Search Markers

Bastrop, TX

Built in 1891–92 to a design by prominent Houston architect Eugene T. Heiner, the Bastrop County Jail combined civic function with real architectural ambition: tan brick walls trimmed in red, a pressed-metal cornice, and a mansard roof. A clever exterior disguised the fact that jailer's quarters occupied the first floor while cell blocks filled the second and third. It served the county until 1974.

Bastrop, TX

This Methodist congregation traces its roots to 1835, when lay preacher James Gilleland gathered worshipers at a time when Mexican law still forbade Protestant services—an act of quiet defiance on the eve of the Texas Revolution. The church built its first sanctuary in 1851 and its present structure in 1924, carrying the older building's altar rail, pews, and memorial windows forward so the old and new stand blended together.

Bastrop, TX

Built in 1889 by D. S. Green and P. O. Elzner, the Bastrop Opera House brought traveling drama and opera troupes, musicians, and other performers to a small Central Texas town hungry for entertainment. Its three-part facade with pilastered bays marked it as a place of occasion, and over the years it hosted not just shows but graduations and school proms. The merchant Elzner became its sole owner in 1901.

El Paso, TX

When the railroads reached El Paso in 1881, their tracks became a wall through the growing downtown, snarling pedestrians and cars for decades. Between 1948 and 1950, an enormous civil-engineering effort sank the main lines into a trench below street level, excavating over 4,500 carloads of dirt and spanning the cut with eight bridges. Dedicated in 1950, the project was named for the American and Filipino prisoners of war who died after the fall of the Bataan Peninsula — many of them trained at nearby Fort Bliss.

Atlanta, GA

On July 20, 1864, at the Battle of Peachtree Creek, the right of Bate's division of Hardee's corps rested here on Clear Creek before joining the Confederate assault. Moving northwest through wooded ground, Bate led off the attack against Newton's Union division posted on the ridge above Collier Road. The stroke was part of Hood's aggressive first battle after taking command of the Army of Tennessee, an attempt to smash the Federals before they could close on Atlanta.

Butler, MO

This tribute honors the men and women of Bates County, Missouri who served the nation in war and peace, active and reserve. It deliberately spans every era and branch rather than commemorating a single conflict, framing service itself as the thing worth remembering. Its "Freedom is not free" theme places it in the tradition of community-built veterans tributes.

Huntsville, TX

Established in the 1870s near Union Hill Church, Bath Cemetery has served the East Texas community of Bath—locally nicknamed Possum Walk—since its earliest recorded burial, that of William Arnold in 1877. Shaded by trees planted over a century ago, its markers read like a village roster: teachers, veterans, ministers, and postmasters who built and sustained the settlement, tended today by descendants of those first families.

Batson, TX

Batson Prairie takes its name from a pioneer family who settled here by the 1840s, but much of the community grew from the generosity of the Guedry family, who donated land for a school, a church, and a cemetery. A one-room schoolhouse opened in 1896, the Batson Prairie Baptist Church organized in 1897, and Guedry Cemetery—now holding more than 2,000 burials—recorded its first grave in 1900. Together these institutions formed the heart of community life for generations.

Weatherford, TX

Henry Hill Battern left Virginia for Parker County around 1860, buying 160 acres that included this one-acre burial ground. His second wife, Sarah Jane, died that same year and is said to be the first laid to rest here. A Civil War veteran who served as the community's unofficial doctor and as a local justice of the peace, Battern was widely respected despite having no formal medical training; the last known burial, his son Francis, came in 1934.

Cape Elizabeth, ME

Completed in 1903, Battery Blair was part of the ring of coastal artillery fortifications built to defend Portland Harbor at the dawn of the twentieth century, when the United States modernized its seacoast defenses with heavy disappearing and barbette guns. It was named for Francis P. Blair Jr., a Missouri politician who served as a general in the Mexican and Civil Wars before entering the U.S. Senate. Its two twelve-inch guns stood guard over the approaches to Casco Bay.

