Civil War

Ingram, TX

Alabama native Guilford Marion Cade served as a doctor in the Confederate Army before moving to Texas in 1865 and, in 1883, bringing his family to Kerr County. After a storm destroyed the family's log cabin, his son built a frame house, and in the early 1930s a grandson and great-grandson raised this two-story stone house on a high hill — its irregular rubble masonry doubling as a demonstration model for the builder's carpentry clients.

Canton, TX

Georgia-born Cadwell Walton Raines came to Texas in 1858 and served in R.M. Gano's Texas Cavalry during the Civil War before turning to teaching, law, and journalism. As Van Zandt County judge he was caught up in the county's turbulent 1877 County Seat War, and he later published newspapers in several East Texas towns. Appointed State Librarian in 1891 by his friend Governor James Stephen Hogg, he rebuilt the neglected library and assembled its foundational collection of Texana before his death in 1906.

Greene Township, PA · est. 1947

Thaddeus Stevens and James D. Paxton built the Caledonia iron furnace here in 1837, part of the charcoal-iron industry that fed early American growth. Stevens went on to become one of Congress's most uncompromising foes of slavery, and in June 1863 — as Robert E. Lee's army moved toward Gettysburg — Confederate Gen. Jubal Early singled out the works and destroyed them, in part as payback for the ironmaster's antislavery politics. Early burned the furnace on June 26 on his march toward York.

Laredo, TX

As Laredo boomed in the late 1800s, the border city needed a fourth camposanto, but politics, money, and neighborhood objections delayed the new Catholic cemetery until 1901. Its grounds hold special sections for infants, for priests, and for the Marist brothers and four orders of nuns who served the city, alongside laity and soldiers. Among the notable dead are Civil War figures Santos and Refugio Benavides and Bishop Pedro Verdaguer of the Vicariate of Brownsville.

Fletcher, NC

Built in 1859 on the eve of the Civil War, Calvary Episcopal Church has served its mountain community for well over a century. Its churchyard holds the grave of humorist "Bill" Nye along with memorials to a number of prominent Southerners.

Brownsville, TX

Carved from Nueces County in 1848, Cameron County was named for Ewen Cameron, a captain of the ill-fated Mier Expedition executed at Querétaro. Its ground along the lower Rio Grande witnessed the opening clashes of the Mexican War and, remarkably, the last land battle of the Civil War at Palmito Ranch in 1865. Few American counties can claim to bracket two wars so precisely.

Newcastle, TX

During the Civil War, Confederate frontier troops garrisoned Camp Belknap to hold the exposed edge of Texas settlement. Local men joined a frontier regiment of cavalry and rangers that patrolled a chain of posts from the Red River to the Rio Grande, guarding against both raids and a feared Union thrust from Indian Territory. Short on food and ammunition, they concentrated near here in 1863 and met a large Comanche force at Elm Creek the next year.

Driftwood, TX

In the summer of 1896, Hays County Confederate veterans and their families gathered at Martin Spring on Onion Creek and organized a chapter of the United Confederate Veterans, naming it for General Ben McCulloch, who fell at the Battle of Pea Ridge in 1862. The group bought the reunion grounds in 1904, and the annual gathering has continued ever since, missing only one year during World War I. As the last veterans died, the site passed to their sons, grandsons, and descendants, who keep the reunions alive.

Breckenridge, TX

Established near this site in 1862, Camp Breckenridge was one link in a Confederate frontier defense line that stretched from the Red River to the Rio Grande, manned by a company of the Texas Frontier Regiment. Riding posts a day apart, these poorly fed and under-equipped men patrolled a vast country to curb raids and round up draft evaders and renegades while the great battles raged far to the east. They won few glories, but some gave their lives protecting the settlers left behind.

Staples, TX

When the Civil War came, Texas's first Confederate governor, Edward Clark, ordered the creation of volunteer "camps of instruction" like this one in June 1861 — and local farmers, merchants, and artisans supplied the food, guns, and camp gear while experienced men served as drillmasters. Its main task was teaching horse-loving Texans to march, since six in ten preferred the cavalry, prompting Clark to insist that infantry service too was a matter of honor. Units trained here included companies bound for Hood's famous Texas Brigade.

