Daingerfield, C. S. A.
Daingerfield, Morris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Civil War center for manufacturing, supply and travel. Place of enrollment of several Confederate army units. Local industries supporting the war effort included 3 tanyards-- sidelines of the beef slaughtering trade that helped feed troops and civilians. The tanyards made leather for soldiers' boots and shoes and for Cavalry saddles, bridles and harness. On nearby rivers or ponds were 3 sawmills, one grist (corn meal) mill and a distillery. Foundries in the area were predecessors of the 20th century Lone Star Steel Company. An "old" town before the Civil War. Founded about 1830 at a spring where Capt. London Daingerfield was killed by Indians. The square was laid off in 1841 when this was designated seat of justice for judicial county of Paschal. Courts continued to be held here, though Paschal was abolished in 1842. One noted 1842 trial was for a group that included Stephen Peters (one of the men who had platted the town square), accused of murdering Robert Potter. Potter, formerly secretary of the navy and one of the authors of the Constitution of the Republic of Texas, had been killed in the Regulator-Moderator Feud, a political power struggle in East Texas.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded about 1830 at a spring where Captain London Daingerfield was killed, this East Texas town became a Confederate hub during the Civil War. Several army units enrolled here, and local tanyards, sawmills, a gristmill, a distillery, and foundries supplied leather, meal, and iron to the war effort—those foundries foreshadowing the later Lone Star Steel Company. The square, laid out in 1841, had already seen frontier drama, including an 1842 trial tied to the killing of Robert Potter of the Regulator-Moderator Feud.
Why it matters
Daingerfield shows how ordinary market towns became engines of the Confederate war economy, tanning leather and casting iron that foreshadowed the industrial South to come.
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Related people
- · Capt. London Daingerfield
- · Robert Potter
- · Stephen Peters
Related events
- · Civil War
- · Regulator-Moderator Feud
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of Hussey & Logan's Mill and Gin Factory
Daingerfield, TX
This factory built the machinery that kept Texas agriculture running: gin saws to strip seed from cotton and grist mills to grind corn into meal. When the Civil War cut off imports, such local works became vital, letting Texas process the cotton that served as the "money of the Confederacy"—traded across the Mexican border for ammunition, medicine, and other goods. The war spurred a whole network of Texas plants making wagons, guns, powder, shoes, and cloth.
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C. S. A. Hat Factory
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Leather Factories, C. S. A.
Gilmer, TX
During the Civil War this East Texas site hummed with the unglamorous but vital work of keeping an army moving. A shoe factory turned local leather into footgear for Confederate soldiers, while a nearby harness shop produced the bridles, saddles, and rigging that hitched horses and mules to gun carriages, wagons, and ambulances. Fed by a tanyard that processed over 2,000 hides a year, East Texas plants supplied the South hundreds of saddles and harness sets each month.