Site of Confederate Prison Compound
Houston, Harris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Before 1861, site of warehouse serving Buffalo Bayou shipping. At times during 1861-65, the building here housed prisoners of war. In Jan. 1863 it held 350 Federals captured by Houston-based Confederate army of Gen. John B. Magruder. The city also had two other compounds where prisoners of war were held. Among many Houston enterprises vital to the Confederacy were troop training fields, military hospitals, an ammunition depot, two foundries, five railroads. City was headquarters for the Military District of Texas, which included Arizona and New Mexico.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
A Buffalo Bayou shipping warehouse on this site was pressed into service during the Civil War as a compound for Union prisoners of war, holding some 350 Federals captured in early 1863 by General John B. Magruder's Confederate forces. Houston was a vital Confederate center, home to training fields, hospitals, foundries, and rail lines, and served as headquarters for the Military District of Texas. The city's several prison compounds were part of that wartime machinery.
Why it matters
It reveals Houston's largely forgotten role as a Confederate logistical and military hub deep in the Texas interior, far from the war's famous battlefields.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · John B. Magruder
Related events
- · American Civil War (1861–1865)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Harris County
Houston, TX
Home to the Karankawa and Orcoquiza peoples and once eyed by Spain for a presidio, this region was permanently settled in 1822 by Stephen F. Austin's colonists. John R. Harris founded a village he named for his family and for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and it grew into one of the most influential colonial municipalities, playing a major role in the Texas War for Independence. The county was created in 1836, briefly held the Republic's capital, served as a Confederate command and ordnance center, and eventually grew into the world-commerce hub of Houston.
Jefferson Davis Hospital
Houston, TX
Completed in 1924 and run jointly by the City of Houston and Harris County, this Neoclassical hospital rose atop the 1840 Houston City Cemetery—its basement built above ground because the graves were never removed. At the request of Confederate veterans and their families, it was named for the former Confederate president in honor of the many veterans buried beneath it. Serving indigent patients for just thirteen years, the building later housed a psychiatric ward, a juvenile detention unit, and, since 2005, residential lofts.
1840 Houston City Cemetery
Houston, TX
In 1840 the young City of Houston bought five acres from the Allen brothers to create its first municipal cemetery, then divided it by ordinance into a potter's field, a segregated "negroes burying ground," a commons, and family plots sold to the highest bidder. For some forty years it was the city's only cemetery, receiving citizens of the Republic of Texas, Civil War veterans, and victims of Houston's recurring yellow fever epidemics. Later neglected and built over by Jefferson Davis Hospital in 1924, it still holds thousands of graves though almost nothing marks them above ground.
Site of Old Houston Academy
Houston, TX
Houston Academy opened in 1856 and quickly felt the Civil War's pull, losing most of its young men to the Confederate army and serving as a military hospital in 1864–65. In 1867 the building held the lying-in-state of Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, the Texas Republic secretary of war and career soldier killed at Shiloh. The school was later reborn as Clopper Institute and, within Houston's public system, as Central High and Sam Houston High School.