Brownwood, TX

Camp Collier, about 13 miles southwest, was one link in a chain of Confederate frontier posts spaced a day's ride apart from the Red River to the Rio Grande. Manned by the Texas Frontier Regiment, its patrols checked Indian raids and rounded up draft evaders while the main armies fought far to the east. Texas—which voted better than three to one for secession and sent 90,000 troops to Confederate service—relied on posts like this, backed by rangers, militia, and "family forts," to guard a 2,000-mile frontier and coastline.

Coleman, TX

Camp Colorado, a former U.S. Army outpost surrendered at the start of the Civil War, became a link in the Confederate line of frontier defense running from the Red River to the Rio Grande. It served as headquarters for the First Texas Mounted Rifles in 1861 and the Frontier Regiment in 1863, manned by troops and Rangers who patrolled against Indian raids and rounded up deserters. Camp life was hard, marked by shortages of food, ammunition, and horses and the constant threat of attack.

Throckmorton, TX

Surrendered by federal forces at the outbreak of the Civil War, Camp Cooper became a Confederate outpost anchoring Texas's long frontier defense line from the Red River to the Rio Grande. Manned by Texas cavalry, mounted riflemen, and Rangers, its perpetually undersupplied troops patrolled against Comanche raids, Union incursion, and marauding deserters. Their constant scouting shielded supply trains and pioneer families clinging to the edge of settlement.

Archer City, TX

During the Civil War the Confederacy strung a thin line of frontier posts from the Red River to the Rio Grande, and Camp Cureton anchored a stretch of it near where the Gainesville–Fort Belknap road crossed the West Fork of the Trinity. Manned by the Texas Frontier Regiment and named for veteran Indian-fighter Capt. Jack Cureton, its poorly supplied troopers patrolled against Comanche raids while guarding supply trains and watching for Union movement. Contemporaries judged them more effective at curbing raids than the U.S. Army had been.

Harrisburg, PA · est. 1992

When war came in April 1861, eighty acres of Harrisburg ground became one of the Union's most important training grounds, named for the state's energetic wartime governor, Andrew Gregg Curtin. Between 1861 and 1865, more military units were mustered and drilled here than at any other Northern camp. Tens of thousands of raw recruits became soldiers on this field.

Westtown Township, PA · est. 2013

In the weeks after the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, more than 2,000 Union soldiers—captured and then paroled by the retreating Confederates—were gathered at a makeshift camp on this ground to await formal exchange. Under the era's parole system, captured men were often released on a pledge not to fight and held instead by their own army. The surrounding community took them in and nursed the wounded until the federal government voided the paroles and sent the men back to their regiments.

Tyler, TX

Camp Ford was a Confederate stockade near Tyler that held captured Union soldiers during the Civil War, growing into the largest prisoner-of-war camp west of the Mississippi River. Prisoners built log huts inside the log-walled enclosure, enduring crowding and shortages until the war's end. Though this marker's text is spare, the site stands for the grim experience of thousands of captured federal troops in Texas.

Tyler, TX

On this Smith County site stood Camp Ford, the largest Confederate prison for Union captives west of the Mississippi. Established in 1862 as a training camp named for Col. John S. "Rip" Ford, it was converted to a prison in 1863 and, after Confederate victories in 1864, expanded to hold some 4,700 Federal soldiers and sailors. Prisoners built their own crude shelters — log huts, burrows, and brush arbors they called "shebangs" — and drew water from a nearby spring until the camp's abandonment at war's end in 1865.

Victoria, TX

In the opening months of the Civil War, the Confederacy scrambled to raise and drill volunteers across Texas. At the suggestion of Col. Henry McCullouch, a site near Victoria known as Nuner's Mott was chosen in 1861 to muster and train recruits drawn from nine surrounding counties. The men formed the Sixth Texas Infantry, drilling here into the spring of 1862 before marching to a hard war — captured at Arkansas Post, then fighting through Missionary Ridge, Atlanta, Franklin, and Nashville. They finally laid down their arms with the Army of Tennessee in North Carolina.

Del Rio, TX

When U.S. troops surrendered their Texas posts at the outbreak of the Civil War, Camp Hudson on the Devil's River became a Confederate frontier outpost from 1861 to 1862, manned by the 2nd Texas Cavalry. Its soldiers guarded the military road, escorted supply trains, and served as a base for the Confederate New Mexico campaign aimed at reaching the Pacific and choking off gold to the North. To pass the tedium, troops eager to fight for the Confederacy even produced a camp newspaper.

