Civil War

Franklin, TX

Walter Washington Williams was reputed to be the last surviving soldier of the Civil War, said to have served as a forage master for the celebrated Hood's Texas Brigade. Born in Mississippi in 1842, he moved to Texas soon after the war and farmed near here, living quietly until extreme old age brought him fame as one of the last living veterans. President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave him the honorary rank of general and proclaimed national mourning at his death in 1959. He rests in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, one of the oldest burial grounds in Robertson County, within the colony planted in the 1820s by pioneer Sterling C. Robertson.

Flat Rock, NC

George A. Trenholm was a Charleston cotton broker and financier who served as the Confederate Secretary of the Treasury in the war's final year, 1864–65, struggling to sustain a collapsing wartime economy. A South Carolina legislator and one of the South's wealthiest men, he summered at "Solitude," an estate that once stood near this marker in the cool mountain air of Flat Rock. He is often cited as a possible model for the character Rhett Butler.

Pampa, TX

Long before he became a household name, young West Point engineer George B. McClellan crossed this country in 1852 as part of Randolph Marcy's expedition exploring the Texas Panhandle, leaving his name on a nearby creek and, later, a lake. He went on to design the army saddle still bearing his name, lead the Union Army as a general, and run against Abraham Lincoln for the presidency in 1864 before serving as governor of New Jersey. This marker ties a familiar Civil War figure to his little-known early days surveying the West.

Edna, TX

George F. Horton built this house in 1876 in Old Texana, a once-promising Jackson County town, and when its fortunes faded he simply dismantled the home and moved it to nearby Edna in 1882. A Confederate veteran who became a businessman and postmaster, Horton belonged to the generation rebuilding civilian lives across Texas after the Civil War. The house was recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1965.

Kingsbury, TX

George Francis fought in the 1836 Texas War for Independence, then brought his family to Texas and built this house on York's Creek in 1849, near a crossing used by the San Antonio-to-Bastrop mail route. A generation later, all six of his sons marched from this home to serve the Confederacy in the Civil War. Several never returned — one killed at Chickamauga, another dying in service at Galveston, and a third falling at the 1864 Battle of Mansfield.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1999

George Gordon Meade rose from Army engineer to major general, taking command of the Army of the Potomac just days before it turned back Robert E. Lee's invasion at Gettysburg in July 1863 — the campaign that broke the Confederacy's northward push. Philadelphia was his family's city, and a grateful nation gave him a house here, where he lived until his death in 1872. The marker stands near that home, tying the Union's most consequential victory to the ordinary streets of the general who won it.

San Marcos, TX

George H. Talmadge (1840–1911), an Illinois farmer and Union Army veteran of the Civil War, moved to San Marcos in 1888 with his wife Lydia and their children, including an adopted daughter orphaned by the Great Chicago Fire. A carpenter by trade, Talmadge built this Victorian house of cypress in 1889. His family lived in the home for 86 years.

Corpus Christi, TX

Born into slavery in Kentucky in 1843, George Owens enlisted in the Union Army in 1864 and served with the 116th United States Colored Infantry through the Appomattox Campaign that ended the Civil War. He then joined the newly formed 9th Cavalry—one of the regiments Plains nations called Buffalo Soldiers—patrolling and guarding the west Texas frontier before settling in Corpus Christi, where he died in 1879.

Pecos, TX

George R. Reeves raised and captained a company in the 11th Texas Cavalry at the Civil War's outbreak, campaigning across Arkansas, the Indian Territory, and the 1862 invasion of Kentucky. Promoted to colonel and command of his regiment by 1863, he led it at the bloody battle of Chickamauga and through the grinding Atlanta campaign, opposing Sherman's march to the sea and fighting on into the Carolinas in 1865. The West Texas county and town of Pecos's Reeves County bear his name.

