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Early RepublicCivil War

Colonel Stephen Heard Darden

Austin, Travis County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Army of Texas, 1836. State senator 1861-1862. Commissioned Colonel C.S.A., 1863. Member of the Confederate Congress, 1864. State comptroller, 1874-1881. Born in Mississippi, November 18, 1816. Died in Wharton, Texas, May 16, 1902. His wife CATHERINE MAYS DARDEN, born February 13, 1836. Died August 19, 1912. Erected by the State of Texas - 1936

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Stephen Heard Darden's public life stretched from the Texas Revolution, where he served in the Army of Texas in 1836, to the Confederacy, for which he was commissioned a colonel and elected to the Confederate Congress. After the Civil War he returned to Texas government as state comptroller through the 1870s and into the 1880s. His grave marks a career that bridged the Republic, the Confederacy, and Reconstruction-era Texas.

Why it matters

Darden's life traces the political generation that carried Texas from revolution through the Civil War, showing how the same men shaped the state across its most turbulent decades.

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Related people

  • · Stephen Heard Darden
  • · Catherine Mays Darden

Themes & tags

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