HistoricSiteMarkers
Civil War

Matthew Duncan Ector

Marshall, Harrison County, Texas

Marker Inscription

(Star and Wreath) Brigadier General, C. S. A. Participated in Battles of Richmond, Ky., Murfreesboro, Chicamauga, Atlanta, Defense of Mobile. Erected by the State of texas 1962

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

This state marker honors Matthew Duncan Ector, a Texas lawyer and legislator who rose to brigadier general in the Confederate army. He led troops through some of the war's hardest fighting in the Western Theater — Richmond in Kentucky, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, and the Atlanta Campaign — before helping defend Mobile. Texas erected the memorial in 1962, a century after the conflict that defined his public life.

Why it matters

Ector's career traces the Confederacy's Western campaigns from early victory to final defense, and his name endures on the East Texas county later named for him.

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Related people

  • · Matthew Duncan Ector

Related events

  • · Battle of Chickamauga
  • · Atlanta Campaign
  • · Defense of Mobile

Themes & tags

Civil WarMonument

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Alexander Travis Hawthorn

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Alexander Travis Hawthorn rose from Arkansas lawyer to Confederate brigadier general, leading troops at Shiloh and earning commendation for gallantry at the Battle of Jenkins' Ferry. After the war he turned from soldiering to business and then the pulpit, spending his final decades as a Baptist minister in Texas.

Greenwood Cemetery

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Begun in 1840 as the private burial ground of the Van Zandt family and formally dedicated in 1881, Greenwood Cemetery holds many of early East Texas's founding figures. Among them are Isaac Van Zandt and James Harper Starr, each honored with a Texas county named for him, and Confederate brigadier generals Matthew Duncan Ector and Alexander Travis Hawthorne. Even a grandson of Sam Houston rests here, tying the ground to the first generation of the Texas Republic.

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