Peter Kohler demonstrates Civil War weaponry to Camp Ford attendees on Saturday. (Victor Texcucano) Part of the darkest chapter in American history was remembered and reenacted in Tyler on Saturday at Camp Ford. During the Civil War, in which nearly 700,000 American lives were lost, Camp Ford served first as a training camp established in [...]
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SMU’s exhibit of rare Civil War photos packs an emotional punch
March 4th, 2013 
javal The photographs are small, some might say tiny. But if you’re willing to lean over the display cases, getting as close as you can to ponder and pick out details, there’s a huge emotional payoff to be found in the Southern Methodist University exhibit “The Civil War in Photographs: New Perspectives From the Robin Stanford [...]
Union invasion forces capture Fort Esperanza
September 27th, 2012 javal Along the Texas coast, the first year of the Civil War saw skirmishes between blockading ships of the U.S. fleet and Confederate bastions guarding Aransas Pass and Pass Cavallo. One of the first actions in the war was the capture of the Star of the West troopship off Pass Cavallo and the surrender of U.S. [...]
Divers to get 3D images of sunken Civil War ship
September 12th, 2012 javal The USS Hatteras , an iron-hulled steamship that was converted into a gunboat by the U.S. Navy during the Civil War, was lost to the sea on Jan. 11, 1863, during one of the many battles for the strategic Confederate port of Galveston, Texas . The Hatteras was sunk by the famous commerce raider CSS [...]
Texas Trails: Sam Bell Maxey
June 12th, 2012 javal While the rest of the country didn’t think or care much about Indian Territory — present-day Oklahoma — during the Civil War, the people of North Texas happened to think about it quite a lot because Indian Territory was all that lay between them and a Union invasion. Indian Territory was part of the vast [...]
Texas Trails: Prince John Magruder
June 12th, 2012 javal John Bankhead Magruder wasn’t a real prince, but he was often called “Prince John” in the social hub of Newport Rhode Island, where he acquired the informal title. A native Virginian, Magruder graduated 15th in his class at West Point in 1826, at age 20. Like a lot of officers who would later serve on [...]
Fight for Historical Marker Sparks Race Concerns
May 10th, 2012 javal Reigniting a racially charged debate many thought had flamed out, the Texas Sons of Confederate Veterans association is working to install another historical marker on the Texas Capitol campus recognizing the Confederacy. “It’s nothing, frankly, that anybody needs to get their knickers in a twist about,” said Kirk Lyons, the group’s colorful lawyer. Read More>>
Civil War widow arrives in TX by covered wagon
April 26th, 2012 javal My great-grandfather, Stephen James Dunn, was killed during a battle with the Union troops in South Texas. He left behind a young wife and an 8-year-old son. The year was 1865. The Civil War was coming to an end when the young widow and her son and younger sister set out for Texas from Searcy, [...]