Site of Law Office, General John Gregg

Gregg was a teacher before he was a Texas lawyer. The Handbook of Texas says he graduated from Professor Tutwiller's school in La Grange, Georgia, in 1847 and taught mathematics and languages there before moving to Fairfield in 1852. By 1860 he owned four enslaved people and signed the call for the secession convention. He raised the Seventh Texas Infantry at Marshall in October 1861. Gregg and his wife, Mary, are buried at Aberdeen, Mississippi. Gregg County, created in 1873, is one of eighteen Texas counties the entry says were named for soldiers and statesmen of the Confederacy.

What the plaque says

Site of Law Office, General John Gregg In 1854-61, Fairfield civic and political leader. Helped found first newspaper here. Served as district judge. A key member of Texas Secession Convention. 1861 Confederate congressman. Organized the Texas Infantry. As brigadier general, led troops near Vicksburg; at Chickamauga. Commanded Texas Brigade, Battle of the Wilderness. Was killed near Richmond, Oct. 7, 1864. Gregg County is named in his honor. His widow went in person by wagon, through battle lines, to Virginia to get his body. Later she was among ladies whose efforts began U. S. Memorial Day. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 18 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.
• Confederate Reunion Grounds State Historic Site — 24 mi
  Where Limestone County Confederate veterans gathered each summer from 1888, later a water supplier in the Mexia oil boom, now a Texas Historical Commission site on the Navasota River.
• Old Fort Parker — 25 mi
  A rebuilt 1830s family stockade near the Navasota River, where a May 1836 attack killed men of the Parker settlement and took five captives, among them nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker.

More markers nearby

• Val Verde Battery, C.S.A. — steps away
• Freestone County — steps away
• Butler Church Bell — steps away
• First Methodist Church Bell — steps away