Pottsboro, TX

George R. Reeves, born in Tennessee in 1826, came to Texas around 1845 and climbed steadily through public life as a Grayson County tax collector, sheriff, and state representative. During the Civil War he served as a Confederate officer, fighting at Chickamauga and through the grinding Hundred Days Atlanta Campaign. He returned to politics afterward and rose to Speaker of the Texas House before his death in 1882 — the man for whom vast Reeves County was later named.

Jefferson, TX

Captain George T. Todd, a Confederate veteran who became a district attorney, state legislator, and senior East Texas attorney, built this late Victorian home in Jefferson in 1893 for his large family. Distinguished by a corner tower with a mansard roof, the house remains in the hands of his descendants.

San Marcos, TX

George Thomas McGehee arrived in the San Marcos area as a boy in 1846, among its earliest settlers. He rode with Terry's Texas Rangers in the Civil War, served three terms in the state legislature, and in 1895 crowned his standing by building this turreted Victorian residence with his wife Sarah. Restored in 1949 by the Thompson family, the house survives as a monument to a pioneer-turned-statesman.

Henderson, TX

Born in South Carolina in 1848, George W. Burton served the Confederacy before migrating to Rusk County, Texas, around 1880. He went on to represent the county in the Texas House of Representatives from 1915 to 1921, three eventful terms during which he took part in the impeachment of Governor James Ferguson, the state's mobilization for World War I, and the creation of the Texas State Highway Department. He and his wife, Julia Savannah Palmer, raised six children.

Austin, TX

George W. Sampson, a former Confederate captain turned leading Austin merchant, married Mary Goodwin Hall—niece of Reconstruction governor Edmund J. Davis—in an 1872 ceremony that was the first wedding held in the Governor's Mansion. In 1875 he built this house of native limestone hand-cut on site, fed by a rainwater cistern that supplied what may have been Austin's first complete indoor plumbing. A Corinthian-columned gallery was added in the 1920s.

Malone, TX

Born in Tennessee in 1826, George Washington Savage came to Texas in 1847 and made his mark as a farmer, race-horse breeder and trainer, and Confederate cavalryman. He eased the way for German immigrant families by selling them parcels and helping them start farms, and in 1885 he donated land for Savage School No. 1, the area's first school. At his death in 1899 he left a second wife and ten children.

Canton, TX

George Washington Tull arrived in Canton in 1858 after a stint chasing gold in California, and built a mercantile business that anchored the courthouse square for more than half a century. He served as a Confederate private during the Civil War, then returned to grow one of the town's most enduring stores, even constructing the county courthouse in 1872 under contract. Known as the wealthiest man in town yet remembered as the poor man's friend, he helped shape Canton's commercial district.

Cumberland Township, PA · est. 1947

Near this spot on November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln rose to dedicate the new National Cemetery for the Union dead of the Battle of Gettysburg. In barely two minutes he delivered the address he had drafted in Washington and revised the night before, redefining the war as a struggle for a nation "conceived in liberty" and a government "of the people, by the people, for the people." The few hundred words spoken here became one of the most consequential speeches in American history.

Gettysburg, PA · est. 1947

Here on November 19, 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the National Cemetery, honoring the soldiers who had fallen months earlier in the war's bloodiest battle. Having written the speech in Washington and polished it after reaching Gettysburg the previous evening, Lincoln distilled the meaning of the Union cause into a few immortal sentences. The brief remarks, overshadowed that day by a two-hour oration, would long outlive every other word spoken at the ceremony.

Gettysburg, PA · est. 1895

Lee's second invasion of the North ended here in three days of fighting that left over 50,000 casualties. Four months later Lincoln redefined the war's purpose in 272 words.

Cumberland Township, PA · est. 1947

After three days of savage fighting at Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia gave up the field and began withdrawing on July 4, 1863, taking the Fairfield Road toward the mountain passes and the Potomac. The retreat was a grueling ordeal, and swollen river waters trapped the army on the northern bank for days before it could finally cross on the night of July 13. Those anxious days offered the Union a chance to destroy Lee's battered force before it escaped south.