Straban Township, PA

In the sweltering weeks after the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, the fields east of town became Camp Letterman, the largest field hospital of the Civil War, where thousands of wounded soldiers from both armies were treated in orderly rows of tents. Named for Dr. Jonathan Letterman, the Army of the Potomac's medical director whose battlefield-evacuation system revolutionized military medicine, the camp combined surgery, convalescence, and an adjoining cemetery. The fragment quoted here — a grim bedside note that a soldier's recovery 'is yet doubtful' — captures the daily uncertainty that hung over the men who lay here through the summer and fall.

San Saba, TX

During the Civil War, Camp McMillan was one link in a chain of Confederate outposts strung a day's ride apart from the Red River to the Rio Grande, manned by the Texas Frontier Regiment. Its patrols guarded settlers against raids, rounded up draft evaders, and held a vast stretch of the frontier while the great battles raged far to the east. Backed by state rangers, militia, and citizen posses operating from nearby family forts, these Confederates defended a two-thousand-mile line at real cost to their own lives.

Bandera, TX

Established in 1862, Camp Montel was one link in the Confederate defense line stretching from the Red River to the Rio Grande, named for surveyor and Bandera colonizer Captain Charles DeMontel. Its troops of the Texas Frontier Regiment furnished their own guns and mounts but often went short of food, clothing, and supplies as they guarded settlements against raids. With most local men away at war—Bandera County counted just 399 people in 1860—these scouting parties managed to curb frontier attacks until the war's end.

Jessamine County, KY

Established in 1863, Camp Nelson housed the families of African American soldiers and became the chief center issuing emancipation papers to the formerly enslaved. Conditions in the makeshift camp were deadly—many women and children died of disease and exposure, and a brutal winter expulsion in 1864 killed many more—until the Reverend John G. Fee and other humanitarian workers won improvements. A school, hospital, and permanent housing eventually served up to 3,000 people in their transition to freedom, though the Army's 1866 withdrawal left refugees exposed to violent white "regulators."

Carson City, NV

Established just north of here in October 1864, Camp Nye was the home base of Companies D and E of the 1st Nevada Volunteer Cavalry during the Civil War. Rather than fighting Confederates, these Union troopers were largely engaged in conflicts with American Indians across the region; Company D suffered Nevada's only two combat deaths of the war in a battle at Table Mountain in Elko County on May 20, 1865. The camp was deactivated that August, and no trace of its barracks and stables remains.

Jefferson Parish, LA

In 1862 Confederate and Louisiana authorities laid out Camp Parapet as part of the northern defenses of New Orleans, expecting an attack from upriver. Instead the city fell to a Union fleet coming up from the Gulf, and the fortifications passed into Federal hands, serving as a Northern training camp for the rest of the war.

Baird, TX

Established in 1862, Camp Pecan was one of a chain of posts set a day's horseback ride apart, manned by the Texas Frontier Regiment to guard the state's western line of settlement during the Civil War. With few men and chronic shortages of food, clothing, and horses, its Confederates faced Indian raids from the west and renegades and deserters from the east. Against these odds they managed to hold the frontier, and the State of Texas raised this memorial to them in 1963.

Eagle Pass, TX

During the Civil War, Camp Rabb was one of eighteen Confederate outposts strung a day's ride apart from the Red River to the Rio Grande, meant to guard against both Indian raids and Federal invasion. Named for a captain in the Frontier Regiment of Texas Cavalry, it watched a ford on the Cotton Road, the vital route by which Southern cotton reached market. Nearby Fort Duncan, a former U.S. post, protected that lifeline trade of cotton for arms and supplies against Union forces upriver.

McMullen County, TX

During the Civil War, Camp Rio Frio was a home-guard post buffering older settlements from Apache raids and bandits, manned by scattered local men of the 29th Brigade, Texas Militia. They lived in dirt-floored picket homes and made do with prickly-pear salad, Spanish dagger blooms, hominy, and wild game, wearing homespun dyed blue with Brazil root or gold with agarita. The camp later became Dogtown and finally the town of Tilden.

