Family Forts, C.S.A.
Albany, Shackelford County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Few in numbers and with little protection from the military but refusing to abandon their country, certain families of courageous and determined people on the Texas frontier during the Civil War gathered together in hastily constructed stockades and held out against the threats of hostile Indians and renegade whites. Known as "forting up", this plan was encouraged by the military for this part of the state. Most of the men 18 to 45 were away in Confederate service and those 17 and over 45 were subject to periodic militia duty for frontier protection. Family forts gave settlers a way to protect stock, farms and provide some schooling for their children. Back of Family Forts, C.S. A. Best-known family fort in this sector was Fort Davis, located 8 miles east on bank of Clear Fork of Brazos in Stephens County, where some 120 people lived during last year of Civil War. Named for Confederate President Jefferson Davis, it was laid off in lots. Log houses with dirt roofs, mud in cracks, dirt floors, were connected by pickets driven into ground. A blockhouse was used by women and children during raids. There were no luxuries, little food, all clothes, soap, soda, candles were made. Nearest supplies were 100 miles away, doctor 65 miles. Yet, there were dances, candy pulls, weddings, "feasts", Sunday School, occasional sermons and blue-backed spellers. Other family forts near were: Lynch and Green ranches, Shackelford County, Blair's Fort, Allen's Ranch, Eastland County; Buffalo Springs, Clay County; Bragg's, Murray's, Young County; Picketville, Mugginsville, Owls Head, Stephens County. Erected by the State of Texas, 1963.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
During the Civil War, with most able-bodied men away in Confederate service, the scattered families of the Texas frontier faced raids with little military protection. Encouraged by authorities, they "forted up" — crowding into hastily built stockades of dirt-floored log cabins linked by pickets, with a blockhouse for women and children during attacks. The best known nearby was Fort Davis on the Clear Fork of the Brazos, where some 120 people endured the war's last year on little food and long distances from help, yet still managed schooling, weddings, and worship.
Why it matters
These improvised forts show how ordinary settlers held a dangerous frontier line themselves while the men were gone to war, a rarely told home-front chapter of the Civil War in the West.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Joseph Alfred Woolfolk
Newcastle, TX
Kentucky-born and Louisville-trained in law, Joseph Alfred Woolfolk came to frontier Belknap in 1858 to survey Peters Colony land grants and soon served as a Young County official. He joined a home-guard Ranger unit and then the Confederate army, was captured in West Virginia in 1863, and spent the rest of the war imprisoned in Ohio. Back in Texas, he gained notoriety in 1871 when the court appointed him to defend the Kiowa chiefs Satanta and Big Tree at their murder trial after the Salt Creek raid.
Frontier Town of Fort Griffin
Albany, TX
After the Civil War the U.S. Army built Fort Griffin above the Clear Fork of the Brazos in 1867, and a raucous town called "The Flat" sprang up below it. A stop on the buffalo-hide trade and the Western cattle trail, it drew merchants and soldiers alongside gamblers and gunfighters—Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, Lottie Deno, and Big Nose Kate among them. When Albany won the county seat and the railroad, the town faded, though remnants lingered into the mid-20th century.
Site of the Principal Village of the Comanche Indian Reserve
Throckmorton, TX
Established in 1854, the Comanche Indian Reserve on the Brazos was a federal experiment to settle Comanche people on farmland under government oversight. Here, in April 1856, Colonel Robert E. Lee — then commanding nearby Camp Cooper — held a peace parley with Chief Catumseh. Within a few years the reserve failed, and its residents were removed to Indian Territory in 1859.
Site of Camp Cooper
Throckmorton, TX
Established in January 1856 by Major W. J. Hardee's 2nd U.S. Cavalry, Camp Cooper guarded the Texas frontier against the Comanche and oversaw a nearby Indian reservation. Robert E. Lee commanded here for nineteen months before the Civil War, and the post launched the 1859 Cimarron Expedition. Texas troops seized it in February 1861 as the state left the Union.