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.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
On the eve of the Civil War, Grimes County was among the more settled and prosperous parts of Texas. Its rich farmland along the Brazos and Navasota river country had drawn planters from the older Southern states, and with them came slavery. That economy, built on cotton grown by enslaved people, shaped the county's politics. When Texans voted on secession in 1861, Grimes County's 907 to 9 margin left no doubt where it stood.
Texas joined the Confederacy that spring. Its distance from the main battlefields gave it a distinctive role. Texas sent men east, but it also became a supply base, a producer of food and cotton, and, after the Union took control of the Mississippi River in 1863, part of a western Confederacy increasingly cut off from Richmond.
With Union ships blockading the Gulf Coast, the Mexican border became an economic lifeline. Cotton went overland to Mexico and was traded for goods the South could no longer import directly. Inland counties like Grimes became workshops and staging grounds for that war effort.
People & events
Grimes County sent five cavalry companies and four infantry companies into Confederate service. At home, Anderson became an arms and ordnance center. Its works produced cannon, cannonballs, guns, pistols, swords, sabres, bayonets, and gunpowder. A military telegraph line from Houston to Marshall crossed the county and connected it to the wider war.
The war also had a darker side here. In 1864 five men charged with treason against the Confederacy were held in the Anderson jail. Habeas corpus had been suspended in wartime, so they could be detained without the usual legal protections, and they lived under constant threat of mob violence. Many communities, according to the marker, felt relief when military authorities deported the men to Mexico. Texas had Unionists and dissenters throughout the war, and their treatment was often harsh.
Shortages reached even the pulpit. The Rev. George W. Baines of Anderson, the great-grandfather of President Lyndon B. Johnson, had to suspend 'The Texas Baptist', the first state publication of that denomination, because he could not get paper. At the war's end in 1865, the Piedmont Springs Resort Hotel west of town became headquarters and hospital for Walker's division, a Texas unit returning from Louisiana, where it had helped turn back a Federal attempt to invade Texas.
Its place in the American story
Grimes County shows how completely the Civil War reached into communities far from the famous battlefields. Wars of that size were fought by factories, telegraph lines, farms, and trade routes as much as by armies, and a Texas county seat could become a small arsenal of the Confederacy.
It also shows what the war cost in liberty, even on the home front. The suspension of habeas corpus and the persecution of suspected Unionists remind us that the Confederacy did not speak with one voice. Dissenters, however few, paid a real price. The cotton trade through Mexico, and the shortages it could not solve, show the economic pressure that slowly wore the South down.
The story has a postscript in American political history: the great-grandson of the preacher who could not find paper for his newspaper would become president a century later. Few places so directly connect the Civil War home front to the modern presidency.
If you visit
Anderson is a small, quiet town, and that makes its wartime past easier to imagine. This marker invites you to picture the county as a busy military center: workshops making arms, troops gathering, wagons of cotton heading south toward Mexico, and telegraph wires carrying war news across the county.
The town has other historic places worth seeing. The Fanthorp Inn, an early stagecoach stop now preserved as a state historic site, is one of the best known. Taking time to walk around gives you a better feel for the old county seat than a quick photo stop would.
Grimes County fits well into a road trip through the Brazos Valley, where sites tied to Texas independence and early statehood are close by. Check local information for what is open before you go, and give yourself time to explore the back roads that connected these communities during the war.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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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
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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
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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
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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.