Camp Rabb and Fort Duncan, C.S.A.

Camp Rabb was one post of the Frontier Regiment, which the Texas legislature authorized on December 21, 1861, after the Confederate troops left the frontier forts. Col. James M. Norris chose eighteen sites on a winding line almost 500 miles long, and nine companies of about 115 to 125 rangers manned them, with patrols riding between camps so the whole line was covered each day. Norris reported in April 1862 that his men were poorly armed and mounted, sick and short of medicine, food and powder. Jefferson Davis refused to take the regiment into Confederate service.

What the plaque says

Camp Rabb and Fort Duncan, C.S.A. Camp Rabb, 15 miles northeast, was one of 18 Confederate outposts placed a day's horseback ride apart, from Red River to Rio Grande, to prevent Indian attacks and Federal invasion. Named for captain in Frontier Regiment, Texas Cavalry; guarded ford on the Cotton Road, used as major Southern supply line. Fort Duncan, at this site, a former U.S. outpost, protected Civil War trade of cotton for vital supplies and arms. Fort served the counter threat from Federals in upriver El Paso and the Davis Mountains. (1964)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Duncan Museum — 0.2 mi
  The 1849 river post at Eagle Pass, where the first Black Seminole scouts enlisted in 1870, kept by the city as a park with its old headquarters as a museum.

More markers nearby

• Fort Duncan — steps away
• Eagle Pass, C.S.A. — steps away
• Maverick County — 0.2 mi
• Fort Duncan — 0.2 mi