Franklin Township, PA · est. 1947

In the last days of June 1863, Confederate columns poured east over South Mountain from Chambersburg as Lee concentrated his scattered army in the Pennsylvania countryside. A. P. Hill's corps gathered here on June 29–30, and on July 1 its advance guard pushed toward Gettysburg, colliding with Union troops west of town. That chance meeting opened the greatest battle ever fought on American soil.

Mount Joy Township, PA · est. 1947

Only days before the battle, President Lincoln handed command of the Army of the Potomac to George G. Meade, replacing Joseph Hooker on June 28, 1863. Racing to meet Lee's invasion, Meade rode this road from Taneytown to Gettysburg on the night of July 1 and set up headquarters just south of town. From that modest farmhouse he would direct the defense that broke the Confederate assault.

Tyrone Township, PA · est. 1947

As Lee gathered his far-flung divisions, Jubal Early's Confederates marched back from York to rejoin the main army. They camped three miles east of here on June 30, 1863, then turned south the next morning toward Gettysburg on orders from corps commander Richard Ewell. Early's men would arrive in time to help drive Union forces through the town on the battle's first day.

Mount Joy Township, PA · est. 1947

As the fighting opened, Union reinforcements streamed toward Gettysburg along these country roads. The 12th Corps reached this point on the afternoon of July 1, 1863, and soon took position on Culp's Hill, the anchor of the Union right. Over the next day the 6th and 5th Corps followed, filling out the fishhook line that would hold against Lee's attacks.

Cumberland Township, PA · est. 1947

On the first day of the battle, the Union 11th Corps hurried up from the Emmitsburg Road and turned north here toward Gettysburg to support the troops already engaged. That night the 2nd Corps encamped at this spot as the army massed for the fighting to come. These crossroads marked the steady flow of blue columns toward the battle line.

Tyrone Township, PA · est. 1947

Robert Rodes led his Confederate division back from Carlisle to rejoin Lee's concentrating army, camping here on the night of June 30, 1863. The next morning his men marched west toward Biglerville — then called Middletown — and on toward the developing fight at Gettysburg. Rodes' troops would strike the Union line from the north on the battle's first day.

Cumberland Township, PA · est. 1947

On July 1, 1863, Robert Rodes' Confederate division came down this road from Carlisle toward the sound of battle at Gettysburg. Here his men turned along the ridge toward Oak Hill, seizing high ground from which to strike the exposed Union flank. Their attack helped collapse the Northern line north of town on the battle's opening day.

Hamilton Township, PA · est. 1947

Late in June 1863, before the armies met at Gettysburg, Jubal Early's Confederates swept east toward the Susquehanna. John B. Gordon's brigade passed here on June 27 bound for York, while Early's main force took a parallel route through Hampton and East Berlin. Both columns entered York the following day, part of the deepest Confederate thrust into Pennsylvania.

Cumberland Township, PA · est. 1947

On the morning of July 1, 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg opened when Union cavalry under John Buford met A. P. Hill's advancing Confederates coming from the west. Buford's dismounted troopers bought precious time until infantry could arrive, but the appearance of Ewell's corps that afternoon forced the outnumbered Union men back through the town. The stage was set for two more days of decisive fighting.

Freedom Township, PA · est. 1947

In the final days of June 1863, tens of thousands of Union soldiers were converging on the Pennsylvania crossroads town of Gettysburg. The 1st Corps camped on this ground on June 30 before marching at dawn to support John Buford's cavalry, which was already skirmishing with Confederate forces west of town. That collision opened the three-day battle that became the war's great turning point.

South Middleton Township, PA · est. 1947

On July 1, 1863, Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's Confederate cavalry rode into the Carlisle area by way of Dover and Dillsburg, only to find that Gen. Ewell's troops had already moved on the day before. Stuart put the U.S. Cavalry Barracks to the torch and then turned toward Gettysburg, where the battle that would decide the campaign had just begun. The moment captures the confusion and hard riding that shaped the Gettysburg Campaign's opening.

