On January 17, 1863, Assistant Adjutant-General J.B. Eustis wrote an urgent letter, instructing his subordinates to petition the Confederate government to send arms to Central Texas. In justifying his request, Eustis warned that Union forces might infiltrate the Rio Grande.
He also worried that local Germans were plotting insurrection. There is little doubt that many Germans, who had established Hill Country communities like New Braunfels, Comfort and Fredericksburg in the 1840s, were lukewarm in their support of the Confederacy.
As reported by historian Celia Hayes, few of these Germans had any love for slaveholding. Remembering the repressive fatherland they had left behind, they especially resented the draft. During the Civil War, some evaded the draft altogether or served in the Home Guard. Others risked their lives to join the Union Army.