Fort Quitman, C.S.A.
Sierra Blanca, Hudspeth County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Site 16 miles southwest on Rio Grande on old military and stage road from San Antonio to El Paso. When U.S. posts were surrendered at outbreak of civil war, designated part confederate far western frontier defense line. Occupied by unit of Texas mounted rifles. On supply and communication line for troops to and from 1861-1862 Arizona-New Mexico campaign designed to make the Confederacy an ocean to ocean nation. Occupied briefly by Union troops from California, August 1862. 90,000 Texas troops served the South. Source of supply and gateway to vital trade thru Mexico, Texas was storehouse of the western Confederacy. Texas also had to guard a 2000 mile frontier and coastline from Union troops and the constant threat of savage Indians. 400 miles east, frontier defenders set up a line of camps, separated by a day's ride, from the Red River to the Rio Grande. A few Confederate troops joined by rangers, the organized militia, and citizens' posses held on until war's end though short on mounts and arms.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Sixteen miles southwest along the Rio Grande, on the old military and stage road from San Antonio to El Paso, Fort Quitman anchored the Confederate far western frontier after U.S. posts were surrendered in 1861. Occupied by Texas mounted rifles, it sat on the supply and communication line for the 1861–62 Confederate campaign to reach the Pacific through Arizona and New Mexico, and was briefly held by Union troops from California in 1862. From here, thinly manned camps a day's ride apart guarded a 2,000-mile frontier for the western Confederacy.
Why it matters
Fort Quitman marks the far edge of the Civil War, where a handful of Confederates, rangers, and militia tried to hold a vast western frontier and keep open the trade routes into Mexico that sustained the South.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hudspeth County Courthouse
Sierra Blanca, TX
Built in 1917 in the far West Texas town of Sierra Blanca, this building is distinguished as the only adobe county courthouse in the state. Its earthen construction reflects the materials and traditions of the arid borderlands where it stands. It remains the seat of government for sprawling, sparsely settled Hudspeth County.
Sierra Blanca Methodist Church
Sierra Blanca, TX
In the far-West Texas rail town of Sierra Blanca, settlers organized a Methodist congregation in 1907 — the first Protestant church in Hudspeth County. Services were first held in a schoolhouse until 1909, when the congregation raised a modest adobe sanctuary with Gothic windows and a bell tower. In a sparsely settled corner of the desert, early residents of every faith gathered under its roof.
The Killing of General J. J. Byrne
Sierra Blanca, TX
In August 1880, the Apache leader Victorio's raiders ambushed a Fort Davis–bound stagecoach in a steep West Texas canyon, killing its lone passenger, retired general and surveyor J. J. Byrne, almost instantly while the driver wheeled the mules around and raced back to Fort Quitman. It was among the last acts of a two-year campaign in which Victorio's guerrilla tactics baffled and impressed the U.S. Army across Texas, New Mexico, and Mexico. Later that year, thousands of American and Mexican soldiers hunted Victorio down and killed him in Mexico.
Hudspeth County
Sierra Blanca, TX
Carved from El Paso County and organized in 1917, Hudspeth County took its name from Claude Benton Hudspeth, a native Texan born in 1877 who rose from large ranching interests to serve in the Texas Legislature and the U.S. Congress. Sierra Blanca became its county seat.