Carlisle, PA · est. 1947

On June 27, 1863, Gen. Ewell's Confederate corps marched along this road into Carlisle as part of Lee's bold invasion aimed at Harrisburg, sending Jenkins' cavalry ahead to scout the way. Two days later, Lee recalled Ewell to concentrate the army near Cashtown, drawing the Confederates back toward the ground where the Battle of Gettysburg would unfold. This road traced the high-water line of the Southern thrust into Pennsylvania.

Greene Township, PA · est. 1947

In late June 1863, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia poured north into Pennsylvania, and General Richard S. Ewell's corps marched this road bound for Carlisle with orders to threaten the state capital at Harrisburg. Before he could strike, Ewell was recalled on June 29 to concentrate with Lee near Cashtown. Within days those converging roads would funnel both armies into the fields around Gettysburg.

Guilford Township, PA · est. 1947

Chambersburg felt the Confederate invasion early: General Albert G. Jenkins' Southern cavalry rode in on June 15, 1863, well ahead of the main army, and returned to lead the advance a week later. On June 26, Robert E. Lee himself entered the town at the head of the Army of Northern Virginia. From this staging ground the Confederates fanned out across south-central Pennsylvania in the days before Gettysburg.

Ayr Township, PA · est. 1947

This corner of the Cumberland Valley changed hands repeatedly during the 1863 invasion, occupied three times by Confederate columns pushing north. General Albert G. Jenkins' cavalry came first on June 19, followed by General George H. Steuart's troops in late June and, after a brief skirmish with Union forces, General John D. Imboden's command on June 29. Each passage marked the shifting tide of Lee's campaign.

Penn Township, PA · est. 1947

In late June 1863, Robert E. Lee's Confederate army swept deep into Pennsylvania, and General Jubal Early's division ranged across York County ahead of the main force. On June 27, men detached by General John B. Gordon passed through Hanover by this route to destroy a railroad bridge at Hanover Junction, cutting Union communications. Their work done, the raiders rejoined Gordon as the armies drew toward a collision at Gettysburg.

Penn Township, PA · est. 1947

As the Gettysburg Campaign reached its crisis, Union cavalry under General Judson Kilpatrick scoured the countryside hunting for J.E.B. Stuart's Confederate horsemen. On June 30, 1863, Stuart struck here, but was repulsed. Cut off from Early's departed column, Stuart rode north to Carlisle and did not reach the Gettysburg battlefield until July 2 — a delay that left Lee blind to Union movements at a critical hour.

Dover Township, PA · est. 1947

In the last days of June 1863, part of General Jubal Early's Confederate division advanced on York along this road, spreading Lee's army across southern Pennsylvania. From here Early sent Colonel French toward York Haven to burn the Susquehanna bridges, hoping to sever the region's rail links. Then, ordered to concentrate with Lee, most of Early's men marched back over this same road on June 30 toward the fields at Gettysburg.

Wrightsville, PA · est. 1947

On June 28, 1863, Confederate troops sent by General Jubal Early reached Wrightsville, aiming to cross the mile-long Susquehanna bridge and press on toward Harrisburg, the state capital. Rather than let the enemy over the river, retreating Union militia set the great covered bridge ablaze. The flames barred the Confederate advance and marked the farthest eastward reach of Lee's invasion.

West Manchester Township, PA · est. 1947

On June 28, 1863, General John B. Gordon's brigade of Early's division marched through York along this route on its way to Wrightsville and the Susquehanna. Early's main force lingered here in York until June 30, when it turned west to reunite with Lee's army. Within days those same soldiers would be fighting at Gettysburg, the greatest battle of the war.

Berwick Township, PA · est. 1948

In late June 1863, as Robert E. Lee's army spread across southern Pennsylvania, Confederate divisions under Jubal Early swept eastward toward the Susquehanna. Troops led by John B. Gordon marched past this spot on June 27 bound for York, while Early's main column moved along a parallel road through Hampton and East Berlin. Both wings converged on York the next day — the deepest penetration the Confederacy would make into the North before the armies collided days later at Gettysburg.