Eastland, TX

During the Civil War, Camp Salmon was one link in a chain of Confederate posts set a day's horseback ride apart from the Red River to the Rio Grande, manned by the Texas Frontier Regiment to guard settlers against raids. Named for post commander Capt. John Salmon and later renamed Camp McCord, its men served short of food, ammunition, and horses, far from the war's celebrated battlefields. Their duty was to hold a 2,000-mile line of frontier and coast for a Confederacy that leaned heavily on Texas for supply.

Kingsville, TX

On San Fernando Creek stood a Confederate post guarding the "cotton road," the vital smuggling and trade route that ran from East Texas to the Rio Grande, keeping the blockaded South supplied. Manned from 1862 and reinforced in 1864 under the famed Colonel John S. "RIP" Ford, the camp anchored a network of cavalry commands — including Tejano units under Santos Benavides and home guards that counted King Ranch founder Richard King — who skirmished with Federal forces across South Texas. From here Ford's "Cavalry of the West" watched the cotton road and pressed the fight toward the Rio Grande Valley.

Holliday, TX

In 1898 the United Confederate Veterans of Archer County purchased 106 acres as reunion grounds, naming the camp for the Confederate general Stonewall Jackson. For nearly four decades, until 1935, aging veterans and their families gathered here each year for three-day reunions that drew some five hundred people. Alongside the memories and speeches came ball games, dancing, contests, shows, and rodeos.

Gilmer, TX

This site marks a Civil War recruiting camp, one of the gathering points where Texas raised men for Confederate service during the conflict. Such camps were the first stop for volunteers and conscripts, where recruits were mustered, organized into companies, and sent on toward the front. They were a common but often short-lived feature of the wartime landscape across the state.

Marietta, OH

When the Civil War called Ohio's men to arms, this ground near Marietta became Camp Tucker, a mustering and training campground for Union troops. It took its name in honor of Benjamin Tupper, a Revolutionary War brigadier general who had helped organize the Ohio Company and stood among Marietta's first settlers in 1788. The site links two chapters of American service — the founding of the frontier settlement and the fight to preserve the Union three generations later.

Cheltenham Township, PA · est. 1999

Established in 1863 in Cheltenham Township, Camp William Penn was Pennsylvania's only training camp for African American soldiers and the largest of eighteen such camps in the nation. Over 10,000 men in eleven regiments of United States Colored Troops trained here before shipping out to fight in Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, and beyond; the camp closed in August 1865 as the war ended.

Catoosa County, GA

In early May 1864, Union corps marching from Cleveland, Tennessee, converged near Catoosa Springs to open Sherman's campaign against Atlanta, moving south toward Dalton on May 7. From the yard of the nearby Dr. Lee house, the Federal high command—Sherman, Thomas, Schofield, and others—watched the first troop movements of the drive. The armies pressed on toward Tunnel Hill and Rocky Face Ridge.

Palestine, TX

This is one of the countless small family graveyards scattered across Texas, begun by the Campbell family who settled the Mound Prairie community in 1844. Son John Bartlett Campbell returned from Civil War service, worked in a hardware store to buy his own land, and set aside an acre where his father became the first burial in 1876; descendants use the cemetery still.

Campbellsville, KY

Taylor County's oldest congregation grew from the Pitman Creek (1791) and Robinson Creek (by 1793) churches, which merged and took the Campbellsville name in 1852. During the Civil War the frame meetinghouse served as a courtroom after Confederates burned the county courthouse. A series of later buildings—one lost to fire in 1962—led to the present Greek Revival edifice of 1963.

Campbellsville, KY

On Christmas Day 1864, the courthouse at Campbellsville went up in flames as Confederate General Hylan B. Lyon swept through Kentucky. Leading a force that began at 800 men, Lyon aimed to enforce the Confederate draft and pull Union attention away from Nashville, burning seven courthouses that federal troops had been using in just 23 days. Desertions thinned his ranks to 250 before he slipped out of the state in early January.

Mt. Enterprise, TX

The Mt. Zion Baptist Association, a fellowship of thirteen area churches, organized on this ground in 1857, and the cemetery takes its "campground" name from the Confederate cavalry of General John A. Wharton, who camped at the church during 1864-65. Though the first recorded burial dates to 1910, numerous unmarked graves point to earlier interments, and the roughly 140-site cemetery still serves the rural community.