Crescent City, CA

Battery Point Lighthouse ranks among the first lighthouses built on the California coast, first lit in the 1850s to guide ships past the rocky approaches to Crescent City. In an age before bridges spanned the region's rivers or roads crossed its rugged mountains, coastal shipping was the economic lifeline of far northern California, and a reliable beacon meant survival for both sailors and settlements. The little light on its rocky islet has watched over the harbor for generations.

Lampasas, TX

This branch of Sulphur Creek took its name from a bloody chapter of the Horrell-Higgins Feud, one of the deadliest range vendettas of frontier Texas. On the morning of March 26, 1877, gunmen ambushed Tom and Mart Horrell as they rode to district court in Lampasas; the brothers returned fire and escaped, and Texas Rangers summoned to the scene never caught the attackers, widely believed to be Higgins partisans. The feud dragged on with more gunfire for months afterward.

Mart, TX

The Battle community grew up around 1880 on land tied to Nicholas W. Battle, and by the 1890s it had a school, post office, businesses, homes, and churches. A cemetery was laid out on ground acquired from the McLennan family, its earliest documented grave dating to 1888. After the International and Great Northern Railroad bypassed the town around 1901, Battle went into decline, leaving the cemetery as a memorial to the pioneers who settled here.

Dawson, TX

In October 1838 a party of twenty-five Texan surveyors pressing into Kickapoo hunting grounds ignored warnings to withdraw and was ambushed, with only seven men escaping and four of those wounded. Survivors later returned to bury their fallen comrades together in a common grave on this ground. The episode became known as the Battle Creek fight, one of the bloodiest surveyor clashes of the Republic era.

Town of Dover, WI

This monument depicts the battlefield cross—a helmet and dog tags, an inverted rifle, and combat boots—the soldier's improvised memorial long used by troops to mark a fallen comrade in the field. Each element carries meaning: the boots for the last march, the rifle for a moment of prayer, the tags for a name never to be forgotten. Rendered in permanent form here, it brings a soldiers' ritual of grief into a public place of remembrance.

Matagorda County, TX

In 1826, in the early years of Anglo colonization of Texas, a company of settler volunteers led by Captain Aylett C. Buckner attacked a band of Karankawa people here, following the killing of several families on Lower Caney Creek. The clash was one of many violent encounters between arriving colonists and the coastal Karankawa during the colonial settlement of the Texas coast.

Lander County, NV

Battle Mountain took its name from a nearby range where California emigrants were said to have been ambushed in the 1850s, but the town itself sprang up in January 1870 after the railroad shifted its station here from Argenta and renamed the Reese River siding. Stage and freight roads teemed with mud wagons and heavy freighters bound for the mining camps to the south, and from 1880 to 1938 the town served as headquarters for the Central Nevada Railway. A copper boom arrived in 1897, and the growing town finally won the county seat from Austin in 1979.

Stinnett, TX

On November 25, 1864, Colonel Christopher "Kit" Carson led a column of U.S. troops against a large force of Kiowa and Comanche near the ruins of an old trading post known as Adobe Walls. Sheltering behind the crumbling walls, Carson's men fought a hard engagement before withdrawing from the far more numerous warriors. It proved to be the famed frontiersman's last battle.

Agua Dulce, TX

In the winter of 1835–36, as Texas fought for independence from Mexico, a freelance expedition led by Dr. James Grant and Frances W. Johnson set out to seize Matamoros — a scheme Sam Houston distrusted and that bled away recruits before it reached the Nueces. General José de Urrea's cavalry ran the scattered volunteers down, overwhelming Johnson's camp at San Patricio and then surprising Grant's horse-hunting party at Agua Dulce Creek. The clash fell on March 2, 1836 — the very day delegates at Washington-on-the-Brazos signed the Texas Declaration of Independence.

Alamance County, NC

On May 16, 1771, militia loyal to Royal Governor William Tryon met the Regulators — backcountry farmers rebelling against corrupt officials and unfair taxes — and defeated them at this spot. The clash ended the War of the Regulation and scattered the movement. Some have seen this frontier uprising as a prelude to the American Revolution that would follow within the decade.

