John Moore was born on October 9, 1840, in Kentucky to Thomas and Eliza Moore. His father was a lawyer who owned $3,320 of real estate and $7,000 of personal property by 1860. The family moved to Alabama in the 1840s and settled in Burnet, Texas, around 1853. By 1860, he was working as a merchant’s clerk.

 

He enlisted in the Confederate army on January 20, 1862, and he mustered in as a private in Company D of the 24^th Texas Cavalry on April 24. Most of the regiment was captured in the Battle of Arkansas Post on January 11, 1863, but he apparently escaped capture. The following week, he wrote that he joined Company B of the 21^st Texas Cavalry “until my Reg[iment]…is exchanged.”  

 

He remained in the army until the end of the war. He wrote that he “arrived at Burnet on [May] 27^th weary and disheartened by the failure of gaining our independence after serving three years four months and seven days in the Army and undergoing all the privations hardships and exposure and dangers of a soldiers life and at the end to know that it was all in vain and that I have accomplished nothing by it Alas!”

 

Union forces arrested him on August 9, 1865, “at the request of Union men.” They declared him a “dangerous character and terror to law abiding citizens & one of a gang of desparadoes who ruled the country.” He remained in prison until October 27. Then, on December 5, 1865, he swore the “Amnesty oath prescribed by the President of the U.S.”

 

He married Harriet Wilkinson around 1865, and they had at least five children: Mary, born around 1873; Allie, born around 1877; Jane, born around 1879; John, born around 1887; and Hattie, born around 1880. He moved to Waco, Texas, around 1867, and he earned a living as a grocery merchant. He also served as a deputy sheriff. His wife died on April 17, 1921. In December 1924, his clothing caught on fire while he was standing in front of a gas stove. He spent the next few weeks at a “local sanitarium,” and he died there on January 9, 1925.

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