Newton County, C.S.A.

Supply and military center in the Civil War. Target area for Federals trying to move up the Sabine or across Louisiana and take Texas. Confederates built breastworks and maintained arsenal at Burkeville. Major supply route, "The Old Beef Trail", begun 1823 through area later Newton County. Was a road taken by thousands of cattle being sent from Texas to feed armies and civilians as far eastward as Mobile, Ala. Sabine ferries were equipped with cattle pens: also ferrymen kept oxen trained to lead herds swimming across the river. Some local beef went eastward, too. Farrsville, a town founded about 1850 on Cow Creek, had a military campground and corrals furnishing fresh stagecoach teams. Its tanning vats and shops made boots and shoes for the Confederacy. Its water mills ground corn for bread, sawed lumber, ginned cotton-- products used in supplying the South. The commissioners court made appropriations to outfit military units (buying horses for men unable to furnish their own), aid dependent families, and supply the people with cotton cards to turn the lint into batts for spinning, weaving and knitting. The county, which had voted 178 to 3 for secession, sent about 400 soldiers into the Confederate army. (1965)

Newton County, C.S.A. is a historical marker in Newton, Newton County, dedicated in 1965. It is one of 43 historical markers documented in Newton County in the Texas Historical Commission Atlas, among 126 historic sites cataloged across the county.

The site sits at 30.8161, -93.7201 near Newton. The nearest cataloged historic site is Newton County (historical marker), about under a tenth of a mile away. Others within a short drive include Wilson Chapel Cemetery, Gooch Family, and Miller.

This record corresponds to Texas Historical Commission Atlas #5351011145. Use the map below for its exact position and turn-by-turn directions.