Bertie County, NC

On May 5, 1864, the Confederate ironclad ram Albemarle, under Capt. James W. Cooke, steamed across Batchelor's Bay and gave battle to a squadron of seven Union warships in the waters of Albemarle Sound. The powerful ram had already broken Union control of the Roanoke River, and this clash was part of the fierce naval struggle for northeastern North Carolina's rivers and sounds. The fighting the marker recalls took place some fifteen miles to the east.

Atlanta, GA

By accident of timing, the Battle of Atlanta ignited near this spot on July 22, 1864. Sweeny's division of Dodge's 16th Corps, held in reserve and marching to support Blair's 17th Corps, halted here at noon to await orders. When Confederate divisions under Walker and Bate swept forward aiming at the rear of Blair's line, they instead collided with Mersy's and Rice's brigades posted here — a chance encounter that touched off one of the campaign's largest battles.

Augusta, KY

By September 1862, the Ohio River town of Augusta had sent some 6,000 Union men to war, leaving barely a hundred Home Guards under Colonel Bradford to defend it. On September 27, Confederate Colonel Basil Duke struck with 350 of John Hunt Morgan's raiders; the guards fought from concealment in houses until the raiders shelled and burned their way through. Though the town fell, Confederate losses in men and ammunition forced Morgan to abandon his planned crossing into Ohio.

Baton Rouge, LA

In September 1779 the fighting of the American Revolution reached the Gulf Coast, where Spanish forces under Governor Bernardo de Gálvez captured the British-held fort at Baton Rouge. As Spain's ally-in-effect against Britain, Gálvez opened a southern front far from the thirteen colonies, and this marker recalls the men who fought there. It stands as a reminder that the Revolution was won on a wider map than the eastern seaboard alone.

Johnston County, NC

Over three days in March 1865, the fields near Bentonville saw the last major Confederate offensive of the Civil War, as General Joseph Johnston tried to stop William T. Sherman's army sweeping north through the Carolinas. It was the largest battle ever fought on North Carolina soil, pitting a thin gray line against Sherman's overwhelming numbers. Within weeks Johnston would surrender, and the war in the East was over.

Baldwin County, AL

On April 9, 1865 — the very day Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox in Virginia — Union forces stormed the Confederate earthworks at Blakely, near Mobile, in one of the last full-scale battles of the Civil War. Thousands of Federal troops, including several regiments of United States Colored Troops, overran the fortifications guarding the eastern approach to Mobile Bay, effectively sealing the fate of the last major Gulf port still in Confederate hands. Word of the war's end had not yet reached the men who fought and died here.

East Bradford Township, PA · est. 1952

On September 11, 1777, the largest battle of the Revolution unfolded across the fields and fords of Brandywine Creek. British troops under Lord Cornwallis, having crossed the creek's upper branches, wheeled southeast near here in the early afternoon to strike the rear of the American right wing commanded by General John Sullivan. Confused and contradictory scouting reports had left Sullivan unable to form a proper line in time.

Kennett Township, PA · est. 1952

Here, in the early morning hours of September 11, 1777, General William Howe divided the British army for a two-pronged assault on Washington's line along the Brandywine. Knyphausen's column pressed east to fix the American center at Chadds Ford, while a wing under Cornwallis marched a long roundabout route—north, then east—to fall upon Washington's exposed right flank from behind. It was a textbook flanking maneuver that echoed Howe's tactics at Long Island the year before.

Kennett Township, PA · est. 1952

On September 11, 1777, some 11,000 Continental soldiers under George Washington took position along Brandywine Creek to block a British thrust toward Philadelphia. They faced roughly 18,000 British and Hessian troops under General William Howe. In a long day of maneuver and hard fighting near Chadds Ford, the outnumbered and outflanked Americans were driven from the field.

Birmingham Township, PA · est. 1952

On September 11, 1777, the fields around Birmingham Meeting House became the crisis point of the Battle of Brandywine, the largest single-day engagement of the Revolutionary War. British and Hessian troops, having flanked the American army by a long march, struck Washington's right wing here late in the day. General John Sullivan threw together a defensive line that fought hard before being pushed back toward Dilworthtown, while reinforcements from Chadds Ford bought time for the army to withdraw.

