Henry Davis Pearce
Robert Lee, Coke County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(June 4, 1845 - December 8, 1911) Born in Illinois. Came to Texas 1856. Joined Confederate army in New Orleans, 1861; fought in Siege of Vicksburg (1863), in Battle of Mansfield (1864), and at Pleasant Hill, La., where he was captured. Exchanged at Blair's Landing, he served to end of war. He wrote history of Confederate veterans. Married Sarah Elizabeth Pride. Had eight children. Pioneered and helped organize Runnels County. He moved to Robert Lee, Coke County, in 1906. Recorded - 1970
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Illinois-born Henry Davis Pearce came to Texas in 1856 and joined the Confederate army at New Orleans in 1861, seeing hard service at the Siege of Vicksburg and the Battle of Mansfield and being captured at Pleasant Hill before serving to war's end. He later wrote a history of Confederate veterans, raised a large family, and helped organize Runnels County before moving to Robert Lee in 1906.
Why it matters
A veteran-turned-chronicler who then helped settle new counties, Pearce embodies the twin threads of Civil War memory and westward pioneering that shaped frontier Texas.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Henry Davis Pearce
- · Sarah Elizabeth Pride
Related events
- · Siege of Vicksburg
- · Battle of Mansfield
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sylvester Adams
Ballinger, TX
Sylvester Adams came to Texas as a young man and threw himself behind the Confederate cause, serving at Galveston during the Civil War. Afterward he helped organize Runnels County and became its first county judge, serving in the 1880s. When drought struck in 1886–1887 he worked to arrange relief, even as many proud residents refused what they saw as charity.
Major Ben Ficklin, C.S.A.
San Angelo, TX
Dubbed the "Mystery Man of the Confederacy," Ben Ficklin packed extraordinary adventure into 44 years: a corporal in the Mexican War at 18, a pioneer of Western stagecoach and mail lines, a founder of the Pony Express in 1860, and an early promoter of the transcontinental railroad. During the Civil War he ran Union blockades as a Confederate purchasing agent, and afterward won a U.S. mail contract, headquartering near Fort Concho—until he died in 1871 from swallowing a fish bone. A town later named for him became Tom Green County's first seat until an 1882 flood destroyed it.
John R. ("Sarge") Nasworthy
San Angelo, TX
Born in Georgia and a Confederate soldier in the closing years of the Civil War, John R. "Sarge" Nasworthy came west to Texas and helped build the institutions of a raw frontier region around San Angelo. He bought beef for the army mess halls at Fort Concho, served as deputy county clerk and sheriff and the city's first treasurer, and ran the town's first brick kiln, wagon yard, and livery stable. A county commissioner who promoted an early viaduct and a major Baptist encampment, he left his name on Lake Nasworthy, the area's first conservation lake, built on land he once owned.
John S. Chisum, Confederate Beef Contractor
Paint Rock vicinity, TX
Cattle baron John S. Chisum (1824–1884) grazed tens of thousands of Longhorns on the Concho after moving his "Jingle-Bob" herds here in 1863. During the Civil War he supplied beef to Confederate armies west of the Mississippi, driving cattle toward Louisiana camps through gauntlets of raiders, rustlers, federal patrols, and the deep, cold Brazos. After the war he built ranching empires in New Mexico and became a bystander to the Lincoln County War of Billy the Kid.