Fort Mason and Camp Llano, C.S.A.
Mason, Mason County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Fort Mason, located 5 blocks south, was headquarters for the first regiment Texas Mounted Rifles 1861-62. These Confederate troops occupied the line of old U. S. forts to give protection against Indians. 215 prisoners-of-war were confined here. In spring 1862, the line of frontier defense was tightened and Camp Llano was established 9 miles east. Texas Frontier Regiment occupied this post, part of a line a day's ride apart on horseback from the Red River to the Rio Grande. Settlers then used Fort Mason for protection. Scouting parties and patrols of Confederate and state troops visited the post in aggressive warfare to keep Indians near their camps and away from settlements. Upon secession Mason County men joined regional, state and Confederate troops to protect the frontier. They usually had to supply their own guns, mounts and sustenance. Although large-scale raids had been checked, Indians roamed this area, stealing horses, attacking isolated farms, burning buildings, kidnapping women and children. However, an old Mason pioneer operated a one-mule stage route between Camp Colorado, Mason and Fredericksburg. Hiding from Indians at night, he and his mule made the trip every two weeks carrying the mail without mishap. (1964)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Texas seceded, Fort Mason and the newly established Camp Llano became links in a Confederate line of frontier posts, spaced a day's ride apart from the Red River to the Rio Grande. Occupied first by the First Regiment Texas Mounted Rifles and then the Frontier Regiment, these troops guarded scattered settlers against raids while the war raged elsewhere. Locals took shelter at Fort Mason, and even a lone mail carrier crept between the posts by night, dodging raiders to keep the mail moving.
Why it matters
It captures a little-known front of the Civil War — the Confederacy straining to hold the Texas frontier against Native raids even as its armies bled in the East.
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Related events
- · Texas secession, 1861
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Two Sheriffs of Mason County
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This marker remembers two Mason County lawmen from the same family, separated by nearly seventy years. Kentucky-born Thomas Milligan ran a stage station and supplied beef to Fort Mason before becoming the county's first elected sheriff in 1858; two years later he was killed near his home. His grandson, Allen Thomas Murray, took up the same office in 1924 and likewise died in the line of duty, shot by a bootlegger in 1929.
Mason County
Mason vicinity, TX
Created and organized in 1858, Mason County took its name from Fort Mason, the frontier post garrisoned on and off from 1851 to 1869. The fort honored Lt. G. T. Mason of the U.S. 2nd Dragoons, killed near Brownsville in 1846. It was one link in a chain of Army posts spaced a day's ride apart from the Red River to the Rio Grande, built to shield settlers from Apache and Comanche raids.
Old Fort Mason
Mason vicinity, TX
Built of stone quarried from the post hill beside a spring long used by Native peoples, Fort Mason helped guard the Texas frontier against raids. Colonel Robert E. Lee commanded the post from February 1860 until February 1861 — and it was here, as the Union began to fracture, that he wrestled with the choice that would define his life. Vowing he would draw his sword only in defense of his native Virginia, Lee left Fort Mason on February 13, 1861, and rode toward the coming war.