Chadds Ford Township, PA · est. 1952

On September 11, 1777, the fields around Chadds Ford became the setting for the largest land battle of the American Revolution. George Washington positioned roughly 11,000 Continental troops to block General William Howe's drive toward Philadelphia, but Howe's larger British and Hessian force outflanked the American line. The defeat opened the road to the rebel capital, which fell to the British later that month.

Chadds Ford Township, PA · est. 1952

As darkness fell on September 11, 1777, the Battle of Brandywine wound to its close with the British holding the ground and Washington's defeated army pulling back toward Chester. Amid the confusion of the retreat, the young French volunteer Marquis de Lafayette — wounded in the leg — worked to rally the withdrawing Continentals, while Casimir Pulaski's cavalry screened them from pursuit. Both foreign officers were early proof that the American cause had drawn allies from across Europe.

New Castle County, DE · est. 1952

This marker traces the tactical crux of the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777, where General Anthony Wayne held the American center near Chadds Ford, facing west across the creek. While Washington's attention was fixed on Cornwallis's flanking march three miles to the north, General Knyphausen's British and Hessian division forced a crossing of the Brandywine and drove Wayne's men back. The double blow — a flanking column and a frontal assault — unhinged the whole American position.

Wilcox County, GA

On March 9, 1818, near this spot, 34 men of the Telfair County Militia under Major Josiah D. Cawthon clashed with about 60 Creek warriors. The fight left four Indians and five white men dead, including Capt. Benjamin Mitchell Griffin, and several wounded — among them Mark Willcox, later a major general, who was carried to safety under fire by Nat Statham and Wiley Ellison. It was remembered as the last battle between Indians and settlers in this part of Georgia.

Screven County, GA

In the winter of 1779, British and American armies faced each other across the Savannah River, with control of Georgia and possibly the whole war in the balance. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln maneuvered to flank the British, but on March 3 Gen. Augustine Prevost's forces executed a bold night march and surprise assault that shattered Gen. John Ashe's American command. The rout ended in disaster, redeemed only by the desperate last stand of Georgia Continentals and militia under Gen. Samuel Elbert and Col. McIntosh, who fought until nearly all were dead or wounded.

Newnan, GA

In July 1864, as the Atlanta Campaign raged, Union Brig. Gen. E.M. McCook led 3,600 cavalry on a raid to wreck the railroads feeding Atlanta and free the thousands of Federal prisoners held at Andersonville. Three miles south of Newnan, Confederate Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler caught the raiders with a far smaller force and routed them, capturing some 2,000 men, a battery, and freeing 500 Confederate captives.

Taylor, TX

In the winter of 1839, the young Republic of Texas was still contesting its frontier with the Comanche, whose horseback raiders ranged across the Blackland Prairie. After a retaliatory raid on area homesteads killed settlers and carried off captives, a hastily gathered militia pursued the raiders to Brushy Creek, where the fighting cost the lives of Jacob Burleson and several companions. It proved the last major clash between settlers and Native people in Williamson County.

Boston, MA

On June 17, 1775, this shoreline saw British reinforcements come ashore during the Battle of Bunker Hill, one of the first major engagements of the American Revolution. Though the British ultimately took the hill, they suffered staggering losses against the entrenched colonial militia, proving the Americans would stand and fight. This tablet marks the landing point of those reinforcements.

Charlotte, NC

On September 26, 1780, British forces under Lord Cornwallis marched into Charlotte and clashed with local Patriot troops led by William R. Davie. Though the Americans were driven off and the town captured, the stubborn resistance around Charlotte contributed to the region's reputation for defiance — Cornwallis reportedly dubbed it a "hornet's nest" of rebellion during the Revolution's hard-fought southern campaign.

Baker County, GA

In July 1836, amid the violent upheaval of the Creek War in the Deep South, some 300 warriors fortified an island in Chickasawachee Swamp after a deadly raid on nearby settlers. Georgia militia under Col. Thomas Beall pursued them into the swamp, where a fierce fight left casualties on both sides and recovered plunder taken in the raid on Roanoke. The battle scattered the warriors and broke their planned march toward Florida.

