Fort Phantom Hill, C.S.A.
Anson, Jones County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Located 10 miles east, 9 miles south on Old Butterfield Stageline. Upon secession, company of First Regiment Texas Mounted Rifles used it as an outpost to give protection against Indians. Stopover on way west for some Union sympathizers and people wanting to avoid conflict of war. In 1862 the frontier defense line was pulled back more than 30 miles east. However, scouting parties and patrols of Confederate and state troops intermittently visited the post in aggressive warfare to keep Indians near their camps and away from settlements and to check on invasion by Union forces. Usually supplying their own mounts, guns and sustenance, these men guarded the frontier until war's end. Texas Civil War Frontier Defense Texas had 2000 miles of coastline and frontier to defend from Union attack, Indian raids, marauders. Defense lines were set to give maximum protection with the few men left in the state. One line stretched from El Paso to Brownsville. Another had posts set a day's horseback ride apart from red River to the Rio Grande. Phantom Hill and other U. S. forts used by scouting parties lay in a line between. Behind these lines and to the east organized militia, citizens' posses from nearby settlements backed the Confederate and state troops to curb Indian raids. A memorial to Texans who served the Confederacy. Erected by the State of Texas 1963
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Texas seceded, Confederate and state troops took over abandoned Fort Phantom Hill as an outpost guarding the frontier against Indian raids while the state's men were away at war. In 1862 the defense line was pulled back thirty miles east, but patrols kept ranging out—often on their own horses, guns, and provisions—to protect settlements and watch for Union incursion. The marker honors Texans who held a 2,000-mile line of coast and frontier with the few men the Confederacy could spare.
Why it matters
It preserves the often-overlooked home-front struggle of the Civil War in the West, where the fight was less against Union armies than to keep the frontier from collapsing.
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Related events
- · Texas Civil War Frontier Defense
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Family Forts, C.S.A.
Albany, TX
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.
Jones County
Anson, TX
This corner of west Texas was crossed by an emigrant trail and a frontier military road guarded by Fort Phantom Hill, founded in 1851. The county was named for Anson Jones, a San Jacinto veteran and the last president of the Republic of Texas. Phantom Hill served as a Butterfield Overland Mail station in 1858-61 and then as a Civil War patrol point trying to curb frontier raids, before the county was fully organized in 1881 with Anson as its seat.
8.6 Miles South to Fort Phantom Hill
Anson vicinity, TX
Established by the U.S. Army in 1851, Fort Phantom Hill was one of a chain of frontier posts meant to shield settlers pushing into West Texas. Its regular garrison lasted only until 1854, when the fort was abandoned and burned, but the site kept serving the frontier—as a stop on the Southern Overland Mail, a sub-post of Fort Griffin, and even a temporary county seat.
Adair-Steadman Site
Sylvester vicinity, TX
Discovered in 1969 near the Clear Fork of the Brazos River, the Adair-Steadman Site preserves traces of some of the earliest people to live in Texas. Between about nine and eleven thousand years ago, hunters of the Folsom culture made this a large base camp, drawn by fresh water and a nearby source of toolmaking stone. Excavations have recovered fluted-point fragments, preforms, channel flakes, scrapers, and other stone tools that speak to their daily craft.