Confederate Refugees in Texas, C. S. A.

The Stones of the plaque are best known through Kate Stone, whose Civil War journal, published in 1955 as Brokenburn, places the family's Texas years at Tyler. Her mother ran a Louisiana plantation worked by enslaved people, and the plaque itself counts ninety people held in slavery who came with the family. They were far from alone. The Handbook of Texas says Hopkins County's Black population more than doubled during the war, to 2,101 in 1864, as slaveholders moved enslaved people out of reach of Union forces.

What the plaque says

Confederate Refugees in Texas, C. S. A. In the vicinity of Old Tarrant, south of here, the Civil War refugee family of Mrs. Amanda Stone, of Louisiana, was shown great kindness when rescued by Hopkins countians after a road accident. The Stones saw the Texans share the little they had, even cooking the last tough old farm hen, to feed them. The Stones were but one of many families to flee from war lines to the comparative safety of Texas. Here, though Federal invasion repeatedly threatened, only a few coastal towns were under fire from the enemy. The family of Gen. Stand Watie, from Indian Territory, visited relatives in Wood County. Gen. Kirby Smith, with headquarters in Shreveport, rented homes in Marshall or Hempstead for his wife and babies. Like most refugees, the Stones when they visited in Hopkins County were heartbroken over loss of their old home to the enemy. In Texas they endured poverty, loneliness, and sorrow at deaths of two sons in the war. They had to lease farm land, to support the family and 90 slaves dependent upon them. Their young boys at one time carried pistols for safety when schoolmates resented their strange manners. Yet eventually they and most other refugees were grateful to Texas for its many generosities. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cooper Lake State Park — 8.6 mi
  Two units on Jim Chapman Lake, a Corps reservoir proposed in the late 1930s, stalled by a lawsuit until 1984 and dedicated in 1991, with a 10.5-mile equestrian trail and wildlife land around it.

More markers nearby

• Townsite of Tarrant — 3.1 mi
• North Liberty Baptist Church — 4.2 mi
• Sulphur Springs Volunteer Fire Department and Fire Bell of 1889 — 7.0 mi
• Atkins House — 7.1 mi