Richard E. Waterhouse, Jr., was born on January 12, 1832, in Rhea County, Tennessee, to Richard Waterhouse. His father was a farmer. He grew up in Rhea County, and by 1850, he was working as a clerk. He moved to Jefferson, Texas, in the 1850s, and he married Rosalie Wallace on December 30, 1858. He worked as a merchant, and by 1860, he owned $13,000 of real estate and $5,000 of personal property, including at least 5 enslaved laborers.

 

He enlisted in the Confederate army in early 1862, and he mustered in as a private in Company C of the 19^th Texas Infantry. He was promoted to colonel on May 13, 1864, and then to brigadier general on April 30, 1864. In May 1865, General John Walker authorized him to “raise one or more regiments of men, well armed or mounted, to go to Mexico or the Pacific in quest of homes without the enemy’s lines.”

 

Waterhouse settled in San Augustine, Texas, after the war and resumed his work as a merchant. He applied for a presidential pardon in September 1866. He confessed that he supported secession “in common with nine tenths of the people of this state…He believed at the time of so doing that each state of the Union had the constitutional right to do so.” He expressed no remorse for his actions, but he swore to remain a “loyal citizen of the General Government” in the future. President Andrew Johnson granted his pardon on October 15, 1866. He died in Waco, Texas, on March 20, 1876.

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