Grimes County, C.S.A.
Anderson, Grimes County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Civil War military concentration point for troops and ordnance. Rich farm land. By 1861 densely populated. Favored secession by 907 to 9 vote. Sent 5 cavalry, 4 infantry companies to Confederate Army. Arms and ordnance works at Anderson produced cannon, cannon balls, guns, pistols, swords, sabres, bayonets, and gunpowder. Military telegraph line from Houston to Marshall crossed the county. Five men charged with treason against the Confederacy were held in 1864 in Anderson Jail, under the wartime suspension of habeas corpus, in constant peril of mob violence. People were relieved when these men were deported to Mexico by the military. Cotton, "Gold of the South", and food were produced in abundance. Cotton hauled to Mexico by local men was traded for goods vital to the Confederacy. Yet shortages occurred. For lack of paper, The Rev. George W. Baines of Anderson (great-grandfather of President Lyndon B. Johnson) suspended "The Texas Baptist", first state organ for that church. In 1865 the Piedmont Springs Resort Hotel, 7 miles to the west, became headquarters and hospital for Walker's division on its return from Louisiana where it helped prevent a Federal invasion of Texas.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Densely settled and richly agricultural, Grimes County threw itself behind the Confederacy, voting for secession 907 to 9 and sending nine companies to the army. Its ordnance works at Anderson turned out cannon, cannonballs, firearms, swords, and gunpowder, and a military telegraph line crossed the county on its way from Houston to Marshall. In a darker episode, five men accused of treason were held in the Anderson jail in 1864 under the suspension of habeas corpus before being deported to Mexico.
Why it matters
The county shows how thoroughly the Civil War mobilized the Texas home front, from arms manufacturing to the cotton trade smuggled through Mexico — and how wartime dissent was suppressed.
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Related people
- · George W. Baines
Related events
- · Texas secession vote (1861)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of a Munition Factory
Anderson, TX
On this spot from 1861 to 1865 stood a Confederate munitions factory, turning out cannon, cannonballs, guns, pistols, swords, sabers, bayonets, and gunpowder for the Southern war effort. Marked by the State of Texas in 1936, it recalls the improvised industrial base the Confederacy raised far from the front lines.
Grimes County
Anderson, TX
The ground here carries layers of Texas history: a road used in 1690 by Spanish explorer Alonso de León, the 1821 arrival of settler Andrew Millican, and Henry Fanthorp's inn and post office of the 1830s. The town took its name from Kenneth Anderson, the Republic of Texas's last vice-president, who died at Fanthorp's inn in 1845. Organized in 1846 and named for Declaration signer Jesse Grimes, the county even ran a gun factory and supplied troops during the Civil War.
Michael Moore Kennard
Anderson, TX
Born in Tennessee, Michael Moore Kennard brought his family to Texas in 1830 as part of Robertson's Colony, likely pausing along the way to raise a crop. He received a large land grant in what is now Grimes County and earned still more land for his service in the Texas Revolution. His trading firm, Fanthorp, Womack & Kennard, was the county's first mercantile business.
Apolonia Cemetery
Anderson, TX
First known as Pine Grove for the Baptist church at its heart, this Grimes County burial ground was in use by the 1860s, with a headstone dated 1869 and likely older unmarked graves. Land donors formalized it in 1886, and it holds Confederate veterans as well as Brosig T. Wasson, the county's first fatality of World War I. When the church disbanded in 1929, the cemetery took the name of the area's vanished post office, Apolonia.