Four months after his death in Texas on May 23, 1890, a Missouri weekly newspaper, the Greenfield Dade County Advocate, carried an obituary about John Trousdale Coffee. The obituary mentioned that "much of Col. Coffee's life was connected with this city...there are scarcely any here who do not know something of him personally or by reputation. (1) What the readers of the obituary remembered or knew concerned Coffee's years as a Mason, as an attorney, as a politician and as a leader of Confederate cavalry during the terrible years of the Civil War. Some Dade Countians also would have remembered Coffee as a hard-drinking and oft-married man noted for his "positive convictions" on many subjects. But the most vivid recollections of the people would pertain to Coffee's military exploits as a successful recuruiter for the Confederate cause and for his troop of cavalry which rambled back and forth through Missouri and Arkansas. Coffee's men, during this perolous time, had caused Union sympthizers to fear for their lives and property and required Federal forces to constantly deploy against them.

John Trousdale Coffee was not a Missourian by birth. He had been born December 14, 1816, in Smith County, Tennessee, to Reverend Joshua M. and Jane "Jinny" Trousdale Coffee. (2) Besides preaching the gospel, Joshua Coffee owned property in Lancaster and Alexandria, Tennessee. He operated a store, known as "Joshua M. Coffee and Son," in ALexandria where he aslo served as postmaster for a time. (3)

Young Coffee read law until he believed himself ready to take the bar examination. He passed the exam while in his early twenties and also joined the Masons. Falling in love with a first cousin, he proposed to her. She declined to marry him because of their blood relationship. His marital plans were delayed only a short time, and in 1841, Coffee married Eliza Jewell Stone. A year later Eliza died and was buried in Cleveland, Tennessee, the community in which Coffee apparently practiced law. The grief-stricken young widower received a further blow, in the fall of 1842, when his father died on October 2. The elder Coffee left a $20,000 debt due to financial reverses. (4)

The deaths of his wife and father, plus his father's insolvency, probably prompted Coffee to emigrate to Missouri. Newly organized Greene County beckoned. The re Coffee might succeed in both law and politics, as well as acquire good land at a reasonable price.

After his arrival in Springfield, the Greene County seat, Coffee sought to qualify as a licensed lawyer. He began an active practice as one of the thirty attorneys serving the Springfield area prior to the Civil War. (5) On Jone 26, 1843, he expanded his practice when he registered on the roll of attorneys in Polk County. (6)

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