Camp Colorado, C.S.A.
Coleman, Coleman County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Surrendered as U.S. outpost beginning Civil War. Became part frontier defense line from Red River to Rio Grande. Headquarters first Texas Mounted Rifles 1861 and Texas Frontier Regiment 1863. Manned by troops and Rangers in state and C.S.A. service to war's end. Valuable duty performed while patrolling and scouting to curb Indian raids and in rounding up draft evaders, deserters. Camp life difficult with constant peril of Indian attack, shortage food, ammunition, supplies and horses. Located 12 miles northeast. A memorial to Texans who served the Confederacy. Erected by the State of Texas 1963
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Camp Colorado, a former U.S. Army outpost surrendered at the start of the Civil War, became a link in the Confederate line of frontier defense running from the Red River to the Rio Grande. It served as headquarters for the First Texas Mounted Rifles in 1861 and the Frontier Regiment in 1863, manned by troops and Rangers who patrolled against Indian raids and rounded up deserters. Camp life was hard, marked by shortages of food, ammunition, and horses and the constant threat of attack.
Why it matters
The camp shows how the Confederacy had to fight a two-front struggle in the West, defending the Texas frontier against Native raids even as it waged war against the Union.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Colonel James E. McCord
Coleman, TX
James E. McCord came to Texas from South Carolina in 1853 and made his name surveying the raw frontier, including the ground around Camp Colorado. When the Civil War drained regular defenses, he took charge of the Texas Frontier Regiment, a hard-to-discipline band of frontiersmen, and in 1863 was unanimously elected its colonel. He scrapped the predictable patrol routes that raiders had learned to slip past, favoring surprise scouting expeditions, and his outfit was eventually absorbed into Confederate service as the 46th Texas Cavalry.
Coleman County
Coleman, TX
Coleman County occupies land where Apache, Comanche, and Kiowa people once camped and kept lookouts from its hills. White settlement began in 1857 around Camp Colorado, a U.S. 2nd Cavalry post on Jim Ned Creek; the county was created in 1858 and named for Robert M. Coleman, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence and San Jacinto veteran. In 1862 cattleman John Chisum arrived to raise beef for Confederate troops, and the county formally organized in 1864.
Camp Collier, C.S.A.
Brownwood, TX
Camp Collier, about 13 miles southwest, was one link in a chain of Confederate frontier posts spaced a day's ride apart from the Red River to the Rio Grande. Manned by the Texas Frontier Regiment, its patrols checked Indian raids and rounded up draft evaders while the main armies fought far to the east. Texas—which voted better than three to one for secession and sent 90,000 troops to Confederate service—relied on posts like this, backed by rangers, militia, and "family forts," to guard a 2,000-mile frontier and coastline.
Santa Anna, C.S.A.
Santa Anna, TX
The mountain and town of Santa Anna honor a Comanche chief who held power here in the 1840s and was known as a friend to Texans, even visiting President Polk in Washington and signing treaties that opened Hill Country lands to German settlement. The twin peaks long served as signal points for the Comanche and guide points for surveyors, soldiers, and cattlemen — lookouts watched from them for Camp Colorado in the 1850s and through the Civil War. When the railroad arrived in 1886, settlers moved down from 'The Gap' along the cattle trail to found the present town.