Camp Verde, TX

During the Civil War, Texas could not spare Confederate regulars to guard its long frontier, so in 1862 a state "frontier regiment" post rose near the old U.S. Army Camp Verde, part of a chain of outposts spaced a day's ride apart from the Red River to the Rio Grande. Troops who often lacked food and supplies still patrolled effectively against raids, while the captured federal camels — some driven by their Egyptian handlers — hauled Confederate cotton to Mexico to trade for salt and other scarce goods. The camp even held a canyon prison for Union soldiers, and its dances featured a camel named "Old Major" and a prisoner-ventriloquist frightening the ladies with unseen pig sounds.

Corsicana, TX

A New York native, Charles Henry Allyn served as a Union captain in the Civil War before coming to Texas in 1868 and settling in Corsicana with his wife Angela in 1871. There he became a pillar of the growing town's economy, helping organize its first national bank, savings and loan companies, and cotton mill. He served on the city council and as mayor from 1888 to 1890, remaining active in civic, educational, and church affairs until his death in 1918.

Prairieville, TX

Alabama-born Edward Thomas Broughton settled in Texas as a boy, became a lawyer, and was serving as district attorney in Kaufman when war came in 1861. He helped raise a local company, the Kaufman Light Infantry, which mustered at Prairieville and was renamed the Johnson Guards before joining Colonel John Gregg's 7th Texas Volunteers. Captured at Fort Donelson and again in 1863, sickened in prison yet returning each time to command, Broughton survived the war to serve in the Texas Senate before his death in 1874.

Mt. Vernon, TX

Born in 1823, F. Marion Hastings enlisted from Dade County, Missouri, in 1861 and rode with Sterling Price, Jo Shelby, and John S. Marmaduke through the hard-fought cavalry raids that swept Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Surrendering at Shreveport in June 1865, he came to Texas that autumn and rebuilt a public life on the Franklin County frontier, serving as county commissioner and then county judge into the 1890s. His path from Confederate trooper to local jurist traces the wider story of Southern veterans who shaped Reconstruction-era Texas.

Cotulla, TX

A Georgia native who came to Texas in 1853, Jasper N. Daniel won election to the state legislature in 1859 and served as a Confederate captain during the Civil War. Settling in Cotulla in 1884, he became justice of the peace and then county judge, helping impose order on La Salle County during its rough, lawless frontier era. He and his wife raised sixteen children.

Sherman, TX

Virginia-born John Henry LeTellier joined the Confederate army in 1861, fighting at Manassas, Williamsburg, Gettysburg, and other battles and taking several wounds. After the war he came to Texas and ran the Sherman Private School from 1871 until his death in 1913. A gifted mathematician and demanding teacher, he trained many students who went on to prominence.

Pottsville, TX

Born in Tennessee in 1816, John Stephen Potts married a cousin of Confederate president Jefferson Davis and served as a justice of the peace and sheriff in Missouri before soldiering for the Confederacy. After the Civil War he came to Texas, paying $500 in gold for Hamilton County sheep range in 1872 and gradually adding land. A devout Baptist and Mason who donated a cemetery site, he was honored when the town of Pottsville was named for him in 1878.

Salado, TX

Tennessee-born Milton Wesley Damron came to Texas in the 1840s as part of the Mercer Colony, married Sarah Pennington, and settled in what became Bell County when the colony's original plans fell through. He served as the county's first tax assessor, then joined the Confederate Army, leading a cavalry unit in Indian Territory and Arkansas. Returning to Salado, he worked as postmaster and won election as a legislator, though as a former Confederate he was barred from taking his seat.

Bryan County, GA

Fort McAllister, an earthwork fort guarding the Ogeechee River south of Savannah, was the last obstacle in Sherman's March to the Sea. When Union troops stormed it on December 13, 1864, the defenders fought hand-to-hand rather than yield. Captain Nicholas Clinch's refusal to surrender — answering the demand with his sword and absorbing a dozen wounds before being overpowered — became one of the defense's most-remembered moments.

Columbus, TX

Virginia-born William G. Hunt came to Columbus around 1831 and threw himself into the making of Texas, fighting at the 1835 Battle of Gonzales — the "come and take it" opening of the Texas Revolution — and in the capture of San Antonio that followed. A farmer and trader who later served in the 13th Texas Infantry during the Civil War, he bought this house in 1859 and lived here until 1898. Built around 1858, it is regarded as the oldest house in Columbus, still holding its original pine floors and ceilings.