San Bernardino County, CA · est. 1986

By the 1860s, settlers pressing into the rich lands of the San Bernardino Mountains collided with the Native people whose gathering grounds these highlands had long been. That struggle came to a head at Chimney Rock in February 1867, where the outnumbered defenders fought hard before being driven into the desert, losing access to their traditional food-gathering areas in the years that followed.

Fannin, TX

After the fall of the Alamo in March 1836, Colonel James Walker Fannin and some 400 men, many of them volunteers from the United States, were ordered to retreat from Goliad toward Victoria. General Urrea's Mexican force surrounded them near Coleto Creek on March 19, and after fierce fighting the outnumbered Texans surrendered, expecting to be treated as prisoners of war. Instead, on Palm Sunday they were marched out and executed at Goliad on Santa Anna's orders—an atrocity that, with the Alamo, gave the victors at San Jacinto their cry, "Remember the Alamo, Remember Goliad."

Culloden, GA

On April 19, 1865—days after Lee's surrender at Appomattox—part of Wilson's Federal cavalry raid pressing toward Macon met the local "Worrill Grays" near Culloden. Fewer than 200 strong and badly outnumbered, the Georgians fought a stubborn two-hour battle before yielding, leaving their dead and wounded on the field. The fighting was fierce enough that the two Indiana soldiers who seized the unit's flag received the Medal of Honor.

Atlanta, GA

On July 28, 1864, during the struggle for Atlanta, the divisions of Gen. J.C. Brown of S.D. Lee's Confederate corps launched the opening assaults of the Battle of Ezra Church against the Union right flank. Brantly's Mississippians briefly carried the Federal log barricades before being thrown back by a counterattack, and a renewed effort by Walthall's division met the same fate.

Atlanta, GA

At the Battle of Ezra Church on July 28, 1864, Confederate Gen. A.P. Stewart brought Walthall's and Loring's divisions forward to renew the assault on the Union lines west of Atlanta. Riding to this hill to assess Walthall's failed attack, Stewart was struck by a spent bullet; command passed to Walthall, who withdrew and called off further attacks. That night Hood pulled his battered troops back into Atlanta.

Atlanta, GA

This spot marked the extreme right of Gen. O.O. Howard's Army of the Tennessee during the Battle of Ezra Church on July 28, 1864. Lightburn's brigade of Logan's corps held the line here as Brown's four Confederate brigades tried to roll up the Federal flank, and again when Walthall's division attempted the same ground—both attacks failing to dislodge the Union defenders.

Galveston, TX

As part of the Union blockade, Commander W. B. Renshaw's fleet took the lightly defended port of Galveston on October 4, 1862. Determined to recapture Texas's most important harbor, Major General J. B. Magruder improvised a navy—refitting two steamers as 'cottonclad' gunboats manned by cavalry—and struck before dawn on January 1, 1863. In the fierce fight the Confederates boarded the Harriet Lane, the Union flagship Westfield exploded, and the remaining federal ships fled, leaving Galveston in Confederate hands for the rest of the war.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1996

On October 4, 1777, the Revolutionary War came to the doorstep of Cliveden, the elegant country home of Pennsylvania Chief Justice Benjamin Chew. A British regiment barricaded itself inside the stone mansion and beat back a determined American assault, and more than seventy men fell on these grounds. Though Washington's army was defeated, the audacity of his coordinated attack impressed European observers.

Gonzales, TX

On October 2, 1835, near the Guadalupe River above Gonzales, Texian colonists fired the first shots of the Texas Revolution—earning the clash its nickname, the 'Lexington of Texas.' The trouble began when Mexican Col. Ugartechea demanded the return of a small cannon lent to the town for defense. The colonists buried it, dug it up, mounted it on ox-cart wheels, loaded it with scrap iron, and drove the Mexican dragoons back toward San Antonio.

