Site of Original Post Cemetery

When this cemetery opened, Fort Clark was still mostly a post of logs. Col. J. K. F. Mansfield inspected it in June 1856 and found one company of the First Artillery and two of Mounted Rifles under John Bankhead Magruder. The adjutant's office, guardhouse, bakery and magazine were built of stone; everything else was log. Mansfield urged that stone quarters for the officers be started at once. A few limestone buildings went up in 1856-57, and the ruins of the old post headquarters still carry the date 1857 over the doorway.

What the plaque says

Site of Original Post Cemetery This ground was Fort Clark's Military Cemetery from 1856 to the 1880s. One of the first burials was 2nd Lt. Brayton C. Ives, 1st inf., a West Point graduate who died here on June 27, 1857. Succeeding burials included dozens of military personnel, dependents, and civilians. Pvt. Peter Corrigan, 4th U. S. Cav., the only casualty of Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie's raid to Remolino, Mexico, was laid to rest here in may 1873. In 1880, a second cemetery opened south of the main post and this site became inactive. All burials here were reinterred at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in 1946. A historic limestone wall encloses the space. Some original headstones have been preserved. (2011)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Clark and the Old Guardhouse Museum — 0.3 mi
  The 1852 post at Las Moras Springs, home from 1872 to 1914 of the Black Seminole scouts, now a gated resort with its old guardhouse open as a museum on weekends.
• Kickapoo Cavern State Park — 21 mi
  A lightly developed former ranch on the Kinney-Edwards line with twenty caves, a Saturday tour into a 1,400-foot cavern and a summer bat flight from Stuart Bat Cave.

More markers nearby

• John Horse — steps away
• Fort Clark — 0.4 mi
• 2nd Cavalry Division at Fort Clark — 0.5 mi
• Military Roads in Texas — 0.5 mi