Here Was the Camp of the Army of the Republic of Texas
Garden Valley, Smith County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Under Generals Kelsey H. Douglass, Thomas J. Rusk, Edward Burleson and Colonel Landrum, from which the soldiers returned to their homes on July 25, 1839 after the decisive battle with Chief Bowles of the Cherokees and associated tribes on July 16, 1839 in Van Zandt County. Erected by the State of Texas 1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In July 1839 the army of the young Republic of Texas encamped here under generals including Thomas J. Rusk and Edward Burleson during the campaign against Chief Bowles and the Cherokees and their allies. After the decisive fighting in nearby Van Zandt County on July 16, the soldiers disbanded and returned home nine days later. The state marked the spot during the 1936 Texas Centennial.
Why it matters
The camp records the Republic's forcible expulsion of the Cherokees from East Texas—a defining and tragic episode in the westward displacement of Native peoples.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the summer of 1839, Texas was not yet a state. It was an independent republic barely three years old, heavily in debt and unsure of its own borders. Its second president, Mirabeau B. Lamar, had taken office the year before and broke sharply with his predecessor, Sam Houston. Houston had tried to keep peace with the Native nations of East Texas. Lamar took a hard line and favored removing them altogether.
The Cherokees at the center of this story were newcomers to Texas themselves. Pushed west by American settlement in the Southeast, bands of Cherokees had moved into the piney woods of East Texas in the early 1820s. There they farmed, built homes, and sought formal title to their land, first from Mexico and then from the Texas revolutionary government. Other tribes shared the region with them. A treaty negotiated in 1836 would have recognized their claims, but the Texas Senate never ratified it.
By 1839, rumors and captured correspondence suggesting that Mexican agents were courting Native allies against Texas had inflamed Anglo settlers. How deeply the Cherokees were actually involved is still debated. The fear was enough. That summer the Republic raised an army to force the Cherokees and their associated tribes out of Texas.
People & events
The army that camped here was led by the men the marker names. Kelsey H. Douglass was in overall command. Thomas J. Rusk, a veteran of San Jacinto and one of the Republic's founding figures, and Edward Burleson, a seasoned frontier fighter who later became vice president of Texas, commanded alongside him, together with Colonel Landrum. The volunteers and militiamen under them were largely East Texas farmers and settlers, called away from their fields in the heat of July.
Across from them stood Chief Bowles, known to his people as Duwali. He had led his band for years, through migrations and negotiations. By 1839 he was an old man, still trying to hold on to a homeland his people had been promised and then denied. Negotiations collapsed, and the two sides met in battle along the Neches River in present-day Van Zandt County. The fighting ended on July 16, 1839, when Bowles was killed on the field.
With the chief dead and the Cherokees driven from their villages, the campaign was effectively over. The army fell back to this spot in what is now Smith County. Here the soldiers were released, and on July 25 they scattered back to their homes and farms. For them it was the end of a summer campaign. For the Cherokees of Texas it was the end of their life in the region, and the survivors were pushed north toward Indian Territory.
Its place in the American story
The Cherokee War of 1839 was a Texas chapter of a much larger American story. At almost the same moment, the United States was carrying out the forced removals of the Cherokee Nation and other Southeastern tribes that became known as the Trail of Tears. The Texas Cherokees had come west partly to escape that pressure, and it caught up with them anyway, under a different flag.
The episode also shows how quickly a new frontier government could turn from diplomacy to force. Houston's treaty and Lamar's expulsion were two competing answers to the same question: could Native nations keep their land alongside Anglo settlement? In 1839 the Republic answered no. That answer shaped the settlement of East Texas and set a pattern that ran through the rest of the nineteenth century.
The marker itself belongs to another moment. It was placed during the 1936 Texas Centennial, when the state set up hundreds of markers celebrating its founding. Its wording reflects that era's pride in the Republic's soldiers. Reading it today, you can hold both stories at once: the men who went home in July 1839, and the people who could not.
If you visit
This is a quiet roadside spot in the rolling, wooded country of Smith County, not far from Tyler. There is no battlefield here. The fighting happened some distance west in Van Zandt County. What you're seeing is where the story ended for the soldiers. Take a moment to picture a tired army in midsummer, horses and wagons spread through the trees, men eager to get home before harvest.
The marker is a classic 1936 Centennial granite marker, and the style is part of its history. These markers went up all across Texas in a single burst of state pride, and once you learn to spot them you'll find them everywhere.
To understand the whole story, pair this stop with the site of the Battle of the Neches to the west, which has its own markers, and with the Tyler area's museums and historic districts. Families traveling with kids can make it a thoughtful conversation stop: who lived in these woods before, and why did they leave? It's a short stop, but one that stays with you.
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
- · Thomas J. Rusk
- · Edward Burleson
- · Chief Bowles
Related events
- · Cherokee War of 1839
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
On Burleson Lake_Camp of the Army of the Republic of Texas
Lindale, TX
In the summer of 1839 the young Republic of Texas waged war on the Cherokee and allied tribes living in its eastern reaches, culminating in the Battle of the Neches in mid-July. Nearby, on Burleson Lake, stood the last camp of the Republic's army under generals Douglass, Rusk, and Burleson before Secretary of War Albert Sidney Johnston ordered it mustered out. From here the soldiers departed for home on July 25, leaving behind a campaign that drove the Cherokees from Texas.
Battle of the Neches
Van, TX
On July 15–16, 1839, some 500 troops of the Republic of Texas clashed with roughly 800 Cherokee and allied Delaware and Shawnee fighters in the main engagement of the Cherokee War. Remarkably, the republic's vice president and secretary of war took part in the fighting. The aged Cherokee leader Chief Bowles was killed carrying a sword once given to him by Sam Houston, and the defeat scattered the tribes from settled East Texas.
In the vicinity of Harris' place
Winona, TX
This site recalls the aftermath of the Battle of the Neches on July 16, 1839, when forces of the Republic of Texas defeated the Cherokees and allied tribes, killing their leader Chief Bowles. Army scouts fanned out through the surrounding country in the days that followed. The 1936 state marker commemorates that campaign, which drove the Cherokees from East Texas.
John Crane
Chandler, TX
A Virginia-born veteran of the War of 1812, John Crane joined Joseph Vehlein's colony and moved his family to Texas in 1834, fighting at the Siege of Bexar and serving through the Texas Revolution. In July 1839 he rode with Republic forces under Douglass, Burleson, and Rusk against Chief Bowles and the Cherokee at the Battle of the Neches, where he was killed. Bowles fell the next day, and his death led to the expulsion of the Cherokee from Texas.