Jasper County, C. S. A.

Behind the secession vote stood the county's labor system. The Handbook of Texas counts 2,426 White residents and 1,611 enslaved people in Jasper County in 1860, 39 percent of the total, with no free Black residents. It reports 170 slaveholders; only three held more than fifty people, and most held fewer than five. It gives the early-1861 secession vote as 318 to 25, not the plaque's 315. It also says Union troops arrived in 1866, a year after the plaque places Custer's force in Jasper.

What the plaque says

Jasper County, C. S. A. Communication, transportation, supply and military center in Civil War Texas. Voted 315 to 25 in favor of secession. Crossed by Texas troops in the 1862-64 Louisiana campaigns to prevent split of the South and invasion of Texas. Confederate Army ran Houston-to-Alexandria, La., military horseback courier route through here. In last years of the war, Abel Adams, a local 14-year-old, rode this in a high lope, for Gen. John B. Magruder, commander of the Department of Texas. Beef was driven to troops in the Old South by way of 1823 trail across the county. Had a Confederate Quartermaster Depot and 9-county headquarters, 2nd Brigade, Texas State Troops, under Gen. W. M. Neyland, local citizen. County men in service on various war fronts of the South included Co. G, 13th Texas Cavalry; Co. C, 25th Texas Cavalry, Dismounted; Co. E, 27th Texas Cavalry, in Whitfield's Legion. In 1865, as survivors were returning home, Union occupation troops bivouacked in the Jasper Town Square. Commander was Gen. George Custer, later to go down in history for his "last stand" at the Little Big Horn, 1876. Driving her beautiful horse and carriage, his young bride called on the Jasper ladies. (1964)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Martin Dies, Jr. State Park — 13 mi
  A 705-acre state park on Steinhagen Reservoir at the meeting of the Neches and Angelina rivers, with about 14 miles of paddling trails through sloughs and more than 200 campsites.

More markers nearby

• Jasper "News-Boy" — steps away
• Jasper County Courthouse — steps away
• Jasper Public Schools — 0.5 mi
• Site of J.H. Rowe School — 0.7 mi