Gen. Alexander Watkins Terrell
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
General Alexander Watkins Terrell, born in Patrick County, Va., November 23, 1827. Came to Texas in 1852. Died while visiting in Mineral Wells, September 9, 1912. District Judge, Second Judicial District, 1857-1863, Lieutenant Colonel, Thirty-Fourth Texas Regiment, C.S.A. Until 1865 when he was promoted to Brigadier General. Senator, Texas Legislature, 1876-1907, U.S. Minister to Turkey, 1893-1896.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in Virginia in 1827, Alexander Watkins Terrell came to Texas in 1852 and served as a district judge before the Civil War, then rose to brigadier general in the Confederate army by 1865. In the decades after the war he became one of the state's most influential public men—serving thirty years in the Texas Legislature and, in the 1890s, as U.S. Minister to Turkey. He died at Mineral Wells in 1912.
Why it matters
Terrell's long career bridges the Confederacy and the New South, illustrating how former Confederate officers dominated Texas politics and even national diplomacy for a generation after the war.
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