Brave George Barnhart Zimpelman
Tribute by John M. Claiborne, Adjutant and Historian
Terry's Texas Rangers

Confederate Veteran
Volume19, Number 3, Page 114
March 1911

George Barnhart Zimpelman, a native German, came to Texas when a child. He enlisted in July, 1861, in Company D, Terry's Texas Rangers (8th Texas Cavalry), was sworn into the C. S. A. service on September 5, 1861, and served from October, 1861, to May, 1865, through more than four hundred battles and skirmishes. I have often been asked who was the best soldier in the Rangers, and though I never mentioned a name, that of Zimpelman would come to mind as a fighter. Although a private, it was his fault. He was often selected as a leader for dernier resorts and forlorn hopes. Many instances are given in my diary kept during the war wherein I noted the name of Zimpelman. He was wounded twice in one battle, and subsequently twice, one of which maimed him for life, yet he remained to the end of the war. On December 17, 1861. in the battle of Woodsonville, Ky., having emptied his gun and pistol, he chased and roped a Yank with his caburn. Again, when on a raid in the rear of Rosecrans's army in 1863, the enemy came too near the brow of a hill, Zimpelman, Polk the bugler, and Jones the ensign bearer charged an entire regiment and put them to flight. He was at all times conspicuous, but I particularly refer in my diary to Farmington, Tenn., Bardstown, Ky., Chickamauga, Ga., and others. Zimpelman had perhaps more horses killed and wounded than any other man. George B. Zimpelman shines no less as a citizen than as a soldier. Poor in purse but rich in energy, a bonhomie in his intercourse. He was early sought for the then difficult and dangerous place of sheriff of the capital city of Austin, Travis County, Tex., during the days of carpetbagger reconstruction, and to him belongs the credit in the prevention of bloodshed and a holocaust in 1874 when Governor Coke was inaugurated. In nature, true, warm, and generous, modest for a man of his record, genial in intercourse in morals he reaches the zenith brave, generous, and deserving of highest laurels. If there is a special paradise for true soldiers, Zimpelinan will be an archangel at death. The pioneers of Texas, whose coming antedates the year 1846, are rapidly joining the great majority. George B. Zimpelman was born in Bavaria July 24, 1832. His father, John Jacob Zimpelman, was an influential citizen, and his mother, Valentine Hochdoeffer, was a granddaughter of a general under the Emperor. Much had been published in Germany about the new republic of Texas, and young George Zimpelman, having caught its spirit, decided to make his way thither, and he came to Texas in 1845, locating on the Colorado River, where he purchased a plantation. In 1856 he located on a plantation near Austin, where he pursued stock raising and agriculture until the breaking out of the Civil War. Upon the first call to arms, in 1861, he volunteered in the defense of his country, joining Terry's Texas Rangers.

* * * Mr. Zimpelman married Sarah C. Matthews, daughter of Thomas Matthews, of Essex County, Va. The Matthews family were notable in the colonization of Virginia, Samuel Matthews being one of the Colonial Governors, and all of the family taking part in the history making of that State. George B. Zimpelman died on the 1st of January, 1908, survived by two sons, Thomas and Lee Zimpelman, and one daughter, Mrs. Moritz O. Kopperl, of Galveston. Mr. Kopperl is a namesake of his father, who was one of the most prominent and useful men of Galveston.