Fort Stockton, C.S.A.
Ft. Stockton, Pecos County, Texas
Marker Inscription
After federal evacuation at start of Civil War, occupied by 2nd Regiment Texas Mounted Rifles. On far western frontier defense line. Supply post for troops going to and from Arizona-New Mexico campaign 1861-1862, designed to make confederacy an ocean to ocean nation. At times this area was the center of Comanche and Apache activities. California union troops dominated area 1862-65. Stopover on way west for many union sympathizers and people wanting to avoid conflict of war.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
After Federal troops abandoned it at the start of the Civil War, Fort Stockton was occupied by the 2nd Regiment Texas Mounted Rifles as part of the Confederacy's far-western defense line and its bid to reach the Pacific through the Arizona–New Mexico campaign of 1861–62. Comanche and Apache activity centered on the area, and California Union troops came to dominate the region from 1862 to 1865. The post also drew Union sympathizers and others hoping to escape the war.
Why it matters
The fort marks the Confederacy's short-lived reach into the Southwest and the enduring clash between the U.S. Army and Plains peoples on the Texas frontier.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of Fort Stockton
Ft. Stockton, TX
Founded on the Comanche Trail in 1859, Fort Stockton guarded the San Antonio-San Diego mail route and was named for Commodore Robert Field Stockton, who had helped seize California for the United States. Federal troops abandoned it during the Civil War and reoccupied it in 1867 as the army worked to curb Comanche raids and protect westward travel. The post was permanently abandoned in 1886 as the frontier it policed faded away.
Site of Comanche Springs
St. Stockton, TX
Fed by water rising along geological faults, Comanche Springs gushed as one of the largest and most reliable oases in arid West Texas, drawing Native peoples since pre-Columbian times. Spanish wanderers — possibly Cabeza de Vaca around 1536 and the Mendoza expedition in 1684 — paused at its waters, as later did Comanche raiders on their war trail, gold seekers bound for California, and the Butterfield Overland Mail. Modern irrigation eventually drew down the aquifer until the springs ran dry.
Old Fort Cemetery
Ft. Stockton, TX
This ground served as the burial place for soldiers of Fort Stockton and the civilians of the town that grew beside it after the post's founding in 1859. Troops here guarded the San Antonio–San Diego mail line and countered raids along the Comanche Trail, and the graves testify to a brutal frontier where few lived past forty. When the fort closed for good, the remains of 56 soldiers were reinterred at Fort Sam Houston in 1888.
Horsehead Crossing
Girvin, TX
Horsehead Crossing was the great ford of the Pecos River, named for the horse and mule skulls that littered its banks—animals driven up the Comanche War Trail that drank themselves to death after the long dry haul. After the 1849 gold rush it became a vital landmark, offering the first water in some 75 miles, and by 1858 it anchored a stage stand on the Butterfield Overland Mail. Confederate and Union eyes watched it during the Civil War, and in 1866 Goodnight and Loving blazed their famous cattle trail to this very point.