Guilford Township, PA · est. 1948

In late June 1863, Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had pushed deep into Pennsylvania, and Lee himself made Chambersburg his headquarters. Learning that Union forces had crossed the Potomac and were closing in, he ordered his scattered corps to concentrate near Cashtown and marched out of the city along this road. Within days those converging armies would collide a few miles east at Gettysburg.

Carlisle, PA · est. 1949

By late June 1863, Confederate General Richard Ewell's corps had pushed as far north as Carlisle, the high-water reach of Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania. On June 28 Ewell received Robert E. Lee's orders to concentrate the army, and over the next day his divisions marched south from Carlisle over this road through Mount Holly Springs, York Springs, and Heidlersburg toward a small crossroads town called Gettysburg. Those movements set the stage for the war's most consequential battle.

Snake Spring Township, PA · est. 1963

In June 1863, as Robert E. Lee's army pushed north into Pennsylvania, militia under Colonel J.C. Higgins dug the entrenchments still traceable along these roadsides to guard the vital railroad at Altoona against a feared Confederate thrust. The threat never materialized: as the armies converged on Gettysburg at the end of June, the danger passed and the earthworks were never tested. They remain a quiet trace of the anxiety that gripped the Pennsylvania countryside that summer.

Camp Hill, PA · est. 1963

In the last days of June 1863, as Robert E. Lee's army pushed north, Confederate cavalry under General Albert G. Jenkins probed toward the Pennsylvania capital at Harrisburg. Oyster Point, near present-day Camp Hill, marked the high-water mark of that advance before local militia met the Southerners in a sharp skirmish on June 29. Within days the Confederate tide would recede toward the fields of Gettysburg.

Waynesboro, PA · est. 1964

On June 23, 1863, Confederate troops under General Jubal Early occupied Waynesboro as Lee's army swept into Pennsylvania. The next day they marched by Mont Alto toward Greenwood, and on June 25 received General Ewell's order to press on to York. These movements were part of the wide Confederate sweep across south-central Pennsylvania in the days before the armies converged at Gettysburg.

Antrim Township, PA · est. 1964

On June 22, 1863, the 1st New York Cavalry clashed here with the Confederate advance guard under General Albert G. Jenkins, one of the first armed encounters as Lee's army entered Pennsylvania. In the fighting Corporal William H. Rihl of Philadelphia fell—the first Union soldier killed in action on Pennsylvania soil. He was buried near where he died, and this ground became his memorial.

Hampden Township, PA · est. 1997

As Robert E. Lee's army pushed deep into Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863, its advance reached almost to the state capital before turning back toward a small town called Gettysburg. Here at Sporting Hill on June 30, hastily mustered New York militia and a Philadelphia battery clashed with Confederate cavalry probing the defenses of Harrisburg. It was the northernmost fighting of the entire campaign, and the graycoats soon withdrew toward Carlisle, leaving their dead behind.

Antrim Township, PA · est. 1997

In the tense weeks before the guns opened at Gettysburg, Confederate columns poured north through the Cumberland Valley on their way to the largest battle ever fought on American soil. General Richard S. Ewell's Second Corps used this route in June 1863 to spearhead Lee's second invasion of the North, with Jubal Early's division peeling off toward Waynesboro. Within days these same forces would converge on a small crossroads town to the east, where three days of fighting decided the campaign.

Straban Township, PA · est. 1998

On July 3, 1863, as the great battle raged at Gettysburg, a major cavalry fight unfolded about a mile southeast of here. Union horsemen under Gen. David McM. Gregg met Confederate cavalry led by Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, whose aim was to strike the Union rear at the decisive moment. Through a series of mounted charges Gregg's troopers drove Stuart from the field, blunting the threat.

