Texas Germans in the Civil War

Unionism ran deep in 1850s Texas. Most Texans then supported the Union because it protected the frontier, steadied economic growth and upheld existing social and legal order, and many held it by habit and almost religious zeal, rooted in shared memories of the Revolution and the War of 1812. Walter L. Buenger counts Whigs from the border states and German refugees of the 1848 revolutions among the most persistent Unionists. Slavery was their hardest problem: northern defiance of the fugitive slave law and abolitionist talk threatened the economic and legal props of their loyalty.

What the plaque says

Texas Germans in the Civil War In 1861, ten heavily German counties in Texas voted against secession, though Comal County was as exception. States' rights puzzled some voters. Many had lately taken naturalization oaths. After secession, some avoided military duty from concern about their families. Others left to join U.S.units. Majority sentiment supported the Confederacy. Three companies from Comal, with other German troops, were praised for their discipline, high morale and skill, and the pride with which they defended Texas. (1964)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sophienburg Museum and Archives — 0.5 mi
  The hilltop where Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels raised the Adelsverein's headquarters in 1845, now the museum and archive of the German colony that became New Braunfels.
• Gruene Historic District — 2.8 mi
  A cotton town on the Guadalupe that the boll weevil emptied, rescued in the 1970s by a kayaking architecture student, with a dance hall that says it has never closed.
• Natural Bridge Caverns — 14 mi
  The largest known cavern in Texas, found in 1960 by four college cavers under a ranch family's land, entered beneath a 60-foot limestone bridge and still growing.
• Spring Lake and the Meadows Center — 17 mi
  The headsprings of the San Marcos River, among the longest-inhabited places in North America, once an amusement park with a swimming pig and now seen from glass-bottom boats.

More markers nearby

• Home of Ferdinand Lindheimer — steps away
• Johann Michael Jahn — steps away
• Sophienburg Hill — 0.5 mi
• Hermann Seele — 0.5 mi