Orange County and the Civil War
Orange, Orange County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Shortly after the voters of Orange County and Texas approved secession in 1861, three military companies were raised in the county for Confederate service-- The Orange LIght Guard, The Orange Greys, and Hannah's Company. Additional forces, including the Orange County Coast Guard and several companies of state troops, were later raised for local defense. Orange County, ten miles south of the Niblett's Bluff location of C. S. A. Camp Pleasant in Louisiana, was part of an important route for Confederate forces and supplies. A C.S.A. post office was located at Orange in 1861. The Texas and New Orleans Railroad was opened through the county, though various problems rendered it unserviceable through much of the war. Rumors of a Federal attack on the coast in 1863 prompted stepped-up defense preparations. A primary supply depot was established in July to serve nearby Camp Pleasant, and a Confederate hospital opened in Orange. Local preparedness provided an additional deterrent to U. S. troops at the Battle of Sabine Pass in September. After the Confederate surrender in 1865, occupation forces led by the 37th Illinois Volunteers arrived in Orange County, and Reconstruction soon followed. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
After Texas voters approved secession in 1861, Orange County raised three companies for Confederate service and later added coast-guard and state-troop units for local defense. Lying just ten miles from Camp Pleasant across the Louisiana line, the county became a link in the Confederate supply route, gaining a post office, a supply depot, and a military hospital as fears of a Federal coastal attack mounted in 1863. Local readiness helped deter Union forces at the Battle of Sabine Pass, and after the 1865 surrender occupation troops of the 37th Illinois arrived and Reconstruction began.
Why it matters
The marker records how a remote coastal county mobilized for the Confederacy and became part of the supply and defense network guarding the Texas-Louisiana frontier.
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Related events
- · Battle of Sabine Pass
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
B. H. Norsworthy
Orange, TX
Alabama native B. H. Norsworthy came to Texas in 1860 and, during the Civil War, organized a Confederate unit known as the Lone Star Rifles. He was wounded at the Battle of Thompson's Station in Tennessee and the Battle of Jonesboro in Georgia, rising to lieutenant colonel. After the war he settled in Orange as a merchant and rice farmer and was elected to three terms as the city's mayor.
Putnam B. Curry
Orange, TX
A New York native, Putnam B. Curry moved to Galveston in 1860 and enlisted in the Confederate army, seeing action along the Texas Gulf Coast during the Civil War. After the war he married Eliza Ann Ochiltree and settled in Orange, where he opened a mercantile firm and later ran a hotel and published a newspaper. A leader in the local business community, he remained active until his death in 1910.
David Robert Wingate
Orange, TX
David Robert Wingate moved his family from Mississippi to a large East Texas cotton plantation in 1852, having built his fortune in sawmilling. During the Civil War he supplied lumber from his Sabine Pass mill to build Fort Sabine and other Confederate posts, and Federal troops burned his home and business in retaliation. Undeterred, he rebuilt in Orange after the war, invested in a sawmill, took up rice farming, and served as county judge.
Alexander Gilmer
Orange, TX
An Irish immigrant who reached America in 1846, Alexander "Sandy" Gilmer built ships in Orange with his cousin and ran a mercantile before the Civil War, when he served the Confederacy as a blockade runner trading local cotton and lumber for scarce supplies and took part in the 1863 Battle of Sabine Pass. After the war he turned to sawmilling, and though fires destroyed four of his mills, he became one of the region's leading lumbermen, with holdings that included the town of Remlig—his name spelled backward. He died in 1906 while on business in New York.