James Gatliff Fanning, a Gonzales County, Texas, farmer/rancher, kept a daily journal spanning 1857-1870.  The original is now in the possession of the Pearce Civil War Collection, Navarro College, Corsicana, Texas.  Fanning, a native of Massachusetts, but until 1856 a printer and sheriff near New Orleans, was very involved in the planting and cultivating of his vegetable garden.  It not only had to feed his own family but the girls who boarded with the Fannings to attend his wife Lizzie's school.  Fanning, age 55 in 1861, also frequently employed hired slaves, including Josh and Harry, who more often worked the field crops.  Fanning's experiences with Texas gardening were definitely mixed.  On April 6, 1857, he wrote:  "Burning 11½ out of 12 months' drouth and sundry other contingences, such as having your crop cut down by frost 4 or 5 times or, if it escapes that disaster, having it buried beneath drifting sand banks, or eaten up by gofers, ants, caterpillars, grasshoppers, or rabbits or raccoons, great country this."  Only the vegetable garden references for 1861 are included here. Other years mentioned additional types of fruits and vegetables and the planting of some in boxes or hollow logs before transplanting.

To view the Fanning entries go here.

Frances Rhodes (1814-1864) married John Garland Brown (1810-1891) in Albemarle Co., Virginia, in the 1830s.  They moved to Mississippi by 1847, and finally to a 1130 acre plantation near Cotton Plant, Rusk County, Texas (now part of Gregg County), in 1850 with their seven children and fifteen slaves.  By 1860 the family owned only 1000 acres but 19 slaves, 10 horses, 40 cattle, a wagon, a buggy, and a team of oxen.  Francis, age 47 in 1861, sent her son John W. Brown, off to war as the captain of Sabine Grays [Co. I, 7th Texas Infantry], and by the end of the war he was full colonel.  By that time his mother had died, leaving a journal covering 1861-1862, and part of 1864.  These entries are limited to those dealing with the vegetable garden in 1861.

To view the Brown entries go here.