Last Review of the Confederacy
Chatfield, Navarro County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Last Review of the Confederacy General Joseph Orville "Jo" Shelby (1830-1897) led a cavalry force of Missourians known as the Iron Brigade and later, the Iron Division. From 1861-64, his troops rode with generals Thomas C. Hindman, John S. Marmaduke and Sterling Price in Missouri and Arkansas. During this time, Shelby earned praise for his command. Shelby and his men wintered in Texas in 1864-65. In the spring, when word of Confederate surrenders in the east reached him, he was ordered to lead his men to Shreveport, Louisiana, to surrender. Instead, they planned an attack on the city to prevent collapse of the Trans-Mississippi Confederacy. Waylaid by severe weather, they decided to go to Mexico. Shelby's soldiers stopped along the banks of Chambers Creek, south of Chatfield. Near here, they made their last bivouac as a Confederate unit. The next morning, June 2, 1865, the troops lined up for assembly and held what has been called "the last review of the Confederacy." By that time, they were the last organized unit in any Confederate state. Following the review of his troops, Shelby delivered his farewell, then asked his men to accompany him to Mexico. Hundreds reportedly answered his call. The next week, while his men gathered supplies from nearby Corsicana, Shelby visited the Hodge Oaks Plantation of Capt. Robert Hodge at Chatfield. Once prepared, the troops left for Mexico, where their offer of military service to Emperor Maximilian was diplomatically rejected. The men were offered land, though, and many, including Shelby, stayed. In 1867, Shelby returned to Missouri, where he farmed and served as U.S. Marshal. His dedication is celebrated there, as well as in Texas. (2002)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Confederate General Jo Shelby's Missouri cavalry — the storied 'Iron Brigade' — wintered in Texas in 1864-65 and, refusing to surrender as the Confederacy collapsed, bivouacked near Chambers Creek south of Chatfield. On June 2, 1865, the last organized Confederate unit lined up here for what became known as the 'last review of the Confederacy' before Shelby led hundreds of his men south to offer their swords in Mexico.
Why it matters
This quiet Texas creekbank marks the literal end of the Confederate army in the field — the final muster of the last unit still under arms as the Civil War closed.
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Related people
- · Joseph Orville 'Jo' Shelby
Related events
- · Last Review of the Confederacy (June 2, 1865)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Francis Marion Martin
Chatfield, TX
Born in Kentucky in 1830 and orphaned young, Francis Marion Martin led his adoptive family to Navarro County in 1853 and built a life as a horse breeder and farmer before entering politics under the wing of Sam Houston. A Confederate cavalry captain in poor health, he returned to public life after the war as a constitutional convention delegate and state senator, proudly styling himself a "farmer-senator." As the "Swamp Fox of Navarro," he championed farmers and laborers, drew significant African American support, served as lieutenant governor from 1883 to 1885, and later became a Populist leader.
Conner Cemetery
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Thomas Conner brought his family from Illinois to this part of Navarro County in 1856, and his son Edward bought 164 acres here in 1873. Family tradition holds that burials predate the first recorded interment of 1882, the year Edward formally set the cemetery aside. It has chiefly served the extended Conner family and holds the graves of at least four Confederate veterans, cared for today by the family's descendants.
Samuel R. Frost
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Samuel R. Frost, born in Huntsville in 1846, grew up in Navarro County and enlisted in the Confederate army in 1863 as a teenager. After the Civil War he studied law, joined the bar in 1870, and built a long public career as county attorney, county judge, district judge, and state legislator. The nearby town of Frost was named in his honor, marking the imprint one dedicated jurist left on his corner of Texas.
Col. Clinton McKamey Winkler
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Clinton McKamey Winkler settled in the Republic of Texas in 1840, was admitted to the bar in 1843, and served in the Second Texas Legislature before the Civil War. He raised 150 men for Hood's Brigade and served four years in the Confederate army, suffering a wound at Gettysburg. After the war he returned to the legislature and became one of the three original justices of the Texas Court of Appeals, and a Texas county was named in his honor.