Her husband... [was] David Burk Jones... I know my mother's mother came to Texas when she was 4 years {old}. She said she could just remember what seemed years of riding in a covered wagon.The family's move when Susan was 4 was probably not to Caldwell County, Texas. Since Susan's father Henry supposedly lived for a while in Louisiana, it could have been a trip from Jackson County, Alabama to Louisiana. That would have taken long enough in a wagon to seem like years to a four year old.
When Susan married David Jones, Henry wrote a note giving his permission. It is reproduced here, showing Henry's actual signature.
Susan Gaines Long married David Burke Jones in Caldwell County 24 May 1854. Nothing is known about his parents or siblings. There are a number of connections to Jones families within the Long family, but no evidence of David's place in any of them.
Jennie Grady Ferguson also wrote,
during [the] Civil War, grandmother raised a small patch of cotton and after they picked it, each night after supper, she filled each child's shoe full at [s.i.c.] cotton, and they had to pick the seed out. She then spun it into cloth, and she had some sheep she used their wool to make warm clothes for children in winter.When David B. Jones enlisted in Company K, 17th Texas Volunteer Infantry, at Lockhart, Texas on May 6, 1862, he was 31 years old. He and Susan had three children. The fourth, James Burk Jones was born August 20, probably after Company K left for Arkansas.
My Mother [Amanda Jones] worked for a family for room and board when she was seven, so she could go to school. Mother helped with cooking, which was done on fireplace. There was no public school, only private ones, but tuition could be paid in eggs, chickens, potatoes etc.
Mother's family had biscuit nearly every Sunday.
Company K was encamped at Camp Nelson, in November 1862. There David B. Jones died on November 22, probably of measles. The family gives the date of his death as November 21. The first lieutenant of Jones' company was James Black Long, Susan's first cousin. Two other men of Company K who died in camp at Camp Nelson were her first cousins, Joseph and John Carpenter.
In 1875, Joseph P. Blessington, another member of Walker's Texas Division, wrote about life in the winter quarters of the troops.
On the morning of the 14th, the balance of the troops were ordered to Austin, distanced about thirteen miles. On our arrival near the village we encamped near some springs. We were given to understand that his camp was to be our winter-quarters, and to be known by the name of Camp Nelson, in memory of General Nelson, who died a few days previous to our arrival at this place.When David B. Jones died in November 1862, he left Susan with four children aged one to six. The oldest, Rachel A. died the following August. The youngest, James Burk, died 30 July 1867.
Camp Nelson was located about two miles east of Austin in a belt of woods skirting the valleys running east and west, shut in by high acclivities. The country here is a succession of high, rocky hills, and deep, dark, narrow defiles, surrounded on all sides by these frowning hills. The camp was protected from the cold, piercing, wintry winds; yet it also seemed like imprisoning the men to winter them here, far distant from any communication with friends at home. Occasionally the mail-carrier from Little Rock would arrive in camp, bringing glad tidings from the loved ones at home. He was welcome to all alike. Occasionally, curses were showered upon him for not bringing letters to all. He would console them by telling them he would bring them a letter the next time.
While we were encamped here there was a great deal of sickness amongst the troops. Dysentery and fevers of various kinds made many victims. The hospital was filled with sick. The sickness was owing a great deal to the impure water we had to use.
Fully 1,500 men died at Camp Nelson. It was a sad and silent affair to follow a comrade-in-arms to his final resting-place; gloomy thoughts arose in many a manly bosom. How mournful thus to die, among rough but sympathizing comrades, with no soft hand to wipe the death-damp from the clammy brow; no loved one's voice to whisper words of hope and consolation to the departing spirit! Yet such was "the beginning of the end" to many a sorrowful scene through which the soldier is destined to pass. Now, scenes of suffering and death have not blunted the feelings or familiarized the mind with human agony, and the heart must needs go out in tender sympathy toward the far-distant relatives of the buried volunteer. Ah, those graves of our dead! -- what memories come back at the thought of them!
Susan had married David Jones in May 1854. On 4 January 1860, Susan's father, Henry Long bought 158 acres of land in Caldwell County on Peach Creek from Margaret Morris for $300. As fathers will do, he immediately sold the west 75 acres to David Jones for $125 and the east 70 acres to Jack Garner, husband of Susan's sister Kate Long Garner. Both families were already settled there, as the deeds refer to the land parcels as those "on which Jones [and Gar(d)ner] now lives".
Susan G. Long Jones married Andrew Pickens Phillips in Caldwell County on 10 January 1867. The next month, Henry sold Susan G. Phillips, not her husband, land near Henry's blacksmith shop on the Sandy Fork of Peach Creek by land sold David Jones and Jackson Garner.
Susan died in Yoakum, Texas, on 14 Feb 1907.
Susan and David Jones had four children:
| Rachel A Jones | b 9 Feb 1856 d 26 Aug 1863 |
| Amanda Jane Jones | b 6 Dec 1857 d 15 Apr 1919 |
| Nancy Abigail Jones | b 19 May 1860 d 17 Sept 1910 |
| James Burke Jones | b 20 Aug 1862 d 30 July 1867 |
Susan and Andrew Phillips had five children:
| Andrew Burk Phillips | b 25 Sept 1867 30 Sept 1867 |
| John Albert Phillips | b 9 Jan 1869 |
| George Washington Phillips | b 30 June 1871 |
| Anna Laurette Phillips | b 14 Aug 1873 |
| Guy O'Connor Phillips | b 19 June 1876 |
