Thomas Young Buford
Nacogdoches, Nacogdoches County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A San Jacinto Veteran Born in South Carolina August 5, 1814 Died August 23, 1839 Erected by the State of Texas 1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
A South Carolina native who came to Texas in its revolutionary days, Thomas Young Buford fought at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, the clash that secured Texas independence. He died young, in 1839, only a few years after the victory. The State of Texas honored his service with a marker in 1936.
Why it matters
Buford was one of the young volunteers of San Jacinto, the rank-and-file soldiers whose courage won the Republic of Texas its independence.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1836, Texas was in the midst of a revolution, and the fight drew in young men from across the American South. Many were recent arrivals to a land that was still, at the start of that year, part of Mexico — drawn by cheap frontier land and swept up in a cause that turned suddenly to war.
East Texas, with Nacogdoches at its heart, was a gathering point for that fight. One of the oldest towns in Texas, it fed men and momentum into the revolutionary army as the campaign against the Mexican forces reached its climax.
The soldiers who answered the call were, in the main, not professionals. They were volunteers — farmers and settlers and newcomers barely settled in — and the outcome of the revolution rested on ordinary men like them being willing to march and fight.
People & events
Thomas Young Buford was one of those young volunteers. Born in South Carolina in August 1814, he had come to Texas in its revolutionary days, and in 1836 he fought at the Battle of San Jacinto — the decisive clash that secured Texas independence.
He was barely into his twenties when he stood on that field. San Jacinto was famously brief but its consequences were enormous, and the men in the ranks that day, Buford among them, are the reason the young Republic could claim its freedom.
His story carries a note of sorrow. Buford died in August 1839, only a few years after the victory and just past his twenty-fifth birthday. He did not live to see much of the Republic his generation had won. The State of Texas honored his service with a marker in 1936, ensuring that a young soldier who died so soon after the fight would not be forgotten.
Its place in the American story
History tends to remember generals and presidents, but battles are won by the rank and file — the anonymous young men who carry muskets and hold lines. Buford stands for that larger body of ordinary soldiers whose courage, not their fame, decided the outcome.
San Jacinto secured the independence of a republic that would, within a decade, become part of the United States. The young volunteers who fought there were therefore present at the creation of something that outlived them all, a new state that would take its place in the growing American nation.
That a soldier who died young and held no high office should be commemorated at all says something about how Texas chose to remember its revolution. It honored not only its leaders but its foot soldiers, treating the service of a common volunteer as worthy of a monument in stone.
If you visit
Read the dates on this marker slowly, and let the arithmetic land: born in 1814, died in 1839. This is the grave of a man who fought for a country's independence and then died in his mid-twenties, only a few years after the victory. It is a quiet, sobering thing to stand before.
The 1936 date on the stone places it in the great centennial year of Texas independence, when the state set out to honor the founders and soldiers of a hundred years earlier. Buford's marker is one of many from that effort scattered through Nacogdoches and East Texas.
If you're tracing the story of San Jacinto and the Texas Revolution, a stop here grounds the grand narrative in a single young life. Pair it with the town's other revolutionary-era markers to feel how much of that history is written into the ground of one old East Texas town.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Thomas Young Buford
Related events
- · Battle of San Jacinto
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Elias E. Hamilton
Nacogdoches, TX
A Georgia native who came west to Texas, Elias E. Hamilton took up arms in the Texas Revolution, fighting in the 1835 storming of Bexar and the decisive Battle of San Jacinto in 1836. He died young, in 1840, in the East Texas community of Douglass. His marker was raised by the State of Texas in 1936 for the centennial of independence.
Haden Edwards
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A Virginia-born empresario, Haden Edwards received a contract to settle American families around Nacogdoches but fell into bitter conflict with Mexican authorities and existing residents. In 1826-27 he led the short-lived Fredonian Rebellion, an early and premature bid for Anglo independence in Texas that collapsed quickly. A decade later, during the Texas Revolution, he was sent to the United States to raise funds for the cause.
Captain Hayden Arnold
Nacogdoches, TX
A Tennessee native, Captain Hayden Arnold led the Nacogdoches company at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, the decisive engagement of the Texas Revolution. He died in 1839, only a few years after the fighting that won Texas its independence. The State of Texas raised his marker in 1936.
John S. Roberts
Nacogdoches, TX
Once a sheriff in Natchitoches, Louisiana, John S. Roberts threw himself into the Texas cause, helping lead the 1832 Battle of Nacogdoches and commanding the Nacogdoches company in the 1835 storming of Bexar. He served in the 1835 Consultation and signed the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836. A Virginia native, he lived out his years in the town he had fought for, dying in 1871.