John Warren Hunter was born in Rogersville, Alabama. When he was 10 years old, he and his family moved to Texas. Five years later, the Civil War broke out. Hunter was only 15 years old, so he was not old enough to enlist, and after a group of Confederate soldiers hung one of his friends, he decided he could not fight for the Confederacy. He also would not fight against the South - he would escape conscription (dodging the draft) by securing a job as a teamster with a wagon train hauling cotton to Brownsville, where he crossed to Matamoros, Tamaulipas (Mexico), but the trip would not be an easy one. Escaping to Mexico would be fraught with constant dodging and harassment by the Home Guards, or Heel-Flies as they were known then. This is his tale of that Heel-Fly Time in Texas.