William A. Fletcher, lumberman and Civil War soldier, was the son of Thomas and Eliza Miller Fletcher. In 1856 the family moved to Texas where they settled at Wiess's Bluff in Jasper County. There, Fletcher met old Simon Wiess, a well read and intelligent man according to Bill Fletcher's father. While there was little talk of the inevitable war, Fletcher remarked that Wiess told his father that if he could sell out at not too much of a loss, he would move to Mexico just to keep his sons out of the coming war. In 1859. the Fletchers moved to Beaumont. Two years later, Bill Fletcher was shingling the roof of a two story house when Capt. William Rogers rode up and reported war declared and the fall of Fort Sumter. The next morning, Bill headed for Galveston to enlist, riding a flat car to Liberty, and then pumping a handcar the remaining 40 miles to Galveston. Fletcher joined Company F, Fifth Texas Regiment, Hood's Texas Brigade, at Richmond, Virginia. His father, according to Fletcher's memoirs, gave his son these parting remarks. "I have long years since see this (war) had to happen. It is a foolish undertaking. There is no hope for Southern success. Our ports will be blocked, and the North has more men and means as well as the rest of the world. While I have opposed it, it is here. I will say that you are doing the only honorable thing and that is defend your country." Bill fought at Chickahominy, Seven Pines, and around Richmond. He served as the commanding general's scout at the battle of Gaines' Mill. He was wounded at the second battle of Manassas. He returned to the front, took part in the battle of Fredericksburg, and was made a temporary corporal. In 1863 he fought with Robert E. Lee's army and with James Longstreet's corps at Gettysburg. Under Joseph E. Johnston he was wounded again at Chickamauga. In 1864 he joined Co. E of the Eighth Texas Cavalry, (Terry's Texas Rangers) and accompanied the unit on campaigns in Tennessee and Georgia. He was captured briefly but escaped near Murfreesboro, Tenn., and last served with Johnston's army near Bentonville, N.C. Wounded in Georgia, he was nursed to health by the Catholic Sisters of Charity. Years later, he worked with St. Mary's infirmary in Galveston for a hospital in Beaumont. He secured land on the Neches and donated funds and lumber to build them a hospital, which was called Hotel Dieu. After the war, Fletcher returned to Beaumont. In 1866 he married Julia Long, with whom he had five children. He opened a general repair shop in 1867 and went to work for his wife's brother, James M. Long, in 1869. Long and F. L. Carroll were involved in a steam sawmill operation built by John R. Ross and James R. Alexander, originally known as Long and Co. and later as the Beaumont Lumber Co. In the course of the next 35 years, he became president and major stockholder of Long Manufacturing Co., which made 36,000,000 cypress shingles annually at Beaumont; of Texas Tram and Lumber Co., with sawmills at Beaumont and in Jasper County; and of Village Mills Company sawmills in Hardin County. By 1893, he owned 110,000 acres of Hardin and Jasper County timberlands. He was also a master machinist and millwright, and when he could find no steam loader and log skidder that he liked, he built and patented his own that he tested and perfected at Village Mills in 1895. Fletcher also developed the "Fletcher log scale" for measuring the board feet of stumpage of logs floated down the Neches River. In St. Louis in 1892 during a national lumbermen's convention, he was accorded the appellation of "the old man eloquent" for his oratory before the convention. In 1902, he sold out his Texas Tram and Lumber Co. and Village Mills Co. properties, including all timberlands, to Kirby Lumber Corporation. The old soldier died in 1915. In 1907, Fletcher, from memory, recounted his Civil War experience in his book 'Rebel Private, Front and Rear', first published by the Greer Press at Beaumont (1908). Nearly all copies were destroyed during a fire at his home. One copy made its way into the National Archives. In a letter to Fletcher's daughter, Margaret Mitchell acknowledged using Fletcher's book while researching General W. T. Sherman's march upon Atlanta for Gone With the Wind. The Civil War saw few memoirs by enlisted men who witnessed the war largely in human terms.This lack of memoirs, according to Richard Wheeler, is most grave on the Southern side, mainly because the Southern army was smaller than that of the North and consequently produced fewer chroniclers. Today, the book is held in high esteem by critics. The East Texas Historical Review states 'the book has long been regarded as a classic in Civil War literature.' Bill's beliefs would have been far more suited to the era of dynamic social change than the conservative society in which he lived. He held no prejudice toward race, religion, culture, or social status. He lived by his father's admonition, 'trust everyone except preachers and politicians.' Many Protestants questioned his donations as well as his spiritual beliefs. Fletcher shocked his gathered family one Sunday when called upon to say grace. His prayer epitomized the unpretentiousness and simple beliefs of the man. "Bless the meat and darn the skin. Back your ears and all pitch in. Amen."