Back
in 1839, pioneer settler Peter Whetstone donated land for a county
seat to the new county of Harrison. In 1842 Peter's friend Isaac
Van Zandt (because Peter could neither read nor write) named the
new town Marshall, in honor of Supreme Court Chief Justice John
Marshall. Then he also laid out and named the streets. By the
mid-1850's, Marshall was among the largest and most beautiful
cities in the state and was often called "the Athens of East
Texas". Marshall
grew rapidly. There were churches, and colleges and the palatial
homes of those who not only grew the cotton and cut the trees
but also shipped them to market. Although benefactor Peter Whetstone
was shot down on the courthouse square during the Regulator-Moderator
War, his city survived and thrived.
Then came the Civil War and Marshall
turned to manufacturing the equipment needed by the embattled
Confederacy and supplying men for such units as Lane's Rangers
and the Texas Invincibles. At the center of the activity stood
the new Capitol Hotel, just off of the courthouse square. The
Capitol stood in three-storied brick elegance as one of the
finest hotels west of New Orleans. The great, near-great and
social wannabees of the Red River, Sabine and Trinity valleys
flocked there for fine food and entertainment. So, it's not
too surprising, that when the war clouds darkened, the states
of the Trans-Mississippi Confederacy met there to discuss their
mutual problems. When war became a reality, Marshall became
a focal point for resistance.
By the middle of 1862, the Union
virtually controlled the Mississippi River and severed the states
of Missouri, Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana from the rest of
the Confederacy. Some folks said that the West was abandoned.
Others recognized that there was no real alternative. In any
event, Arkansas Governor H.M. Rector called for western unity
in case the East failed. Governor Francis R. Lubbock of Texas
and Claiborne F. Jackson of Missouri met in Marshall and drew
up a contingency plan. They called for a Trans-Mississippi Confederacy,
complete with army, supplies, postal service and other trappings
of government. Governor Rector of Arkansas and Governor Thomas
O. Moore of Louisiana agreed. When Vicksburg fell in 1863 and
the separation was almost complete, they put the plan into effect.
Marshall became, at one time,
the capital of Missouri, with offices for Governor-in-exile
Thomas C. Reynolds three blocks south of the hotel. The Capitol
Hotel, in truth, became the Capitol of the Western Confederacy
and home of the Trans-Mississippi Postal Department. General
E. Kirby Smith was in command and he called all governors to
another meeting. They discussed resources of men and materials,
the restoration of confidence in cotton, currency and the Confederate
cause, the exercise of civil authority and possible alliance
with the French who had occupied Mexico. The conference recommended
that Smith "assume at once and exercise the powers and
prerogatives of the President of the Confederate States".
Governor Lubbock, in his final message to the Legislature before
being replaced by Pendleton Murrah in November, 1863, reported
that the conference "proved highly satisfactory" and,
with limited resources and almost no guidance from Richmond,
the new government went into operation.
But, not soon enough to gain
strength. Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865 and, ten days later,
General Pope of the Union Army wrote to General Smith and offered
the same terms. General John B. Magruder, the commander of the
Confederate Army in Texas recommended a gathering of troops
near Brownsville where the Confederacy had just won a great
victory but Smith called another conference of governors. There
was a rumor that Jefferson Davis had escaped from Richmond and
was on his way to take control. General Smith refused Pope's
offer to surrender. On May 15, the governors met in Marshall
for the last time and drew up their own demands for surrender.
But, again, it was too late. In June, on a Union gunboat in
Galveston Harbor, the final surrender was signed and the Western
Confederacy was no more.
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