DUANE
Duane's take
Now, I'm telling you what the official marker says, so let's get into it together. Way back before San Antonio was the city you know today, the King of Spain made a grant of land — forty acres of it — and gave it to the city. Forty acres, just handed over.
The city of San Antonio eventually took that land and subdivided it into twenty-nine separate cemeteries. Twenty-nine. The City Aldermen drew those lines, and this particular piece became City Cemetery Number Four.
Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, does it. But the name it carries today has a good deal more weight to it than a number. In 1885, the Albert Sidney Johnston Camp No. 1 of the United Confederate Veterans purchased this section.
And from that point on, folks started calling it what it is — the Confederate Cemetery. Now here's the thing that'll make you pause for a second: when that Camp bought the land, the ground was already keeping a secret. A man named Charles Hutcheson had been buried there back in 1855 — thirty years before the purchase.
The earliest documented burial in the plot, already in place, already waiting. History has a way of layering itself like that. The men who came to rest here after the Camp's purchase are not small names.
John Salmon Ford — known to most as Rip Ford — is buried here. Pioneer Texas political leader, newspaper editor, Texas Ranger of some renown. George Wythe Baylor, a political and military leader, also lies within these grounds.
And then there's Hamilton P. Bee — Confederate General and Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. These are men whose names turned up in the newspapers and the record books of their time.
But the story doesn't stop with the Civil War generation. Over nine hundred marked burials fill this cemetery. Civil War veterans, yes, but also their dependents, later generations of descendants, and veterans of both World War I and World War II.
That's a long stretch of Texas history pressed into one piece of ground that started as a royal Spanish land grant and ended up holding more than nine hundred stories. Forty acres from a king. Twenty-nine cemeteries carved out by aldermen.
One plot that became the Confederate Cemetery. Over nine hundred souls. Some places carry more than their share of time — and this is one of them.
What the marker says
This cemetery is located within part of a 40-acre grant of land given to the city of San Antonio by the King of Spain. The property was later subdivided into twenty-nine separate cemeteries by City Aldermen, and this area was designated as City Cemetery Number Four. This section became known as the Confederate Cemetery after its purchase in 1885 by the Albert Sidney Johnston Camp No. 1, United Confederate Veterans. The earliest documented burial in this plot, that of Charles Hutcheson, dates to 1855 and was already in place at the time of the Camp's purchase. Prominent Confederate veterans interred here include John Salmon "Rip" Ford, the pioneer Texas political leader and newspaper editor famous for his service as a Texas Ranger; George Wythe Baylor, a political and military leader; and Hamilton P. Bee, Confederate General and Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives. There are over 900 marked burials in the Confederate Cemetery, including those of Civil War veterans, their dependents, and later generations of descendants. Also interred here are veterans of World War I and World War II.