Dr. Jack Shackelford

Shackelford's Alabama years held a reversal. As surety for a cousin whose business failed, he had to sell his plantation. About 1829 he took charge of the United States Land Office at Courtland, selling 400,000 acres of federal land to pay for a canal around Muscle Shoals, and he served as treasurer of the Tuscumbia, Courtland and Decatur Railroad, the first line west of the Alleghenies. His Red Rovers took their name from uniforms of red jeans, landed at Dimmit's Landing on Matagorda Bay in late January 1836, and joined Fannin's Lafayette Battalion at Goliad.

What the plaque says

Physician and military commander, Jack Shackelford, was born in Richmond, Virginia. He earned an M.D. degree and in 1811, moved to Winnsboro, South Carolina, where he opened his first practice and met Maria Youngue, whom he married. Shackelford enlisted in the army during the War of 1812, where he served on Andrew Jackson's staff and was wounded at Charleston. After the war, he moved his family to Alabama, where he continued to practice medicine, owned a cotton plantation and served in the state senate. In 1835, Shackelford raised a company of nearly 70 volunteers (approximately half of the male population of courtland, al), his eldest son, Fortunatus, and two nephews, to join in the Texas War for Independence. The group, which became known as the Red Rovers, came under the command of Col. James Fannin. During the Battle of Coleto, Dr. Shackelford's orders saved numerous lives. Unfortunately, most of the survivors were executed on march 27, 1836; Dr. Shackelford was spared because of his medical training. He cared for Mexican soldiers in Goliad and then in San Antonio. After the battle of San Jacinto, he and Dr. Joseph Barnard escaped; they returned to Goliad to secure burial for the massacre victims, and then to Velasco, where shackelford obtained an honorable discharge. Dr. Shackelford returned to Alabama after the war. Following Maria's death in 1842, he married Martha Chardavoyne. Although he never became a resident, Dr. Shackelford maintained close ties to friends and former military comrades living in Texas. His notes about Col. Fannin and the events of Coleto and Goliad remain important accounts. In 1858, Shackelford County was established and named in honor of the contributions and sacrifices he made for the Texas cause. (2010)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Jail Art Center — steps away
  An art museum in Albany's 1878 stone jail, where the masons carved their initials to be sure of pay, now holding Chinese tomb figures and works by Picasso and Klee.
• Fort Griffin State Historic Site — 14 mi
  The ruins of an 1867 cavalry post on a plateau above the Clear Fork of the Brazos, judged unfit for habitation and used nine more years, now home to the official state longhorn herd.
• Fort Phantom Hill — 23 mi
  A field of lone stone chimneys north of Abilene, left by the fire after the Army left in 1854, later a stage stop and a buffalo-hide town of more than 500 people.
• Conrad Hilton Center and Mobley Hotel — 29 mi
  The 40-room oil-boom hotel in Cisco that Conrad Hilton bought in 1919 when a bank deal fell through, now a museum of the Hilton start and of Cisco's 1927 Santa Claus bank robbery.

More markers nearby

• Lt. Col. William E. Dyess — steps away
• Texas Cattle Trail — steps away
• Shackelford County — steps away
• Robert Edward Nail, Jr. — steps away