General Braxton Bragg, C. S. A.

Bragg spent only about two years in Texas. After a series of short postwar posts, including superintendent of the New Orleans waterworks and Mobile's river and harbor work, he became chief engineer of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway in July 1874, according to Wikipedia's account drawn from Hallock's biography. Within a year he resigned over a pay dispute with the board but stayed on as a railroad inspector. On September 27, 1876, he collapsed on a Galveston street and died within minutes; an inquest ruled fatal syncope. He was buried in Magnolia Cemetery in Mobile, Alabama.

What the plaque says

General Braxton Bragg, C. S. A. (1817-1876) American military leader honored in this county in name of an early town (12 mi. W). Born in North Carolina, Bragg was in Texas in 1840s with army of General Zachary Taylor, to fight in Mexican War. Made a brigadier general of the Confederacy, 1861, he won renown by capturing many guns and prisoners at Shiloh (1862), and for Southern victory in Battle of Chickamauga (1863). He was respected as a strong disciplinarian, a devoted patriot, and a man with a stern sense of duty. Serving as military advisor (1863-1865) to President Jefferson Davis, he traveled with President Davis after Confederate surrender on a suggested escape route, but was captured by Federals and paroled in Georgia in May 1865. After an 1866-1870 term as Alabama commissioner of public works, he moved to Galveston. There he was chief engineer in charge of construction of Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway, chartered May 28, 1873. When the G. C. & S. F. built into this area, a junction point on the line was named for General Bragg. The 1901-1934 town of Bragg (now a ghost site) had many facilities serving the Saratoga Oil Field. This was one of many towns (and counties) in Texas named for statesmen, military leaders and soldiers. (1969)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Big Thicket National Preserve — 7.5 mi
  Start at the Kountze visitor center, where rangers sort the preserve's scattered units for you, and learn why Congress made this 1974 string of pearls the country's first national preserve.
• Village Creek State Park — 13 mi
  A 2,466-acre state park on one of the few free-flowing creeks in Texas, with a launch for the Village Creek Paddling Trail, boat rentals and sandy-upland trails in the Big Thicket.
• McFaddin-Ward House — 23 mi
  A Beaux-Arts Colonial Revival mansion finished in 1906 and lived in by one family for 75 years, with free guided tours of three furnished floors, the carriage house and gardens.
• Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum — 27 mi
  A re-created oil boomtown on the Lamar University campus, with a derrick, period shops, a 1941 granite monument and an optional re-enactment of the January 1901 Lucas gusher.

More markers nearby

• Courthouses of Hardin County — steps away
• Hardin County — steps away
• Old Hardin — 2.4 mi
• Richard E. Jackson — 7.4 mi