Judith Austin Mills introduces us to Austin (February 2, 2017)

My partner Jerry urged me to set up a trip to Austin so that I could actually meet Judith Austin Mills and Cari Taplin.  We arrived midday, and Judith met us at the hotel early afternoon.  What an amazing and gracious person she is!  She took us immediately to the Texas State Cemetery to see the monument to Joanna Troutman.  I had seen a picture of it in the book A Lady and a Lone Star Flag: The Story of Joanna Troutman by Henry David Pope, so I was not surprised that the front panel under her statue recounts her story.  What I had forgotten from the book was that the monument was also erected to honor the “Martyrs of Texas Independence at Goliad,” with the other three panels on the base listing the Georgia Battalion members who died at Goliad, along with those who were released or evaded capture.  Among the latter, I was thrilled to see the name of “J.P. Tressant.”  That was the misspelling of JPT’s name on the muster roll list of 1855.  We could also see the name of Judith’s relative, F.M. Hunt, who died at Goliad.  I immediately wondered whether this monument, completed in 1921, was erected to fulfill the agreement of 1856 between the states of Texas and Georgia.  I’ve since added the Troutman memorial to the Monuments tab of this website.  Judith’s first two historical novels are How Far Tomorrow: Remembering the Georgia Battalion in Texas (2011) and Those Bones at Golaid: A Texas Revolution Novel (2015).  She is currently working on the third in the series, in which she will recount the story of JPT and the Battle of San Jacinto.  R.W.T.