During the Civil War, Grimes County was a military concentration point for troops and ordnance in a rich, densely populated farming region that favored secession by a vote of 907 to 9. The county sent five cavalry and four infantry companies to the Confederate Army, and arms and ordnance works at Anderson produced cannon, cannon balls, guns, pistols, swords, sabers, bayonets, and gunpowder. A military telegraph line from Houston to Marshall crossed the county. In 1864, five men charged with treason against the Confederacy were held in Anderson Jail under the wartime suspension of habeas corpus and faced constant peril of mob violence until the military deported them to Mexico. Cotton, called "Gold of the South," and food were produced in abundance, and local men hauled cotton to Mexico to trade for goods vital to the Confederacy, though shortages still occurred. Because of a lack of paper, the Rev. George W. Baines of Anderson, great-grandfather of President Lyndon B. Johnson, suspended The Texas Baptist, the first state organ for that church. In 1865, the Piedmont Springs Resort Hotel, seven miles to the west, became headquarters and hospital for Walker's division as it returned from Louisiana, where it had helped prevent a Federal invasion of Texas.