Blossom, TX

This 1½-story Southern-style homestead was built in 1871 by Captain William E. Moore and his wife, Sarah Elizabeth Neal. During the Civil War Moore commanded the 'Shreveport Grays,' and in 1872—after a campaign in which he famously shared a buggy with his opponent—he won a state senate seat. He served under Governor Richard Coke, whose administration marked the end of Reconstruction in Texas.

Beeville, TX

Born in Nacogdoches County to early Texas settlers, A. C. Jones became a cattleman and county sheriff before serving four years in Colonel John S. "Rip" Ford's Confederate cavalry, fighting at Palmito Hill—the last land battle of the Civil War, waged weeks after Lee's surrender. In peacetime he helped raise the capital to bring railroads to Beeville and led the town's banking and oil-mill enterprises.

Baird, TX

Andrew Jackson Berry was born in Indiana in 1816 and lived long enough to bridge two defining conflicts of 19th-century Texas. As a young man he fought at San Jacinto, the 1836 battle that won Texas its independence, and decades later he served as an officer in the Confederate Army. He died at Baird in 1899, one of the dwindling number of men who could claim both distinctions.

Shiner, TX

Born in Hanover, Germany, in 1835, Charles Welhausen immigrated through the Port of Galveston in 1843 and grew up in the German communities of Cat Spring and High Hill. He enlisted in the Confederate army, was cited for gallantry at the 1864 Battle of Calcasieu Pass, and rose to captain, later serving Fayette County as commissioner, justice of the peace, and legislator. After moving to Shiner in 1890 he founded a bank and, in 1911, donated this site to the city for a park.

Mobeetie, TX

George Washington Arrington (1844–1923) was one of the daring scouts in Colonel John S. Mosby's Confederate guerrilla command during the Civil War before drifting through Mexico and Central America and settling in Texas in 1867. He earned an outstanding record as a Texas Ranger from 1875 to 1882, then served as sheriff of Wheeler and fourteen attached counties, bringing law to the raw early settlements of the Panhandle. His life traces the arc from wartime irregular to the archetypal frontier peace officer.

Dublin, GA

In the decades after the Civil War, veterans across the South became pillars of their communities, and Captain Hardy B. Smith of Laurens County was one of them. Wounded at Mechanicsville and losing his right arm, he served two more years before returning to Dublin to farm, hold public office, and help launch the Macon and Dublin Railroad. He completed this Carpenter Gothic home in 1873 — now the oldest house in Dublin still on its original site — and raised ten children here.

Roby, TX

Born in Tennessee in 1815, Henry C. Lyon soldiered across the great dividing lines of nineteenth-century Texas: first in the army of the Republic of Texas, then as a company commander for the Confederacy in the Civil War. The state erected his memorial in 1936, though a later stone set the record straight that his body actually lies at Woods Chapel, not the Roby cemetery. His life spans the arc from frontier republic to Confederate war.

Marlin, TX

Henry Gray Carter left Vermont for Texas as a teenager, and when war came in 1861 he enlisted in Tom Green's Texas Cavalry Brigade, winning a captain's commission for gallantry. He fought Nathaniel Banks' Union forces at Fort Butler, Mansfield, Bisland, and Pleasant Hill — the Red River Campaign battles — and was wounded at the last. Settling in Marlin in 1871, he became a leading banker and rancher, and the house he built that year, with its ax-hewn log foundation and square nails, still stands.

Presidio, TX

A Kentucky-born frontiersman, Henry Skillman scouted in the Mexican War and in 1851 opened the first mail service between San Antonio and El Paso, later driving stages across dangerous West Texas country. When the Civil War came he served the Confederacy as a scout and courier through the far Trans-Pecos, spreading false rumors and evading the Union forces who occupied the region. Hunted by troops ordered to take him alive, he was killed resisting capture near here in 1864.

Quinlan, TX

Henry W. Wade (1832–1912) came to Hunt County as a young Kentuckian, married into the Kuykendall family in 1859, and settled the 640-acre tract that includes this burial ground. He served as a captain in the 6th Texas Cavalry of Ross' Brigade during the Civil War and afterward helped write Texas's 1875 constitution before making his living in the livestock trade.