Resuming the march, the command passed through Granby.  This place is situated seven miles from Neosho, the county seat of Newton County, with a population of 2,500, nine-tenths of whom live in log cabins and shanties, being employed mostly in mining.  It is on a range of bare, desolate, bleak-looking hills.  The miners are what are termed " floaters," and comprised of every variety and class of people-Irish, German, English, Scotch and "Yankees."  There were two smelting establishments in this town, which did an extensive business.  We were informed that in 1860 there was procured from these mines something like 7,000,000 pounds of ore, out of which had been manufactured 50,000 pigs of lead.  The mines are the richest in the known world, the Galena producing nine-tenths of pure metal.  Of course the possession of these mines was of the utmost importance to the Confederates, furnishing as they did all the "blue pills" used by the army.  The inhabitants enthusiastically greeted the troops as they passed through the town, Confederate flags being unfurled everywhere.  The troops encamped at Neosho, the place of McCulloch's first exploit with the enemy. . . .

SOURCE:  William H. Tunnard, A Southern Record.  The History of the Third Regiment, Louisiana Infantry (1866), pages 81-82.

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