Hampden Township, PA · est. 2001

In the last days of June 1863, as Lee's army pushed deep into Pennsylvania, Confederate cavalry commander Brig. Gen. Albert G. Jenkins made his headquarters in this 1787 Rupp family house. His brigade, attached to Ewell's Corps, had ridden through Mechanicsburg to scout the approaches to the state capital at Harrisburg, with an attack planned for June 30. That assault never came—the troops were recalled south to concentrate at Gettysburg, and the war's greatest battle opened instead.

Reading Township, PA · est. 2008

In the last days of June 1863, as the armies converged on Gettysburg, part of Confederate General Jubal Early's division tramped past this ground on its march toward York. Passing by Mummasburg and Hunterstown on June 27, the troops returned two days later along a route just to the north, heading toward Heidlersburg. Their movements were part of the sweeping maneuvers that set the stage for the war's most consequential battle.

Straban Township, PA · est. 2020

As the armies converged on Gettysburg, the fighting spilled into the surrounding countryside. Near Hunterstown on July 2, 1863, Union cavalry under Gen. Judson Kilpatrick — with brigades led by the young George A. Custer and Elon J. Farnsworth — clashed with Confederate horsemen under Gen. Wade Hampton. The four-hour running fight ended with neither side able to claim a clear victory.

Ayr Township, PA · est. 2021

As Robert E. Lee's army pushed into Pennsylvania in June 1863, Confederate raiding parties fanned out into Fulton County to seize horses, livestock, and supplies. On June 29, troopers of the 1st New York Cavalry struck one such party, killing two enemy soldiers, wounding several, and capturing 32 men including their captain. The two Confederate dead were buried here by local residents.

Jefferson, PA · est. 2009

In the tense weeks before the Battle of Gettysburg in the summer of 1863, the war came to the doorsteps of ordinary York County families. As thousands of Confederate and Union troops marched through Jefferson, both armies seized horses, livestock, and food, and Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry occupied the town at the end of June. Days later those same roads funneled the armies toward the fields of Gettysburg, where the war's turning point would unfold.

Philadelphia, PA

Neighbors set this stone — carried from the battlefield at Gettysburg — in 1916 to mark the site of one of the Civil War's largest Union military hospitals, the West Philadelphia General, later renamed Satterlee General Hospital. Sprawling across West Philadelphia, Satterlee treated tens of thousands of sick and wounded soldiers, including many brought north from Gettysburg itself in July 1863. A piece of the battlefield thus commemorates the place where its casualties were nursed.

Farmers Branch, TX

Dr. Samuel H. Gilbert reached Texas about 1850 and by 1857 had built this native-limestone house on 275 acres, combining a medical practice with farming and livestock. A community leader, he helped outfit a local militia unit during the Civil War and later drew the railroad through Farmers Branch by selling land to the Dallas & Wichita line in 1874. The vernacular center-passage house, with Greek Revival touches and twin chimneys, is a rare survivor of early Texas homebuilding.

Gilmer, TX

Founded in 1846 and named for Thomas W. Gilmer — U.S. Secretary of the Navy and a fervent champion of Texas annexation — this East Texas town came of age just as Texas joined the Union. During the Civil War it served as a supply, training, production, and educational center for the Confederacy, and later thrived as a hub of farming, lumbering, and oil. Today it is perhaps best known for its long-running Yamboree sweet-potato festival.

Marshall, TX

Lucy Holcombe Pickens (1832–1899) grew up at Wyalucing, her family's East Texas plantation home that was a hub of social and cultural life among the surrounding plantations. Celebrated for her beauty and charm, she became the only nineteenth-century Texas woman honored with a portrait on currency—the Confederate $100 bill. Her husband served as the Civil War governor of South Carolina, and from 1863 to 1865 Wyalucing housed the Confederate Post Office Department west of the Mississippi.

Munfordville, KY

Built between 1819 and 1822 by Colonel Aylette Hartswell Buckner, Glen Lily was in 1823 the birthplace of Simon Bolivar Buckner. He grew up to command Confederate forces in the Civil War, famously surrendering Fort Donelson in 1862. Buckner later returned to public life as governor of Kentucky from 1887 to 1891 and, in 1896, ran as a candidate for vice president.