Home Town of Texas Confederate Major Joseph D. Sayers

After the war, Sayers taught school in Bastrop and read law at night. Admitted to the bar in 1866, he practiced for ten years with George W. Jones, and chaired the Democratic state executive committee from 1875 to 1878. When he married Orline Walton in 1879, Governor Oran M. Roberts and his wife gave the couple a reception in the Governor's Mansion. Edward M. House backed his 1898 race for governor against Martin M. Crane. In 1901 Sayers received William McKinley, the first sitting president to visit the Texas capital.

What the plaque says

Home Town of Texas Confederate Major Joseph D. Sayers Born Mississippi, came to Texas 1851. Enlisted here as private 1861. Adjutant 5th Texas Cavalry in Arizona-New Mexico Campaign to make Confederacy an ocean to ocean nation. At age 20 made captain for gallantry in Battle of Valverde. Organized Valverde Battery from cannons captured there. Commanded battery in Red River Campaign 1863 to prevent capture of the Mississippi. Promoted to Major after Camp Brisland, La. battle in which wounded. Returned on crutches as chief-of-staff to General Tom Green, serving in 1864 Red River Campaign to prevent invasion of Texas. Wounded Battle Mansfield, La. returning to service as soon as he could ride a horse. After Green's death, placed on staff of General Richard Taylor, participating in 1865 Alabama actions. This was the last command to surrender east of Mississippi. Reached Bastrop on crutches. State Senator 1873. Lieutenant Governor 1879-80. U.S. Congressman 1884-98. Helped to secure long-overdue pay for Texas Ranger services on the frontier. Texas Governor 1899-1903. He worked to expand agriculture, industry. Tenure marked by Spindletop gusher, the start of modern petroleum industry in Texas, and by disasters of Huntsville State Prison burning, 1899 widespread Brazos River floods, great Galveston Storm 1900. Buried Fairview Cemetery A Memorial to Texans Who Served the Confederacy Erected by the State of Texas 1963

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bastrop State Park — 1.8 mi
  The westernmost loblolly pines in the United States, cut off from the East Texas forest by a hundred miles of post oak, burned almost entirely in 2011 and growing back.
• Texas Wendish Heritage Museum — 20 mi
  A museum at Serbin of the Wends, a Slavic people from Lusatia whose congregation of nearly 600 crossed on the Ben Nevis in 1854, losing seventy-three to cholera on the way.
• McKinney Falls State Park — 25 mi
  Limestone falls on Onion Creek inside Austin, where people camped under a rock overhang for thousands of years and a financier of the Texas Revolution built his stone ranch house.
• Lockhart Courthouse Square — 26 mi
  A cotton-era courthouse town named the Barbecue Capital of Texas, built near the 1840 Plum Creek fight that followed the killing of Comanche leaders at peace talks.

More markers nearby

• Captain James Burleson — steps away
• Baron de Bastrop Monument — steps away
• First National Bank of Bastrop — 0.2 mi
• Bastrop Methodist Church — 0.3 mi