While living in Waco and Belton, Texas, Nat worked for Tyler and Childers driving freight wagons to the military forts over the Fort Phantom Hill Road. He later worked with his brother as a gunsmith. Nat became close friends with Nathaniel S. White after joining Company K, 1st Texas Cavalry, CSA. Nathaniel White made Nat promise to take care of White’s wife and children if anything happened to him. White was killed in the Civil War and when Nat returned he kept his promise and later married Harriet Beeman White about 1866. He became the father of her children, Cora and Robert White. Nat had three children with Harriet; Edward Johnson married Mary Ann Nabors, James William “Will” married Clara Olney Pinkard and Richard Coke  married Sara Temperence Harding.