Colonel James E. McCord
Coleman, Coleman County, Texas
Marker Inscription
1834-1914 South Carolinian. Came to Texas 1853. Surveyor of lands in this region, including the site of Camp Colorado. Texas Ranger. Prominent secessionist. Member Texas State troops at start of Civil War. Lt. Colonel of Texas Frontier Regiment established 1862. Morale was low among these rugged frontiersmen who disliked the discipline and chain of command of army life. Indians had learned the system of regular patrols between posts and slipped through to plunder. Draft evaders and deserters, another threat to peace, were flocking to the frontier and stealing from the settlers. Some Coleman County families stayed near Camp Colorado for safety. In 1863 McCord was unanimously elected colonel in command of the regiment. He operated it as Ranger unit, abolished regular patrols in favor of unexpected scouting expeditions to surprise Indian raiding parties. With these changes, the regiment's effectiveness increased. In late 1863 a new frontier defense system was initiated. McCord's Regiment was taken into Confederate service as the 46th Texas Cavalry. With the immediate threat of Union invasion from Louisiana and Arkansas, part of the 46th with McCord leading was sent to East Texas defenses, remaining until war's close. Prominent county pioneer, businessman. Buried Coleman Cemetery. (1963)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
His career shows how the Confederacy tried to hold a two-front frontier — guarding settlers from raids while bracing for Union invasion — a struggle usually lost behind the war's larger battles.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Before the Civil War, the federal government guarded the Texas frontier with a line of army posts. Camp Colorado was one of them. When Texas seceded in 1861, federal troops left, and the settlers along the western edge of settlement suddenly had little protection. Comanche and Kiowa raiding parties, who had long contested this land, struck exposed homesteads and drove off livestock.
The Confederacy needed its soldiers in the major campaigns farther east, so Texas had to defend its own frontier. In 1862 the state created the Frontier Regiment and posted its men to a chain of camps across the western counties. The task was huge: hundreds of miles of thin settlement, too few men, and an enemy that knew the country well.
As the war went on, the frontier filled with other problems as well. Men avoiding the Confederate draft and deserters from the army fled to the edges of settlement, where there was little law, and some lived by stealing from settlers. At the same time, the Union threatened to invade Texas from Louisiana and Arkansas. Texas was stuck defending two fronts at once.
People & events
James E. McCord was born in South Carolina in 1834 and came to Texas in 1853. He worked as a surveyor in this region, and one of the tracts he surveyed included the site of Camp Colorado. He also served as a Texas Ranger. When the secession crisis came, he was a prominent secessionist, and at the start of the war he joined the Texas State troops.
When the Frontier Regiment was formed in 1862, McCord became its lieutenant colonel. The regiment was in trouble. Its frontiersmen disliked army discipline and the chain of command, and morale was low. Raiders had learned the timing of the regular patrols between posts and simply slipped through. Some Coleman County families gathered near Camp Colorado because it was the safest place they could find.
In 1863 the men unanimously elected McCord colonel, and he changed how they fought. He ran the regiment like a Ranger unit, dropped the predictable patrols, and sent out scouting expeditions that raiders could not anticipate. The regiment became more effective. Late in 1863 a new frontier defense system was put in place, and McCord's regiment entered Confederate service as the 46th Texas Cavalry. With a Union invasion threatening, he led part of it to the defenses of East Texas, where it stayed until the war ended. Afterward he became a prominent pioneer and businessman in Coleman County. He died in 1914 and is buried in Coleman Cemetery.
Its place in the American story
Most accounts of the Civil War focus on famous battles in Virginia, Tennessee and Pennsylvania. McCord's story is a reminder that the war also reached the western frontier, where the main danger was raids, not set-piece battles. When troops were withdrawn from the frontier, settlers, raiders and outlaws all had to deal with a sudden gap in defense.
The frontier also involved Native nations defending their homelands and their way of life. The raiding the marker describes was part of a long, violent struggle over the Southern Plains that started before the war and continued long after it. To understand the frontier fully, you have to keep both sides of that conflict in view.
McCord's change of tactics shows something lasting about frontier warfare. Fixed patrols and rigid routines failed against mobile opponents who knew the land. Speed, surprise and local knowledge, the methods the Rangers had used, worked better. That lesson shaped how Texas thought about defending its frontier for years.
If you visit
The marker stands as a memorial in Coleman, at the heart of the country McCord surveyed and defended. Coleman County still has rolling ranchland, mesquite and wide skies. Picture it as open frontier in the 1860s, with scattered homesteads and long distances between neighbors.
Take a moment to think about the two directions in his story. One faced west, toward raids on frontier settlements. The other faced east, toward the threatened Union invasion. Few markers show so clearly how Texas was caught in the middle of the war.
For a longer trip, Coleman County fits well into a drive through West Central Texas, where the remains of the old frontier defense line still mark the landscape. Coleman Cemetery, where McCord is buried, finishes the story. It is also a good place to think about the settlers, soldiers and Native people whose lives crossed on this ground.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · James E. McCord
Related events
- · American Civil War
Themes & tags
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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.
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