Col. Clinton McKamey Winkler
Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(October 19, 1821--May 13, 1882) Eminent judge, for whom a Texas county was named. Born in North Carolina. Settled in 1840 in the Republic of Texas. Admitted to the Bar (1843), he served 1847-49 in 2nd Texas Legislature. Raising 150 men for Hood's Brigade, he served four years in Confederate army; was wounded at Gettysburg. He was elected to 13th Texas Legislature. At creation of Texas Court of Appeals, he was one of three original justices. Married twice, he had eight children. Recorded 1971
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Clinton McKamey Winkler settled in the Republic of Texas in 1840, was admitted to the bar in 1843, and served in the Second Texas Legislature before the Civil War. He raised 150 men for Hood's Brigade and served four years in the Confederate army, suffering a wound at Gettysburg. After the war he returned to the legislature and became one of the three original justices of the Texas Court of Appeals, and a Texas county was named in his honor.
Why it matters
Winkler's path from frontier lawyer to Confederate colonel to appellate judge illustrates how the same men who fought the Civil War helped rebuild Texas's legal and political institutions afterward.
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Related people
- · Clinton McKamey Winkler
Related events
- · Battle of Gettysburg
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Samuel R. Frost
Corsicana, TX
Samuel R. Frost, born in Huntsville in 1846, grew up in Navarro County and enlisted in the Confederate army in 1863 as a teenager. After the Civil War he studied law, joined the bar in 1870, and built a long public career as county attorney, county judge, district judge, and state legislator. The nearby town of Frost was named in his honor, marking the imprint one dedicated jurist left on his corner of Texas.
Colonel Roger Q. Mills
Corsicana, TX
Roger Q. Mills came to Texas from Kentucky in 1849 and rose as a civic and political leader in Navarro County. He joined the call for secession in 1861 and served the Confederacy as a colonel in the 3rd Texas Cavalry and 10th Texas Infantry, taking wounds in battles across Tennessee and Georgia. After the war he helped lead the movement to end Reconstruction in Texas and served two decades in Congress, authoring the Mills Tariff Bill before entering the U.S. Senate.
Judge E. J. Simkins House
Corsicana, TX
Eldred James Simkins came to Corsicana from South Carolina in 1871, a Confederate veteran of four years' service whose brother was credited with firing the first shot on Fort Sumter. Building the first rooms of this house in 1873, he rose to prominence as a lawyer, University of Texas regent, state senator, and judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. He helped draft the law creating the Texas Railroad Commission and authored a respected work on jurisprudence.
Corsicana in 1860-1872
Corsicana, TX
Corsicana threw itself into the Southern cause: after the 1860 election, citizens hauled down the U.S. flag over the courthouse, and by 1861 recruiters were beating drums on the square, sending some 450 Navarro County men to war under officers like Cols. Roger Q. Mills and Clinton Winkler. A Confederate quartermaster depot rose on this corner, stocked with help from women, children, and old men. After the 1865 surrender, Federal troops camped here — and a sixteen-year-old John Wesley Hardin, not yet the famous gunman, clashed with soldiers nearby.