Camp Clark, C.S.A.

The governor whose order created this camp had come to office by default. Edward Clark, born in New Orleans in 1815, practiced law at Marshall, served as secretary of state under Elisha M. Pease and was elected lieutenant governor on Sam Houston's ticket in 1859. When Houston refused the Confederate oath in the spring of 1861, the Secession Convention elevated Clark. He raised taxes and reorganized the militia, then lost that fall's election to Francis R. Lubbock by 124 votes. As a colonel he was wounded at Pleasant Hill in 1864.

What the plaque says

Camp Clark, C.S.A. Named for Edward Clark, first Confederate governor of Texas, whose executive order June 8, 1861, created voluntary camps of instruction such as this. Food, camp facilities and guns were voluntary gifts by local people. Farmers, merchants, artisans, laborers gave goods and services. Men with military training and experience gave their time as drillmasters. This and 50 or 60 other camps of instruction mainly taught walking to Texans brought up with the habit of moving about on horseback. (6 out of 10 Texans joined the Cavalry. Governor Clark felt compelled to say in his executive order that infantry service was actually a matter of honor.) Operated despite scorn of 18 to 35 year old recruits who had fought Indians most of their lives and were impatient for battle -- not for training. Though neither Texas nor the Confederacy in 1861 had funds for camps of instruction, by 1862 privates were paid $11 a month, officers $50. This Guadalupe County camp of instruction was convenient to roads and to water. Area units that trained here included Co. D, 4th Texas Infantry, of Hood's famous Texas Brigade, and 4th Texas Cavalry (Partisan) under Captain William P. Hardeman. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Spring Lake and the Meadows Center — 9.4 mi
  The headsprings of the San Marcos River, among the longest-inhabited places in North America, once an amusement park with a swimming pig and now seen from glass-bottom boats.
• Lockhart Courthouse Square — 12 mi
  A cotton-era courthouse town named the Barbecue Capital of Texas, built near the 1840 Plum Creek fight that followed the killing of Comanche leaders at peace talks.
• Gruene Historic District — 16 mi
  A cotton town on the Guadalupe that the boll weevil emptied, rescued in the 1970s by a kayaking architecture student, with a dance hall that says it has never closed.
• Sophienburg Museum and Archives — 18 mi
  The hilltop where Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels raised the Adelsverein's headquarters in 1845, now the museum and archive of the German colony that became New Braunfels.

More markers nearby

• Fentress United Methodist Church — 4.1 mi
• Martindale School and Gymnasium — 4.1 mi
• Burial site of Rev. John McCullough — 5.9 mi
• Don Felipe Roque de la Portilla — 6.2 mi