Former Texas Slaves Serve in Civil War
Three Holland brothers—Milton, William, and James—were slaves born in the 1840s on Spearman Holland’s plantation near Carthage. Apparently their father was Spearman’s half brother, Capt. Bird Holland. Capt. Holland purchased his sons from Spearman and moved them to Travis County. Little is known of their early life except that Bird Holland served as a captain […]
Texas Unionists in the Civil War
With the election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860, the United States headed relentlessly toward civil war. Not all southerners supported secession. Almost 2,000 Texans were sufficiently opposed to separating from the Union that they joined the federal army. Other Unionists, those who did not want to break up the United States, handled their positions […]
Gail Borden, Pioneer Inventor
A brilliant eccentric—Gail Borden reportedly rode about Galveston on a pet bull; he invented a “locomotive bath house,” a portable affair that allowed women to bathe privately in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico before he was “discouraged” by the city authorities; and he worked for the Galveston City Company laying out the streets […]
War Clouds Gather Over Indianola
Indianola was a southern town with a seaport’s connection to the broader cosmopolitan world of commerce, business cooperation, and a diverse blend of residents newly arrived from all over Europe. The soil—gritty shell beaches cut by a crisscross of shallow bayous and lakes—did not lend itself to cotton growing. The vast slave plantations thrived much […]
Backstory of Historical Fiction
In the early 1970s, while living on the Texas coast, I interviewed a ninety-four-year-old woman about her German ancestors who had come into Texas through the thriving seaport of Indianola. Her family did not travel inland as so many other Germans had done. Instead, they stayed and helped build the farming and cattle region along […]
LAST BATTLE OF THE CIVIL WAR FOUGHT IN TEXAS?
Official Civil War records claim the battle at Columbus, Georgia, on April 16, 1865, was the last fight of the war and that the Battle of Palmito Ranch along the lower Rio Grande was a “post-Civil War encounter” because it occurred more than a month after General Robert E. Lee’s surrendered on April 9th. The […]
Lance Rosier, “Mr. Big Thicket”
A Texas historical marker on FM 770, a few miles east of Saratoga in deep East Texas credits Lancelot “Lance” Rosier with being one of the individuals responsible for the creation of the Big Thicket National Preserve, a sprawling wonderland of biodiversity so unique that UNESCO designated the region as a Biosphere Reserve in 1981. […]
Saga of Sophia Suttonfield Aughinbaugh Coffee Butt Porter
Two official Texas historical markers sit on the shore of Lake Texoma, the enormous reservoir separating North Texas and Oklahoma. One marker commemorates Holland Coffee’s Trading Post, now under the waters of Lake Texoma. The neighboring marker calls Sophia Coffee Porter a Confederate Lady Paul Revere. The colorful lives of Sophia and Holland Coffee came […]
Mystery of the Twin Sisters
In November 1835, three months before Texas declared its independence from Mexico, war clouds had grown into a full rebellion and the citizens of Cincinnati, Ohio, eager to lend support, began raising money to purchase two cannons for the looming battle. Since the United States remained neutral throughout the war, the two iron six-pound cannons […]
Transcontinental Railroad Through Texas
The outbreak of the Civil War forced the U.S. Congress to change its plans for the first Transcontinental Railroad to be built along the 32nd parallel, which extends across Texas roughly from Shreveport, Louisiana, to El Paso. Instead, Congress selected a northern route along the 42nd parallel. In 1869 the Central Pacific Railroad from Sacramento, […]