Marshall
Marshall, Harrison County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Founded 1839. Named for John Marshall, Chief Justice of U.S. Supreme Court. Supply, ordnance, medical, telegraph and military headquarters during Civil War. The Confederate capital of Missouri was located here. Trade, industry, rail and historical center.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1839 and named for U.S. Chief Justice John Marshall, this East Texas town became a strategic hub during the Civil War, housing supply, ordnance, medical, telegraph, and military headquarters. When Federal forces overran Missouri, that state's Confederate government relocated here, making Marshall the wartime capital-in-exile of Missouri. Rail lines and trade cemented its role as a regional center long after the war.
Why it matters
Marshall's wartime importance illustrates how the Trans-Mississippi South organized itself around key rail and supply towns, and its role as Missouri's Confederate capital marks a little-known corner of Civil War geography.
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Related people
- · John Marshall
Related events
- · American Civil War
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Founded in 1836 and named for Thomas Jefferson, this East Texas town rode the steamboat trade up the Big Cypress Bayou to become the state's chief river port between 1846 and 1870. During the Civil War its wharves and workshops turned to the Confederate cause, running a quartermaster depot that produced boots, shoes, ironwork, and preserved meats for the army. When the river traffic faded, the antebellum mansions remained, and a 1939 oil strike nearby added a new chapter.
Marshall Powder Mill
Marshall, TX
When Vicksburg fell to Union forces in 1863, the Confederacy's Trans-Mississippi Department was cut off from the arsenals of Richmond and had to make its own war materiel. Late that summer the ordnance works from Arkadelphia, Arkansas, were relocated to Marshall, where crews built shops, a magazine, and a powder mill that ran at full tilt in 1864. After the surrender, occupying Federal troops began dismantling the machinery when an explosion killed three soldiers and wounded two more.
Texas & Pacific Depot
Marshall, TX
Marshall's first railroad reached Caddo Lake by 1858 to connect with Red River steamboats, but the town's fortunes soared when Congress in 1871 chartered the Texas & Pacific to build west along the 32nd parallel. The T&P moved its maintenance shops to Marshall, and in 1911–12 built this passenger depot at the junction of the Texarkana and Louisiana lines. Its architect blended prairie school lines with Renaissance and Mediterranean details, crowning the brick-and-concrete station with a tile roof to anchor the view down Washington Street from the courthouse.
Site of The Confederate Hat Factory in Marshall, C.S.A.
Marshall, TX
With Texas nearly devoid of factories when it joined the Confederacy in 1861, Marshall became a hub of wartime manufacturing and, by 1863, headquarters for Confederate operations west of the Mississippi. In the basement of a dwelling here, some forty workers blocked and finished high-quality fur-felt military hats and stitched blankets to outfit Texas soldiers. The site later passed through generations of the Edmund Key family before becoming a memorial park.