A Memorial to Civil War Education in Texas

The plaque shows classrooms emptied by the war. Behind it was a money story. Texas's School Law of 1854 set aside $2 million in federal bonds as a school fund, and in 1861 the Confederate state spent those bonds on weapons bought in London and Paris. The Handbook calls it the largest raid on the fund, which survived only because the war ended first. In 1866 the new constitution taxed Black Texans' property to pay for their schools, and Freedmen's Bureau teachers began arriving.

What the plaque says

A Memorial to Civil War Education in Texas Baylor University (including the "Female Department" later to become Mary Hardin-Baylor) had operated at Independence for 15 years before 1861. In the Civil War it suffered the setbacks of Texas education in general. This was despite leadership of its 1861-63 president George W. Baines (ancestor of U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson) and loyalty of such patrons as Mrs. Sam Houston and her mother, who donated dried fruit for the tables in the dining hall. State bounties for education that previously had aided Texas colleges stopped in 1861. Many of the 2,416 students of 1860 became soldiers; many of the 25 Texas colleges had to close. Schools for younger children also suffered. The 1861 legislature passed free school laws, but could give no funds to schools. Children who waved from classroom doors to marching soldiers were going to subscription schools, paid for by their own parents. Old men, women and the disabled were the teachers. A mother or older sister often would "hear lessons" in the home. Books were scarce. Paper was unobtainable for replacing those that wore out. Writing was done on slates or in sand spread smooth on a table. (1964)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 7.3 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.
• Mother Neff State Park — 18 mi
  A Leon River park that grew from six acres Isabella Neff left the state in her 1921 will, where Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817 built a stone tower, a pavilion and roads in the 1930s.

More markers nearby

• Jeff Hamilton — steps away
• Scott and White School of Nursing — steps away
• The Curtis Mansion — 0.2 mi
• African American Education in Belton — 0.4 mi