Marshall, C.S.A.

One of the Marshall names on the plaque has a longer story. The Handbook of Texas says James Harper Starr, born in New Hartford, Connecticut, in 1809, moved to Nacogdoches in 1837 and became secretary of the Republic of Texas treasury in 1839. In 1863 he was appointed Confederate agent for the postal service west of the Mississippi. In 1868 he formed James H. Starr and Son, a land and banking agency in Marshall, and moved his family here in 1870. He died in Marshall on July 25, 1890.

What the plaque says

Marshall, C.S.A. As a center of activity for the Confederacy west of the Mississippi, this East Texas town played a major role in the Civil War. Headquarters of the Trans-Mississippi Department Medical Bureau and Postal Service were here plus two military hospitals and a commissary bureau. An ordnance bureau, depot, arsenal, and laboratory produced and distributed powder, pistols, saddles, harness and clothing. Following the occupation of Missouri by Union forces, the governor and other officials of that state made this the wartime Confederate capitol of Missouri from November, 1863 to June, 1865. Three wartime conferences of governors and Confederate military officials of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Missouri met here. One in 1862, resulted in the establishment of a separate department for these states. In 1863 military and civil authority was consolidated under Gen. E. Kirby Smith, commander of the department. On May 15, 1865, one month after Appomattox, discussion of continued resistance or surrender resulted in a stalemate. Prominent Confederates from Marshall were Edward Clark and Pendleton Murrah, wartime governors of Texas; Louis T. Wigfall, a "state's rights" leader in the U. S. Senate prior to secession and member of Confederate Senate; Dr. James Harper Starr, Trans-Mississippi postal agent; and Brigadier-Generals Matthew D. Ector, Elkanah Greer, Walter P. Lane and Horace Randal. This was the home of Lucy Holcomb Pickens, "Sweetheart of the Confederacy," the only woman whose portrait graced Confederate currency. Rather than surrender at War's end, a number of high-ranking Confederate military and civil officials began an exodus from Marshall to Mexico. A Memorial To Texans Who Served The Confederacy (1963)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas and Pacific Railway Depot and Museum — steps away
  The only surviving building of the Texas and Pacific shops at Marshall, a 1912 Mission Revival depot saved from demolition in the 1990s, still an Amtrak stop, with a railway museum and a Mikado locomotive.
• Harrison County Historical Museum — 0.4 mi
  Galleries in Marshall's 1901 courthouse that run from the Caddo to the present, with Wiley College, Lady Bird Johnson's inaugural gown and a military gallery across the square in Memorial City Hall.
• Starr Family Home State Historic Site — 0.7 mi
  Maplecroft, the 1871 Greek Revival house Frank Starr built in Marshall, with Ruth Starr Blake's glass and china, an 1880s kitchen restored in 2019 and a retirement home built for a formerly enslaved person.
• Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge — 14 mi
  Wetlands and woods on part of a former ammunition plant, now a refuge for wood ducks, prothonotary warblers and alligator snapping turtles, with four easy trails and a free visitor center on a Ramsar lake.

More markers nearby

• Governor Edward Clark — steps away
• Walter Paye Lane — steps away
• John T. Mills — steps away
• Marshall Cemetery — steps away