Lawson Daniel Gratz
Willow Park, Parker County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Born on September 15, 1839 in Mason County, Kentucky on the plantation of Benjamin Gratz, Lawson Gratz worked as a farmer for his owner prior to the Civil War. Lawson was directed by his owner to enlist in the Federal army on July 24, 1864 at Lexington, Kentucky. Enlistment papers show that Lawson had received some education as his papers displayed his own signature. After enlistment, he proceeded to Camp Nelson where Black soldiers were stationed and was soon promoted to first sergeant of Company C in the 114th U.S. Colored Infantry. Gratz served with the 114th at the Siege of Petersburg and Richmond and was present at the Appomattox Courthouse when Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered. Gratz was discharged in May 1865 but reenlisted in August 1867 in the 10th U.S. Calvary, known as the Buffalo Soldiers. While assigned to maintain order in Indian Territory, Gratz was injured by exploding gunpowder and lost the sight in his right eye. Despite the injury, Gratz refused a discharge and completed his enlistment. Following his five-year enlistment, Gratz moved to Texas and headed to Fort Griffin where he worked as a civilian teamster hauling buffalo hides to markets in Weatherford and Dallas. Gratz married sixteen-year-old Rosa Dedman, the daughter of a former slave and co-worker of Gratz, on September 27, 1877 at Fort Griffin in Albany, Shackelford County. The marriage lasted 32 years and produced 14 children. The Gratz family moved in 1892 from Shackelford County to Annetta in Parker County and purchased a small farm. Gratz died on June 18, 1909 and shall be remembered for his strong leadership and devotion to duty. 175 Years of Texas Independence * 1836 - 2011
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born into slavery in 1839 on a Kentucky plantation, Lawson Daniel Gratz enlisted in the Federal army in 1864 and rose to first sergeant in the 114th U.S. Colored Infantry, serving at the sieges of Petersburg and Richmond and standing at Appomattox when Lee surrendered. He later reenlisted with the 10th U.S. Cavalry — the Buffalo Soldiers — and kept serving even after an explosion cost him the sight in one eye. Settling at last in Parker County, he raised fourteen children and was remembered for his leadership and unbending devotion to duty.
Why it matters
Gratz's journey from enslavement to the U.S. Colored Troops and the Buffalo Soldiers embodies the central African American struggle for freedom and citizenship in Civil War and frontier America.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Lawson Daniel Gratz was born in 1839 into slavery on a Kentucky plantation, more than two decades before the Civil War would begin to unmake the world he was born into. Kentucky was a border state — enslaved but never part of the Confederacy — and that in-between status would shape the extraordinary path his life took.
His story runs straight through the two great American dramas of the nineteenth century: the war to end slavery, and the westward expansion that followed it onto the Great Plains. Few individual lives touch both so directly. He would go from a Kentucky farm to the trenches of Virginia, and later from an army post on the frontier to a small farm of his own in Texas.
To follow him is to travel the arc of a transforming nation — from bondage to soldiering, from the battlefields of the East to the open country of the West — carried by a man who kept moving forward through every hardship the century could put in his way.
People & events
In July 1864, at his owner's direction, Gratz enlisted in the Federal army at Lexington. His enlistment papers bear his own signature — a quiet but telling detail, evidence that he had gained some education despite everything arrayed against it. He made his way to Camp Nelson, a major gathering point for Black soldiers, and was soon promoted to first sergeant of Company C in the 114th U.S. Colored Infantry.
With that regiment he served at the long siege of Petersburg and Richmond, and he was present at Appomattox Courthouse when General Robert E. Lee surrendered — a witness, in uniform, to the end of the war that had begun to free him. Discharged in 1865, he chose the soldier's life again in 1867, reenlisting in the 10th U.S. Cavalry, one of the regiments known as Buffalo Soldiers. While keeping order in Indian Territory, an explosion of gunpowder cost him the sight in his right eye — and yet he refused a discharge and finished out his enlistment.
The rest of his life he built with his own hands. He came to Texas, reached Fort Griffin, and worked as a civilian teamster hauling buffalo hides to the markets in Weatherford and Dallas. In 1877 he married sixteen-year-old Rosa Dedman, herself the daughter of a former slave; their marriage lasted thirty-two years and brought fourteen children. In 1892 the family moved to Annetta in Parker County and bought a small farm, where Gratz lived until his death in 1909.
Its place in the American story
Gratz's life traces the central African American journey of his century: from enslavement, to bearing arms for his own freedom, to seeking a place in the nation he had helped to save. The nearly 200,000 Black men who served in the U.S. Colored Troops changed the meaning of the Civil War — they made it unmistakably a fight for freedom, and they staked their claim to citizenship in blood.
His reenlistment with the Buffalo Soldiers carries that claim into the next chapter of American history. Those regiments of Black cavalrymen served on the western frontier in the decades after the war, often in harsh conditions and always against the backdrop of a country still deciding what freedom would actually mean for people like them. Gratz's refusal to accept a discharge after losing an eye is the kind of devotion to duty that defined their reputation.
And his final act — buying a small Texas farm and raising fourteen children — is its own quiet landmark. For a man born owned by another, to own land, to sign his own name, and to build a lasting family was to claim the full promise of American citizenship that his generation had fought to make real.
If you visit
This is a memorial marker, so what you come for is not a building but a life — a chance to stand in Parker County and reckon with a journey that reached from a Kentucky plantation to the surrender at Appomattox to the buffalo-hide trails of West Texas. Read it slowly; the details reward attention.
Let the geography sink in. Gratz hauled hides to Weatherford and Dallas and finally settled at Annetta, so the surrounding countryside is the very landscape where he ended his long road, farming ground that was his own. Knowing that turns the ordinary Texas terrain around you into the closing scene of a remarkable story.
On a road trip through the region, this marker adds a dimension the others can't. Alongside the county's churches, banks, and gardens, it insists on remembering an individual who lived through slavery, war, and the frontier — and it invites you to carry his name a little further down the road.
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
- · Lawson Daniel Gratz
- · Rosa Dedman
Related events
- · Siege of Petersburg
- · Appomattox surrender
Themes & tags
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