Hanover, PA · est. 1954

On the morning of June 30, 1863, days before the armies collided at Gettysburg, Confederate horsemen under J.E.B. Stuart clashed with Union cavalry in the streets of Hanover. Stuart's troopers briefly seized the town before the Union counterattack drove them off, and by evening the Confederates withdrew. The running fight helped delay Stuart's raiders and kept them from rejoining Lee's army before the great battle to come.

Jasper County, SC

On November 30, 1864, Union forces under Brig. Gen. John P. Hatch pushed inland to sever the vital Charleston–Savannah railroad and met a smaller Confederate force dug in near Honey Hill. Confederate commander Col. Charles J. Colcock ordered a field of grass set ablaze to slow the advancing Federals, buying time to gather reinforcements behind strong earthworks. Short on ammunition and unable to break the position, the Union troops were repelled and withdrew.

Irvine, KY

On July 30, 1863, Confederate Col. John S. Scott and his troopers rode into Irvine intending to capture the 14th Kentucky Cavalry, but held the town only briefly. Union Col. W. P. Sanders pursued, catching part of Scott's rear guard, and the two forces exchanged fire across the river as Scott's men crossed and slipped away. It was the only Civil War engagement in this stretch of eastern Kentucky.

Jones Creek, TX

In 1824, Stephen F. Austin dispatched Captain Randal Jones with a company of 23 men to the lower Brazos amid conflict with the Karankawa people. Jones's scouts located the Karankawa camp near this site, and at dawn the Texans attacked, only to find the Karankawa ready with spears. The clash left about fifteen Karankawa dead and scattered the rest.

Clayton County, GA

On August 31, 1864, the opening day of the Battle of Jonesboro, Gen. O.O. Howard's Army of the Tennessee entrenched along the Flint River after marching up from Fairburn. Confederate corps under S.D. Lee and Hardee attacked the Union lines but could not break them, leaving the contest drawn and unresolved until the following day.

Jonesboro, GA

On September 1, 1864, the final pitched battle of the Atlanta Campaign was fought around Jonesboro. Hardee's Confederate corps, posted in a salient near the Warren house, was assaulted late in the day by three divisions of Davis's 14th Corps, aided by Stanley's 4th Corps advancing down the railroad. With nightfall Hardee withdrew south to Lovejoy's Station.

Cobb County, GA

On June 22, 1864, Union divisions of the 23rd and 20th Corps linked up near Kolb's farm on the Powder Springs Road as Sherman probed the Confederate left. Federal skirmishers, backed by the 14th Kentucky, seized a ridge and held it stubbornly, and when Stevenson's Confederate division advanced against the main line it was driven back.

Cobb County, GA

On June 22, 1864, as the Union right threatened to outflank the Confederate line, Gen. Joseph Johnston sent Hood's corps to his far left near Kolb's farm to stop the advance. Hood ordered Stevenson's four brigades against the 20th and 23rd Corps posted astride the Powder Springs Road, but this and later attempts failed to check the Federal push southward.

Cobb County, GA

On June 22, 1864, the 14th Kentucky and 123rd New York were posted as skirmishers east of the Kolb farmstead during the Battle of Kolb's Farm. Their stubborn resistance, together with Federal artillery fire, disrupted and delayed Stevenson's Confederate assault on the main Union line along the Powder Springs Road, helping to halt the attack short of its objective.

Progreso, TX

In 1859 and 1860 Juan N. Cortina led a series of raids on Texas settlements along the lower Rio Grande, sparking the clashes known as the Cortina Wars. On February 4, 1860, Cortina's raiders met Capt. John S. "Rip" Ford's Texas Rangers at La Bolsa Bend, where the Rangers beat back an attack on the riverboat Ranchero as it steamed down from Rio Grande City. Cortina slipped across into Mexico, where he later rose to become a general in the Mexican Army.

Mandeville, LA

On September 10, 1779, Captain William Pickles won a naval fight off this shore, and on October 16 the British living between Bayou Lacombe and the Tangipahoa River formally surrendered to him. The action helped bring the Revolutionary War's Gulf Coast fighting to a close in Spanish Louisiana. It was part of the wider struggle in which Spain, allied against Britain, pressed the British out of the lower Mississippi region.