 1890, when he took his family to West Texas. He purchased a place three miles northwest of where Lubbock now stands. There was no town there then.
W. D. Crump became a cattle rancher, a leading citizen and active promoter of the new town. In 1898 he was elected County Judge and served two terms. With the town spreading out, he took a ranch some miles outside of Shallowater in 1900. In 1917 he retired, and moved into that town.
By 1935, Will Dorsey Crump was Lubbock County’s last living Confederate veteran. When he learned of the planned Gettysburg Reunion,
“Judge” Crump, as he is best known, is all excited over the trip. He had planned to make it in a car with his son and daughter … when Uncle Sam turned thumbs down on the car trip. A government official explained he [was] to old to make the car trip, and that he would stand a train trip better.(1)
Crump foresaw no difficulty with the drive, just a couple of years earlier he had driven almost as far to a Confederate reunion. But, reluctantly, he agreed, since the Federal Government was paying all expenses for him and a companion. He had a grand old time at Gettysburg, and by all accounts his son, Bob, did, too. Met a couple of old friends, and shared a lot of memories.
In August, 1939, on his 95th birthday, Judge Crump reminisced that during his two terms as County Judge he had tried only 25 cases. Though he still remembered a fight that occurred during one of his sessions: “when people were bad they were pretty bad, but not often."
"The people then were trustworthy," he said. He recounted how storekeepers would leave their stores open while they were on trips, and how cowhands would enter the store, choose the merchandise they wanted, and leave the money behind the canned goods.
"What is wrong with civilization?" This 95-year-old man claims that the funny papers that are distributed in the newspapers are a menace to the youngsters' character, and "I never have seen anything funny about them!"(2)
Will Dorsey Trump passed away on January 15, 1940, at the age of 95 years. He was eulogized for his accomplishments, but also because
“He was a very kind person, and he enjoyed people a lot. He was very respectable and respectful of other people - just a good friend to lots of people, young and old. He lived to be 95, and we had a birthday party every year. People from all over the county came for his birthday. For his exercise, there was a long sidewalk in front of the house, and he would walk that and tell us (children) stories ... and he would keep candy, too.”(3)
(1)
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, June 26, 1938
(2)
Fort Worth Star, August 21, 1939
(3)
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, January 30, 1940
See also:
https://www.lubbockonline.com/life/2010-06-07/crump-helped-build-lubbock-shallowater