John Wesley Duren
Paul Reeder Collection
In Navarro County, Texas, in the first summer of the war, 87 men formed a militia company, the Navarro Rifles, which mustered into Confederate service as Company I of the 4th Texas Infantry. One of the volunteers was John Wesley Duren, who was born in 1842 and as a boy had moved to the Lone Star State from Mississippi with his parents—part of an influx of white settlers following the Mexican War. Shown here early in his service, Duren wears a trimmed jacket and cap with a star and holds what may be an Allen & Wheelock Bar Hammer revolver.
The 4th showed its mettle with the Texas Brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia, participating in most of that army’s major engagements, including Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg. Duren proved a capable soldier, rising through the ranks to second lieutenant by February 1864. He suffered minor wounds to his right thigh and knee at the Battle of the Wilderness and received a parole after Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865.
Duren returned to Navarro County, where he married, raised a family of seven, and worked various jobs, including as a cotton yard clerk and a boardinghouse proprietor. He died in 1925 at 83.
Ronald S. Coddington is publisher of Military Images, a magazine dedicated to showcasing and preserving photos of Civil War soldiers and sailors.
