Hamilton County, C.S.A.

The 1860 census gives the quiet figures behind the plaque's war stories. Hamilton County had about 1,800 acres in farms, and only 290 of them were improved. Farmers raised roughly 1,050 bushels of wheat and 1,900 of corn. The animals were few: 496 cattle besides 160 milk cows, 47 sheep and 36 horses. Settlers had built along the wooded streams and left the divides as open range. The Handbook adds that men formed militia units against Indian raids, so a place this new lost its workers to the army and the frontier together.

What the plaque says

Hamilton County, C.S.A. Created and organized in 1858. By 1860 had 489 people in 78 families from 15 states. Vote in 1861 was 86-1 in favor of secession. 60 farmers were organized as Hamilton County Minutemen, a unit of part-time soldiers. Others joined Confederate regiments and fought at Vicksburg, Shiloh and other memorable battles. During the Civil War, travel was on horseback and hauling by ox wagon. Homes were of logs split from timber along creeks and rivers. About half an acre a day was farmed, with homemade wooden tools. Corn and wheat were raised. On burned-over ground each family grew its own tobacco, hanging the leaves inside the living room to dry. Diet was mostly beef, cornbread and coffee substitutes. Homes were lighted by wicks stuck into tallow-filled eggshells. With few men on hand to brand and herd, feuds rose over thefts and straying cattle. In differences over war issues, 2 men fled to Mexico to join Federals. Later they returned, trying to recruit neighbors into a unit disloyal to Texas, to welcome planned Federal invasion. Further trouble came from many Confederate deserters who took refuge along the streams and lived by theft and violence. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hamilton County Courthouse — 7.7 mi
  A limestone courthouse of 1886-87 on the Hamilton square, built after the county's 1878 courthouse burned, enlarged in the early 1930s and rededicated in 2012 after restoration.
• Dublin Bottling Works — 23 mi
  The Erath County plant that bottled Dr Pepper with cane sugar from 1891 until a 2012 settlement ended its Dr Pepper license, and that still makes its own sodas the same way.
• Meridian State Park — 25 mi
  A 505-acre park in Bosque County where World War I veterans of a Civilian Conservation Corps company dammed Bee Creek in 1933-34 for a 72-acre lake and cut stone buildings around it.

More markers nearby

• Olin Baptist Church — 4.4 mi
• Hamilton County — 6.6 mi
• Frederick B. Gentry — 7.2 mi
• Ann Whitney — 7.3 mi