Richard Waterhouse

Waterhouse was a San Augustine merchant from 1849 until the Civil War. In May 1862 he helped raise the 19th Texas Infantry around Jefferson and was elected its colonel. At Milliken's Bend, General Henry McCulloch's report praised a "gallant and desperate charge over the levee." He later fought under William Read Scurry, was promoted to brigadier general in 1864 and commanded the brigade McCulloch and Scurry had led. After the war he speculated in land at San Augustine and Jefferson. He fell down a flight of stairs in a Waco hotel and died of pneumonia on March 20, 1876.

What the plaque says

Richard Waterhouse (Star and Wreath) (January 12, 1833 - March 20, 1876) Native of Tennessee, participant in United States war with Mexico, Texas businessman, colonel of the 19th Texas Confederate Infantry, commended for gallantry at Milliken's Bend during Vicksburg Campaign, fought at Mansfield and Pleasant Hill during Red River Campaign, brigadier-general in Confederate army. (1963)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Excelsior House Hotel — 0.7 mi
  A brick-and-timber hotel at 211 West Austin that began as a river captain's boarding house in 1858 and was revived by a garden club in 1959, and still takes guests with rosewood furniture.
• Jefferson Historical Museum — 0.8 mi
  A four-floor museum in Jefferson's 1888-90 federal post office and courthouse, with rooms for African-American history, Jewish heritage, the Caddo and Diamond Bessie, bought by the historical society in 1965 for $8,100.
• Caddo Lake State Park — 12 mi
  A Civilian Conservation Corps park on the Texas shore of Caddo Lake, where the Caddo told of a lake made by wind-driven water and visitors now paddle Big Cypress Bayou past moss-hung bald cypress.
• Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge — 13 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

• John M. Vines — steps away
• First Baptist Church of Jefferson — 0.4 mi
• Site of Home of Captain George T. Todd — 0.5 mi
• First National Bank of Jefferson — 0.6 mi