Ten: War Again!
All the Kokernot men save one, including husbands and future husbands of David and Caroline’s daughters, if they were old enough, served the Confederacy in the Civil War. Their roles ranged from home guard duty to infantry or cavalry service in the bloodiest battles of the war. None lost their lives. David himself rushed to this war with the same enthusiasm as he had to the revolution, only to return home almost immediately, debilitated by age. L. M., who had stayed behind to care for the farm, immediately joined Terry's Texas Rangers and spent the remaining two and one half years of the war fighting in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Georgia. At home, Yankee blockades and the lack of young men for labor meant that David struggled to keep the farm and cattle operation alive. The farm deteriorated, but compared to the punishment the rest of the Confederacy suffered, Texas emerged relatively unscarred. Meanwhile, longhorn cattle multiplied on the prairies, unbranded, awaiting cowboys to drive them to market.