Newton County, C.S.A.
Newton, Newton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Supply and military center in the Civil War. Target area for Federals trying to move up the Sabine or across Louisiana and take Texas. Confederates built breastworks and maintained arsenal at Burkeville. Major supply route, "The Old Beef Trail", begun 1823 through area later Newton County. Was a road taken by thousands of cattle being sent from Texas to feed armies and civilians as far eastward as Mobile, Ala. Sabine ferries were equipped with cattle pens: also ferrymen kept oxen trained to lead herds swimming across the river. Some local beef went eastward, too. Farrsville, a town founded about 1850 on Cow Creek, had a military campground and corrals furnishing fresh stagecoach teams. Its tanning vats and shops made boots and shoes for the Confederacy. Its water mills ground corn for bread, sawed lumber, ginned cotton-- products used in supplying the South. The commissioners court made appropriations to outfit military units (buying horses for men unable to furnish their own), aid dependent families, and supply the people with cotton cards to turn the lint into batts for spinning, weaving and knitting. The county, which had voted 178 to 3 for secession, sent about 400 soldiers into the Confederate army. (1965)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
During the Civil War, remote Newton County became a vital Confederate supply corridor, guarding against Federal attempts to push up the Sabine River and into Texas. Confederates threw up breastworks and kept an arsenal at Burkeville, while "The Old Beef Trail" drove thousands of Texas cattle eastward as far as Mobile—its ferries fitted with pens and ox-led swimming herds. Towns like Farrsville tanned leather, ground corn, and made boots for the army, and the county, which had voted 178 to 3 for secession, sent some 400 men to fight.
Why it matters
Newton County shows the Confederate home front at work—the logistics, cattle drives, and small-town industry that fed and clothed the armies far from any battlefield.
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Related events
- · The Old Beef Trail cattle drives
Themes & tags
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